Red Corner: The Onion Mocks North Korea’s Bomb

by Neil Woodburn on

North Korea has dropped the bomb and the satirical newspaper, The Onion, has responded appropriately.

“N. Korea Detonates 40 Years of GDP” screams the headline, and the article only gets funnier after that. I’ll give you just a small taste of the black comedy that follows:

“This is a grand day for the Democratic Peoples Republic Of Korea, whose citizens have sacrificed their wages, their food, and their lives so that our great nation could test a nuclear weapon thousands of feet beneath our own soil.”

Ouch! Great satire bites close to the truth and this gems really nails it.

Red Corner: North Korea Loophole

by Neil Woodburn on

Considering that it is almost impossible to obtain a tourist visa into North Korea, I was rather excited to hear about a small little loophole which allows visitors to cross the border for a brief tour of a very special mountain.

Mt. Kumgang has a legendary reputation throughout the Korean peninsula for its rugged beauty. Its location in the North, however, has made it nearly impossible to visit until just recently when Hyundai Asan arranged with the North Korean government to bring tourists to the mountain.

Helen E. Sung, writing for the LA Times, recently made the journey north. Sure, the mountain was lovely, she writes, but the real appeal of the journey is the glimpse into a particularly horrible totalitarian system of government. Cell phones, telephoto lens, and even South Korean newspapers and magazines were not allowed across the border. Minders accompanied the group at all times and guests stayed in a special tourist compound/resort cut off from the rest of the country.

Sure, it’s not the real North Korea, but I, for one, would still like to check it out.

Red Corner: Mass Games Video, North Korea

by Neil Woodburn on

Yesterday we introduced you to a cool new site on Yahoo which allows travelers to send in video clips of their vacations in YouTube fashion.

Today, we’d like to direct you to one of the more amazing videos on the site.

We’ve posted a couple of times before about the Mass Games held every summer in North Korea. These games feature thousands of participants dancing about in brain-washed, orgiastic praise of the communist dictatorship. Such choreographed propaganda used to be common throughout the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War; these days, however, it can only be witnessed in North Korea.

As of yesterday, I’d only seen photos of the event. But now, thanks to Yahoo Current Traveler, there is a short clip which encapsulates this amazing spectacle which manages to be impressive, beautiful, and horrifying all at the same time.

You really need to check this one out.

Red Corner: Touring Korea’s DMZ

by Neil Woodburn on

The Cold War is mostly over with the exception of a few renegade stalwarts.

Witnessing this bygone era, however, can still be experienced at the border between North and South Korea where two massive armies have faced off against each other since the Korean War ended nearly half a century ago.

The Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ for short, is a 2,000 meter wide expanse of heavily fortified land bristling with barbed wire fences, antitank traps, guard towers, and a whole host of nasty military equipment.

And the good news is that parts of it can be toured by the public.

Rolf Potts, writing for Salon.com, journeyed there a few years ago and has posted a fascinating and still very relevant article about his adventures–adventures which couldn’t legally begin until he signed a release form containing the following warning: “The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and the possibility of death as a direct result of enemy action.”

After signing his life away, Potts enjoyed a slide show, a brief tour, the opportunity to step two feet into the North, a visit to The Bridge of No Return, and of course, a stop at the DMZ gift shop.

Potts’ humorous account is also peppered with little gems of embarrassing U.S. history and some wonderful insight as to what it’s like to live in South Korea.

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to peruse this fine piece of journalism.

Red Corner: North Korean Propaganda

by Neil Woodburn on

The very few countries in which communism still exists are time capsules from another era. To visit is to go back fifty years to the Cold War when the world shuddered over a different type of horror altogether.

Communist dictatorships are a rare breed these days, but those wishing to see what such a system of government was like for so many years, can pop on over to North Korea and check it out. Visiting North Korea, however, is about as difficult as visiting the U.S.S.R. forty years ago.

But, you can visit virtually.

A few weeks ago Erik posted a video link to the North Korea Genius Kids who are basically raised by the state and molded into perfect little socialists. Today, I’m directing you to another video from the amazing Rob Pongi collection. This video is a complete contrast to brightly dressed Genius Kids dancing through choreographed moves. It is, in fact, a short propaganda film ripping apart the United States.

I’ve seen similar shorts from many years ago but most are dated and comical. This one is also hokey and amusing, but slightly more terrifying as it combines some MTV flash, rock music, and contemporary vulgarities to reach out to North Korea’s “progressive” youth and really hammer the message home.

I really don’t think they like us over there.