North Korea Dance Video

by Erik Olsen on


I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this video, but it sure seems like it’s something that would come out of an axis of evil…if by evil we mean tormenting young children through dance. The video here is said to be of some North Korean kids doing the kind of passionate, high-intensity dance steps you’d expect from a rogue nation…or American Idol, for that matter.

In all honesty, I thought it was very cute. Kinda made me feel warm and tingly for the North Koreans…for the kids, anyway. But you just KNOW that Kim Jong Il had a say in the choreography. He’s apparently quite talented, you know. Very artistic.

I mean, look at those suits! So 70’s, so Sid and Marty Croft, in a way…which kind of begs the question :maybe the North Koreans aren’t so far behind us after all.

Red Corner: North Korea Travel Opens Up

by Neil Woodburn on

We’ve lamented a couple of times on previous posts about the near impossibility of getting into North Korea. Well, it looks like the regime is finally cracking open the door a little bit. The government has announced that they are allowing a small number of Americans to travel to the Hermit Kingdom in celebration of the country’s Mass Games – a wild celebration of all things communist that features 100,000 performers genuflecting in an enormous stadium.

The tour will be tightly chaperoned. Visitors can expect their activities to be monitored and their every step accompanied by tour guides. They will not have the opportunity to wander off and hang with the locals or venture out on their own. Even cell phones might be confiscated. Oh, and they can expect to present flowers and perhaps even bow in front of Pyongyang’s massive Kim Il Sung statue.

Prices are not cheap. If you’re lucky enough to get one of the few hundred visas available, expect to pay more than $3,400 for the privilege, airfare not included. There are only a couple of American travel agencies who have access to the visas, such as Universal Travel System and Geographic Expeditions.

According to Geographic Expeditions, this is only the second time in 50 years Americans have been allowed into the country (and before that, we had to invade). So, if you’re interested, act now; you may never have the chance again.

Red Corner: Tchotchkes of Evil

by Neil Woodburn on

With so few despots and dictators ruling these days, state-sponsored monuments to megalomania are rare and endangered. They used to be run-of-the-mill during communism when numerous museums lovingly displayed every item Lenin once touched, thought about touching, or ordered others to touch for him. Without fail, there was always a section dedicated to the numerous gifts Lenin received from abroad. The tchotchkes were universally absurd, in bad taste, and always amusing to Westerners like myself.

Naturally, such museums have all but disappeared. And so, it was with nostaligic humor that I came across a recent LA Times article detailing what might simply be the very last musuem dedicated entirely to such inane gifts. No surprise here that it is located in North Korea.

This fascinating article paints a far more extreme museum than I have experienced anywhere else in the world. Even Moscow didn’t have Lenin musuems buried NORAD-style deep in a mountain and protected by enormous steel doors and submachine gun toting guards. And yet, apparently North Korea’s International Friendship Exhibition feels the need to do so. At stake are the museum’s nearly 300,000 gifts, ranging from beer coolers to train carriages, that foreigners have presented to the late Kim Il Sung and current leader Kim Jong Il (including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who thoughtfully gifted a glass bowl to the evil tyrants).

The collection is so extensive that it takes 200 rooms to house all of the gifts and a year and half of your life if you want to spend one minute admiring each one of them.

Visit now before the Bush Administration decides it wants Madeleine’s bowl back.

Red Corner: North Korea on my Mind

by Neil Woodburn on

North Korea fascinates me. It is not so often that one can step into the past and witness a bygone era that is preserved in its entirety. Unfortunately, the reason for such preservation is an authoritarian regime that allows almost no tourists in and even less citizens out.

Recently, however, the Hermit Kingdom briefly opened its doors to celebrate the North Korean Workers’ Party 60th anniversary. Those allowed in were hand-held the entire time and never allowed to deviate from pre-planned itineraries (for example, they could see only two underground subway stops in Pyongyang and no others). It was a blatant exercise in Propaganda 101 that included an obligatory laying of flowers at the base of a 60-foot statue of Kim Il Sung.

Nonetheless, the experience must have been amazing as is evident by the numerous articles which continue to surface in the media about this rare opportunity to visit North Korea. One of the more fascinating, published in the International Herald Tribune, focuses on the tightly controlled aspects of the journey and the anachronisms which abound.

It is certainly not a trip for everybody, but I’m going to be the first in line if they open their doors again for the North Korean Workers’ Party 70th anniversary.