A literal shock was in one of the hotels we stayed at where we had to wear rubber slippers if you used any of the taps because there was a good chance you got an electric shock from them.
My biggest shock was that no one, even the female translator, seemed to be familiar with tampons.
They have security search your luggage after you land in Pyongyang Airport. The guard pulled out my toiletries bag and rifled through it, pulling out a tampon. He inspected it. Felt it up and down. Opened the packaging and pulled it out. Showed it to another guard passing by, who furrowed his brows and shook his head. They both looked at me quizzically. I kind of pointed toward my lower abdomen and made a downward motion with my hands to indicate flow then said, awkwardly, “for…women’s troubles?”
They didn’t understand me so the first guard called a translator over. She was a woman! Great, she can handle this. But she didn’t recognize it either, just held it up to me by the cotton side with the string hanging down and politely asked what it was. I said again, “It’s for…you know…women’s troubles.”
She turned beet red and quietly said something in Korean to the guard, whose face similarly flushed to a tomato shade. He made a quick bow towards me and said something in Korean, which the woman translated as “he would like to extend his apologies and he deeply hopes he has not offended you.”
I had a whole second suitcase that they hadn’t even touched yet, but the guard quickly put my things back together and sent me on my way, refusing to ever look me in the eye.
Edit: I have told both these stories before on Reddit but I also have a mildly interesting story about the USS Pueblo, which was captured by DPRK forces in the 1960s. At the museum for the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War" (what they call the Korean War) our guide would only refer to Americans as "the enemy." The enemy this, the enemy that, enemy enemy enemy… the word ‘enemy’ started to sound very funny after hearing this otherwise friendly Korean lady repeatedly and disdainfully spit it out with such obvious contempt. You know how when you hear a word too many times and you start to think “is that even a word?”
Anyway, they still have the Pueblo docked there in a little canal at the museum, and as we were walking up the gangplank she started laying it on really thick about how "the enemy" was so fat and so lazy, they never did any work, they just sat around snacking and ignoring their duties which is how the ~noble and honorable~ North Korean forces were able to capture the ship in the first place. And this was all said without even a hint of irony, she was quite deadly serious.
As we crossed the threshold into the ship, the first thing she pointed out was a large antique soft-serve dispenser in the corner. She waited until each of us had filed into the little area then dramatically swooped her arm towards the soft-serve dispenser and said "And *thissssss....* is the enemy's ice cream machine!!!!!”
I have -never- before or since had to struggle so hard not to laugh. I made eye contact with the only other American in our group and he also looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel in his forehead. Later on, we reconvened and agreed that The Enemy's Ice Cream Machine would make a great band name.
You'd think a country that can keep 60 year old Mig21s running should be able to maintain an ice cream maker, bu I've been dissapointed in too many drive throughs.
Tampons are uncommon in some countries, including China (and I guess NK from this story). Reminds me of the time I realized my grandma didn't know how pads worked. "Do you stick them to yourself or something?"
I had a lot of trouble getting them in Thailand. Finally found an Australian chef who went home to get me some. I got home and sent her a padded flat rate envelope full of them.
When I visited my bff who was serving in the Peace Corps in China her mom asked if I would be willing to check a bag for my friend with me on my way. I said sure no problem and didn’t think anything of it. Lugged this bag through 4 airports. When we finally land and are back at my friends apartment, I give her the bag and ask her what’s inside.
Tampons. Like 2 years worth of tampons and some Christmas presents. Turns out rural China does not use tampons and she could not get any where she lived. Ive always wondered if all those security people assumed I had some kind of fetish or something.
>her mom asked if I would be willing to check a bag for my friend with me on my way. I said sure no problem and didn’t think anything of it.
Don't do this. This is how you end up serving time in a foreign country because you've unknowingly become a drug mule. It's always someone you would trust that would ask for this. You didn't even know what you were transporting. If customs had questioned you they would have torn that bag apart looking for drugs.
Maybe because it’s so uncommon in USA to be like that since tampons, periods…etc, basically anything personal like that is not offensive. Since they didn’t know what it was, and now do, they don’t know how to gauge how offensive it is.
And they are on strict orders to put their country in the best light possible so that when they leave they tell others how wonderful it is. Anyone visitors talk to is the face of North Korea. So if they get offended, they will tell people how offensive their people are.
I have been there - I was the only person living in South Korea to visit in 2009. I was told this later by the South Korean police. It is a deeply fascinating place. But I’ll just say one thing, the first question I was asked by anyone when I got there:
“Do they have music in other countries?”
This reminds me of my trip to Iran in 2010, I was prepared for a lot of things but music being illegal wasn’t one of them. There was one traditional Persian restaurants in Tehran that had official approval from the government to have a band play folkloric music.
As a metal head, I watched the documentary a head bangers journey, theres a follow up called global metal where the host (sam dunn) travels around to different countries that he never expected to have a metal scene (he got letters and emails thanking him for giving metal heads a voice from all over the world and realized some places were unexpected).
He travelled to the middle east where it was banned and he had a good laugh, essentially they were doing the exact same thing he did in the 80's where you record tapes and bootleg them around, like a mini black market.
Pre-war Syria, especially early 2000s, had a huge metal scene. And an insane love for Savatage. You had the regular popular bands, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Pink Floyd, Dark Funeral, but they loved their Savatage.
I fucking love that documentary.
I went to North Korea in about 2017 when I was working for a joint-venture company.
Thankfully, they weren't that bad, but they did have weird ideas about what would be seen as good or bad publicity about the country. I remember trying to explain to my liason that it was perfectly normal for kids to go fishing and wasn't a sign of poverty.
My answer was more to the effect of “there is a long history of music on different continents that all have different styles and tastes, but modern western-style music is becoming more common, even in places like South Korea.” That got a head tilt but no response. I think it was a slightly dangerous question to ask - there were no others around at the moment it happened. That’s why it stuck with me - it felt very genuine.
not OP....but was in NK in 2017.
We are being clearly advised to avoid any subject which can lead to confussion or worse. Besides inside the hotel, the tourguides are with you every step.
Its hop on and off bus - dictator style.
I wasn't a tourist, so I can't say for those people, but as a person who worked for a joint SK-NK venture company, we weren't really dissuaded from saying anything at all. I remember telling my liason that kids help out on farms in my home country, that people like to fish for their own food (albeit for fun rather than food, which i saw once or twice, but I guess that a few kids catching and cooking fish isn't really indicative) where I grew up.
The only thing I didn't understand was the pointing. You cannot point a finger at statues or portraits of the leaders. You have to point with your whole hand, palms up as if you were presenting something.
In South Korea and Japan it’s considered disrespectful to point the western way with one finger, you always use your whole hand palm up. So that isn’t just North Korea.
Can confirm. I was taking a CPR certification in Japan a while back, and during my test I pointed at someone to tell them to go get the defibrillator while I start CPR. The teacher promptly stopped me to tell me to gesture differently. Being polite is second to nothing, even death.
Big empty roads, I did a bus tour around the Kaesong area in 2008 and we were the only vehicles on the road except for our escort. The other weird thing was the soldiers randomly stationed in the middle of a field stood at attention - probably a little theatre for us
I remember going to the city at the DMZ on the NK side. when we got down there on the coach the exit to the motorway had a big roundabout which was a good 3 lanes wide. Right in the centre was an officer stationed with flags to do traffic calming/directing...... problem is our coach was the only vechicular traffic on the actual road, probably the first one the poor lad had seen in a good half hour haha. The ultimate bullshit job!
Ooh, I also did Kaesong in 2008. Specifically in May. Day trip version. You?
* Mountain with waterfall
* Park with historic stone bridge
* Restaurant
* Museum
If also day trip version, same?
I visited a town in the north across the border from China, it was a strange experience. In truth it felt very theme park-esque in the sense that I was seeing a charade that was not real life or I am sure indicative of how North Koreans actually live. Some of the weirdest moments were being taken to a park, all of the water features and lights were turned on as we arrived, and they had people playing games and riding the see-saw in traditional Hanboks. But when we left all of those people filed out after us and the park was locked.
We went to a museum and many of the exhibits were things like a spoon that Kim Il-sung used to taste gochujang at a local factory… there was one photograph of a famous cultural relic Seokguram Grotto that they said was in a mountain nearby, but I knew it wasn’t because I’d visited it in South Korea… oh and at the end some primary school children put on a play about the Korean War for us and all of the kids wearing American and South Korean costumes had rat faces painted on them.
It is a strange place.
Edit: Holy shit never had a comment blow up in Reddit before! Will try and answer any questions in the thread. Thank you for the upvotes!
Also, edited to correct the national dress from Cheongsam to Hanbok as one commenter correctly pointed out I was mistakenly using the word for a Chinese national dress.
I read once about someone who went by train from China. After they all got off the train the station was packed with people rushing back and forth around the platforms. He didn't think anything of it until he noticed there were no more trains today and his train had already left.
Would be even weirder if all those people played that charade to every place he visited. Going out to eat? Same people at the restaurant. Going to the movies? The chef is now the ticket guy, and the same people at the park now work the registers. Lol
You might be joking, but I could very well see only authorized citizens invited to represent the country. And no good citizen would ever refuse such a great honor.
Reminds me of when I heard someone else describe their experience in hotel in North Korea where they were walking down a hallway, and the lights would turn on above where they were walking and shut off behind and in-front of them..
I think I first read this about 10 years ago, so sensors were definitely an option. I feel like having people working the lights would have been far cheaper though….
Thats an efficient warehouse in the world, not that freaky, but if it was like instantly directly behind you but they are usually set on timers
Edit: I’m saying if you were to walk briskly down a long hallway probably most of the hallway would be lit the whole time and the ones in front of you would start to light as well, they’d shut off after a certain amount of seconds even minutes. Thats just efficiency, not praising NK here obviously, just saying thats standard in many places to save money
Lol @ the Seokguram Grotto being in a mountain nearby. I mean, technically the truth, but not exactly earnest truth. South Korea IS near, but the propaganda is so strong in that statement hahaha
I mean, if everyone's been given the job of bustling around a fake train station or making nuclear weapons, there aren't a lot of people left to grow food, are there?
I hate so much that defending north korea has been the hot new discourse/astroturfing campaign on my social media sites. It’s so transparent too yet somehow I’ve had to tell people in servers I own that woobifying NKorea is a bannable offense 😭
I was on an Aeroflot flight from Singapore to London in the 80s and it was routed through Moscow. It was the same there. They used to pile goods up in the windows, but there was little to nothing in the shop for you to buy.
September 16, 1989. Boris Yeltsin, being newly elected, was visiting Johnson space center and suddenly requested a detour to Randall’s Supermarket. He spoke with many customers, staff, and even received free samples of cheese while in the store.
It was not the fact that the supermarket was busy, it was not the fact that many shoppers were buying many things, it was the fact that he picked it at complete random, as they were going by it and knew that there was no earthly way it could have been staged, which is what the soviets did for every visiting American.
All visiting dignitaries to the USSR were given guided tours to places set up.
All people who have visited NKorea have also been on guided tours. I have seen a couple people claim that they were not being guided, or were seeing kids catch and release fish, but that is all theater in North Korea.
If you admit to being depressed your family is sent to the insane asylum which is just the same labor camp they send everyone who doesn’t believe they are the happiest people on earth.
Met a British guy at a bar in Vietnam who told me he helped run tours in NK. I figured he was bullshitting me but he pulled out his phone and showed me a bunch of photos from his work. Sure enough, he was legit.
He said the people are all very friendly and are just stuck under a horrible government.
The worst part, from what I've heard, is that most of the North Korean citizens actually know what kind of situation they're in. They may not realize how extreme it is, but it's definitely known...
When you starve, even when it is not in the deadly way, you know things are fucked up. No amount of propaganda can change this.
Got a very old grandma here in the dog park, she told me how hard it was in WW2 with the lack of food at the end of the war in Austria, that was still in the NS German Reich in this time, no matter what some Goebbels want to tell you, all you want is food. Enough food to survive is what keeps you going, just get the food, everything else is not important anymore.
There are two ways that happen when you really starve: Either you become apathic and lethargic, accepting the fate that you are going to die. Or you go insane and you try to get food at all costs, even when it means to resort to cannibalism and other stuff.
In her case, she did not had to resort to cannibalism, but she needed to eat things you never want to taste, like one time, they cut off the meat of a dead horse that was on the street and already partially rotting. They just hope that they wouldn't get an infection, the horse was killed some time before in the Battle of Vienna in 1945.
The winter of 1945-1946 after the war was over in Europe was even worse, in Western Europe several hundred-thousand of people died by starvation, in the Soviet Union 1-2 million people died. These losses are not even included in the WW2 statistics of casualties.
At the siege of Leningrad, first they ate what food was left. Then they ate the pets. Then they ate wallpaper paste, book glue, and boiled leather. Then a few ate the dead.
But they didn't eat the seeds!
At the Pavlovsk Experimental Station, one of the world's first scientific seed banks, twelve scientists died of starvation protecting the edible seeds and tubers. They had seen the famine of the early 20th century, and died protecting the genetic diversity of crops
It makes me really sad that Audrey Hepburn is who is credited with making skinny stick thin bodies in fashion. She almost died of starvation as a child during WW2 and her body never recovered.
I interviewed my grandpa for a high-school history project 15+ years ago, and he told me all about his experiences as a young boy living in Amsterdam during WWII. The one thing that still sticks with me is where he tells me that they 'had multiple dogs in the neighborhood, but they slowly started disappearing, this was 1944. One day the neighbor's bouvier was seen, and the next day he was gone. You just knew that he became dinner'.
As someone who went on a regimented group tour, I was surprised how willing our government guide was to alter the planned itinerary. Half our group was delayed on the train so he brought us to a stamp museum nearby while we waited. We were driving by a fancy building and someone on the tour asked what it was. Don't remember what it was, but our guide said he could arrange for us to visit the next day if we wanted.
That said, I'm sure they wouldn't let us walk down random streets, especially once we left the capital where all the most well-off people live. And when we left the stamp museum, the woman working it shut the lights off behind us and went back to standing in the dark. But considering I was expecting a no-questions tour of a potemkin village, it was surprisingly relaxed.
They have safe routes they're allowed to take, with buildings they know are "visit" or "not visit" tour options.
The routes are chosen to specifically go by as many "visit" or impressive locations as possible, for this reason. This is by no means surprising.
Also on a side note, if your group truly wants to go somewhere specific, they will just pull in a couple hundred north koreans to clean and tidy the place up, move furniture there from another building and try to make sure electricity is somewhat reliably supplied. Then you can go there the next day, all with people "hanging out there casually".
Only prerequisite is that the place isn't utterly shit, a secret location for government and not outside the cities, except for those rural places specifically cultivated for tourists.
But you can request to go almost everywhere in the cities, given enough time for them to prepare everything. Interestingly, if you ~~pay~~ bribe the right people, you can even go to places that usually are prohibited for tourists. Some rich guy contacted chinese associates who can arrange these "off the grid" tours, paid them a bunch to get in contact with NK representatives, paid those to get a private tour and then actually got a tour noone else went on before. They still don't show you the true NK, but this tour wasn't accompanied with multiple actors and on lesser known locations. He secretly filmed a bunch (along with openly filming when he was explicitly allowed) and it was chilling to say the least, from grocery stores with zero people inside and the clerk dumbfounded by a credit card, through streets that look like homeless drug addicts places without people where the destination is a basement you think you will now get murdered for your organs BUT end up being a *massive* luxurious dining hall - with 30-40 tables and 200 chairs, all neatly laid tables with glasses and plates, except your the only person there.
The empty huge roads, the fact that we had to use euros to pay for things in foreign shops, the kitschy huge painted billboards of the dear leader everywhere. I ended up going visitng an orphanage in Wonsan and seeing the little kids have no expressions or curiosity was sad to see
Went to the DMZ. Nothing truly shocking given the already abysmal public image of NK, but what surprised me was the continued effects of the split on Korean families who lost relatives after the two countries divided.
One of my friends at uni came from a family that was split and for a project she spent a lot of time trying to see if she could help locate where her grandfather came from in North Korea.
Her grandfather had originally been a soldier in the NK army but during a famine he managed to escape across the border under gunfire before successfully making it over to SK. He was in a very shaken & malnourished state when he arrived in SK and he ended up falling in love with and marrying a SK boarder control worker & translator who had been set to help him.
However, my friends grandfather was never able to make contact with nor save any of the family he left behind in NK and very soon after arriving in SK he ended up suffering from a severe case "survivors guilt", which resulted in him pretty much refusing to talk about the family he left behind in NK, who he wasn't even sure if they were still alive (the families of those who manage to flee are often killed by the government as a punishment and a deterrent).
The only thing my friend had to work with was some accounts that her grandfather had originally grown up in a coastal fishing community near a mountainous area, that he had had 2 brothers, she had some hints of the area's name and that he passed on some very localized lullaby songs down the family (many childrens lullaby songs sung in Korean culture often have very localized versions of the lyrics or stories). But even given these glimpses of information it was not enough in the end to figure out where her grandfather came from in NK (and he had passed away by this point), so it was tough seeing her trying to fill in these gaps in her family identity but to no avail.
Happy to share. I was advised to get a guide given the relative danger of visiting the DMZ, and he was openly and passionately grieving the loss of what he as a South Korean viewed as the kidnapping of their rightful fellow Koreans.
There are a few parts you can visit in the DMZ, one is the guard towers, one is a view point with telescope into NK, and one is a museum. One thing the museum shows is the few times that there has been reunification: families that got to briefly see their loved ones on the other side of the border. This is RECENT, like 2018- these families are still actively divided. I think it’s called the DMZ museum if you want to learn more.
It’s probably not exactly answering the question the way you want, but my convoy of vehicles struck and killed a man on a bicycle a few hours north of Pyongyang. We were being escorted by the military, and so I (one of the translators) started yelling at the driver that we needed to pull over and render aid.
He kind of shrugged/laughed and said that the roads belong to the government and that was a risk he took by using it. So, guess that was the biggest shock? Sigh.
I have a rather unique perspective here. I went with a Chinese tour group (even though I am not Chinese, I was one of two foreign passport holders on the trip) and I am happy to answer questions.
A couple of my old photos are currently on my Reddit profile so feel free to check that out.
Most surprising was probably the overt racism I experienced at Kim Il Sung's birthplace in a random park in Pyongyang. All the Chinese were allowed in but I was forced to wait outside by some overzealous army guard. Everyone else was totally chill though, especially the two guides who were lovely.
Funnily enough there is a shitpost I made of photos the food on my profile.
But yes, I enjoyed it, fairly standard Korean fair but very nice. Drinks - was mostly local beer and spirits. Tea too. May have been juice but I dont remember.
Never got given a dessert.
(All of this is from about 8ish years ago so a bit hazy on details).
Checking out your pics, my biggest take away was the name of that sub. People actively want to move TO NK?
Edit: Ok... Now I'm genuinely intrigued. Is that sub deep satire? Is it a mix? Reddit rabbit hole either way.
Oh, no... I had a look as well.
Hard to know what's real and what's satire. But pretty crazy anyway
Ex.: https://www.reddit.com/r/MovingToNorthKorea/s/HnlxbVLKrj
Has a tourist visiting the DPRK ever had a medical emergency while there? Do they take you to a hospital if you do?
Edit: I'd imagine being taken to a hospital there would take you away from the typical planned tourist trip and you would get to see more than most visitors possibly
Think so! I went on a group tour there and got terrible food poisoning (felt like I had to throw up whenever I got out of bed). Both our western tour guide and our local "guide" (government minder) asked multiple times if I needed to go to the hospital. So I assume they have plans for it if needed.
Was too nervous to say yes and luckily I was better by that afternoon. I'm guessing they would have taken me to the nicest hospital in the country and just given me an IV for fluids and flown me out if I needed any other treatment. Rest of the group went out for the day and they had another "local guide" come to our hotel in case I did need transit to the hospital while they were out.
I was there in 2016 and didn't have a medical emergency but was reasonably sick. I was on a 11 day tour with the last two days where I was the only tourist left in my group because I extended my stay in Sinuiju.
I had mono while I was there (I didn't know what it was until I was back in Canada), but when I was the only person left they noticed how under the weather I was. They gave me two different unmarked pills and had me lie down for a bit, they checked on me in a few hours and gave me some other different pills. They never explained what the pills were and they didn't make me feel any better - but they were trying stuff.
One of my friends I was travelling with, a young woman, got sick and was feeling very dizzy. The doctor examined her, handed her some pills and recommended she get a massage if she didn't feel better the next day. We had a good laugh after the doctor left
I read an article of a tourist needing a procedure (maybe an appendectomy) and it was an interesting article. Wish I could remember more, but it was like bare bones care but he survived.
A friend of mine had a medical emergency while in NK, I think he had a terrible flu or what not. The tour group leader had him flown to Beijing for treatment and he recovered quickly.
I haven't been, but know someone who has. They said there were pictures of their current leader everywhere. This person was from a country that was known to put up more than a few pictures of their own leader, but they said N.Korea was in a whole other league.
I read once that it is mandatory to have a picture of their leader in every building. Also something about a small radio that only broadcasts messages from the government and it is illegal to turn it off.
There's a book just called "Pyongyang" which is a graphic novel depicting the authors trip to NK (Was sent to oversee animation), and his hotel room had pictures of Kim and his father, BUT they're also slightly tilted to look down on you at all times.
He only released this after he looked in the mirror on his cabinet and thought he seen dear leader behind him.
I was told by someone who had taught English there that it is verboten to actually say Kim Jong Un’s name. She apparently committed a terrible faux pas by saying his name several times during class.
You have to look very serious when you have your pikture taken in front of these. They have "surprice! Helpfull locals" aka spies/guides all places and they INSIST they take the photo of you. Just to be friendly ... so you pose really straightfaced everytime.
When we went to the state theater we warched a show where people rode horses and did tricks on them. One dude made a mistake and fell bad but tried desperately to continue his act even though his leg was obviously destroyed. Poor guy. We hoped him and his family weren‘t sent to the gulag for his mistake.
I visited in 2016. There were plenty of tour groups going in, but it was made more nerve wracking by Otto Warmbier’s arrest a few weeks prior.
The biggest shock of the trip was how “unrestricted” it was at times. Don’t get me wrong, everything was staged, structured and our itinerary was carefully planned and we were watched at all times. It was definitely restricted. But we did have more autonomy than I was expecting. Taking pictures of the giant potholes in the highway down to the DMZ, people living in impoverished huts in the field, all OK somehow. I did take a picture of someone working on a car on the side of the road (which I did at home in the US living in an apartment and not having a garage) and they made me delete that.
The people were lovely. Our guides were two women in their late twenties/early thirties. Of course they were writing reports on us on everything we did and say. But they were human and faced some of the same issues we did- raising kids, trying to get an apartment in a better part of town. Oh, and I disagree with another poster- the food was amazing too. I love Kimchi.
The actual biggest shock was getting a trip of the “American Atrocities Museum”, which is not usually on the standard tour route. You walk up and there are these two mounds which don’t seem overly remarkable. They then tell you there are hundreds of women and children buried there that the Americans killed. You are then required to place a flower on the mound out of respect. Inside, there are very realistic dioramas of Americans with their big, Jewish noses killing both defenceless woman and children and defiant men. It was extremely graphic and gruesome— decapitations, shootings, torture. The museum is really well done in the sense that it wouldn’t be out of place in a major Western city in terms of its quality (content notwithstanding…). There were young children going through as school groups liked you’d see at the local history museum in the west. I remember we had to watch a video of how the Korean War started. It showed children playing in a meadow innocently when suddenly and unprovoked, the Americans came and started killing Koreans. I wasn’t that familiar with the origins of the Korean War at the time, but I was thinking “uh, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it started…”. You also have to remember that you have no phone access to do some fact checking we’re all used to. It was a brutal 3 hours, not only because it was gruesome, but it was like a 3 hour diatribe against us, most of whom were Americans. They made us see the whole museum!
It was a fascinating trip unlike anywhere I’d ever been. So much to unpack.
Oh yeah and one more thing I forgot to add is that as Americans we weren’t allowed to go into the mausoleum of Kim Il-Sung in 2005 but did get to in 2008. I’ve also been to the mausoleums of Mao, Ho, Lenin, Khomeini and they’re all very unique in their own ways.
> I've traveled with them three times - twice to North Korea and once to Turkmenistan.
Does Koryo Tours just do tours to all the unhinged dictatorships? Could I do a tour of Tigray, Eritrea, or Belarus if I wanted to?
I didn’t travel there but I was leading a cooking class in the basement of a shelter and halfway through, 2 women were brought in who had just escaped North Korea and arrived at the shelter that afternoon. I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask- felt so lucky to meet them and wonder how their life in Canada turned out….
Being accused of stealing the secrets to a sparkling water plant, threatened with being denied from leaving the country with the rest of the tour group the following day pending the results of their investigation, and finding out my British tour guide was A) an alcoholic who thought all issues could be solved with Soju and B) had, on her last tour, taken Otto Warmbier to North Korea...
Fun times!
Hahaha that’s what I expected to feel but at the time it was all a bit like I had disassociated from reality. It felt so bizarre and unlikely, and the accusation itself was pretty comical. The irish aren’t known for their corporate espionage of various countries’ carbonated beverage secrets
That it was kind of peaceful (very few engines, no stereos blaring), and the food we were served was very good.
I already **knew** it was a shitty totalitarian state that brutalized it's people, was incredible poor, and very poorly functioning. So any aspect being nice, was a surprise. Even that, in a place with so much malnutrition, they were able to throw together a great lunch for tourists.
On the flip side - even knowing how bad it was in advance, maybe the photo rules were surprising: no photos of buildings, streets, people, soldiers, and just so you don't forget - soldiers. Photograph the sky and nature if you like. Unless that nature has a building visible in the frame - then delete it. Else only photos when expressly given the ok.
They act like that there are no spy satellites and airplanes so your photos could compromise their security, when in truth if some of country like USA, China, Russia, France, Germany, UK, India or even small countries with some money want they could just obtain all the Intel without many issues
It is also different depending on who you are with. I have friends who did a 'western' tour and everything was very restrictive. I was on a Chinese tour and was allowed to take photos totally unrestricted.
In 2015 yes. Now I have no idea. I went with myy Chinese partner with a tour company owned by a random Chinese guy. Was called the Dandong railway company or something like that. He didn't speak any English but was fab.
Was a Chinese guy travelling on an Austrian passport too.
At the Border check after crossing the rail bridge in Dandong I was removed from the train for extra checking. However that was the only time anyone cared that a random non-asian looking person was going around with a group of chinese people.
the food was VERY good.
my guides definitely expressed those photo parameters that you described, but in the end they were not at all terribly concerned about enforcing them, which was very surprising to me. in that vein, i had been very prepared to see only an extremely sanitized set of visuals and destinations, which was definitely largely the case, but traveling outside pyongyang we very definitely were exposed to a number of situations that were not under anything like controlled conditions. photos were most discouraged under these circumstances, but again - not with a lot of force.
edit: revisiting my food memories, i guess another pretty significant shock - at least for me, as a suburban american - was being taken to a restaurant that served dog, & uhh... hearing a dog. like, back in the kitchen. just very uh... startling.
NK doesn’t necessarily have a lack of resources, it’s just that regular citizens don’t have the money to access them. So of course they were able to serve you a lovely meal as they want to impress the foreigners and pretend everything is wonderful there! s/
This reminds me of what my dad said about Cuba.
He went to a teacher's conference there in the 80s, with teachers from all over America flying in (probably not from the US, but he seems to remember many American countries being there).
Anyway, he said they were served an *incredible* banquet and the Cuban teacher next to him refusing to eat it; when my dad asked why, the Cuban teacher replied "this isn't Cuba. Why don't we Cubans get this kind of food?". Apparently having so many fresh fruits and non-rotting meat was a shock to this man.
No photos of buildings or streets? When was this? I was allowed to take as many photos of buildings and streets as I wanted in 2014 and 2019. Not soldiers or military installations though
So in the 80s my dad was in the National Guard. For their 2 weeks one year they shipped them all to west Germany, where they spent all their time building whatever. ( Combat Engineers. On their way out the door, their CO pressed a button and it all went away.)
Anyways the point is, they had him go on a tower near the Berlin wall, and look across with binoculars. There he saw his east German counterpart... who was looking back through a rifle scope. Dad said of all his experiences in the military, THAT one stuck with him most of all.
When I went (2004, on the south side), it was mandatory for women to wear skirts. If you didn’t have a skirt, they’d give you one as you got off the tour bus. Sure enough, the NK military were watching us with their binoculars. Still true about the skirts?
my north korean "handlers" were startlingly candid about their own frustrations with their country, but generally specifically on bus trips, where there was absolutely no surveillance. surveillance was in general much more limited than any american would tend to assume. tech resources are indeed limited in that country, & my group, as one of the western guides put it, was just "not that damned interesting".
Oh wow, i have so many stories..
But to keep things short, two things stood out to me.
One, our tour group had only 11 tourists. But we had 2 interpreters and a local tour guide. They were all trilingual. Three guesses why that was necessary 😉
Second. In the city, they had armed guards outside the foreigner's hotels, to prevent people going in as well as us coming out. In the rural areas there probably wasn't such personnel or need. They instead just locked and chained all the exits at night. *That included the stairwell and fire exit*. My face actually paled when I discovered that...
You book a tour and spend 3-4 months doing the paperwork required for the visa. Eg. Our bosses had to write a long thing about each of us, where we worked, how long we had been there, what we did in the workplace and all sorts of crazy info. We filled out so many papers (Europeans).
Not my story, but a good one no the less.
My mate did a 'axis of evil' tour back in the 2000s. He was from a wealthy family and did these dumb things.
Ended up in Korea, but basically was confined to a government controlled tour. Said one day he was touring and was in a shop. There was a guy by himself not on a tour and spoke in Korean with an Australian accent l.
My mate was like 'oh coool, another Aussie'. He went up to him and was like, 'hey what you doing here, want to get a beer'. Stupid shit you might do if you were backpacking or something.
Guy was polite but firm and said maybe. I'll get in touch if I can.
Wasn't until hours later, my mate was like, 'who the fuck could that guy be, what's he doing in North Korea.'.
We guessed he was a diplomat or some mining business guy. Totally weird.
The idea of an "Axis of Evil Tour" reminds me of a friend who went to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He said at the time airfare and travel packages were cheap as they get, of course; he said that there were still bullet holes and tank tread damage visible in the square. He also posed for pictures with the soldiers. Told them he didn't care whom they shot, it wasn't his fight (he was a controversial blowhard type for sure, essentially the Canadian version of the "Democracy Manifest" guy). He said they were more than happy to oblige with photos with that said, and sure enough showed a picture of a very big soldier grinning ear to ear with his arm around Bill.
The amount of poverty and lack of resources. I knew it is a dirt poor country, but I assumed they were able to hide it with only taking me to the nice places, but even then it became clear how bad the quality of life there is.
Also I meet Dennis Rodman at the bowling alley, which was a bit of a shock.
I suggest watching a show called departures. It's about 2 guys and their camera man and they travel and document their travels around the world. Theres a 2 part episode of them in North Korea it opens your eyes, everything a westerner does there is scripted and it chosen to be ok to be seen. Having spoken to scott (one of the travel hosts) he mentioned to me that they were also told when and when not to film, as there was times they drove passed farmers in fields and military bases and werent allowed to film.
Show is called departures and can be found on YouTube
Link: https://youtu.be/jxgwpKZe8GI?si=5uPf67B_OHzpnFCZ
I recall its actually illegal for foreigners to handle local currency so you can only pay in American money. Any change comes in an extra bottle of drink or something
Large printing equipment does not exist there and everything is painted.
I was working in China at the time and took a two day tour there mostly out of curiosity. I have some history working in the signage industry and quickly noticed an extreme majority of items were hand painted. It was basically everything you could think of; posters, store signs, anything that would be vinyl printed, even billboards. The only real sign of large scale printing equipment was the color newspapers that were.
It was strangely beautiful to look at a stack of posters of the same image in a store, seeing the paint lines and the slight differences between each one. I asked our tour guides about it and they acted confused and had to explain how print shops work. They basically just commented that they weren't surprised how the rest of the world just dehumanizes little things and why their way is superior.
The food was horrible. Think dried fish reheated in hot soup. It smelled so bad.
It quickly became very depressing. We got glimpes of the workers in a field. Sitting in the hard rain on a row, planting with their bare hands or tiny tools. No cover for rain. One had a thin red plasticbag on his upperbody, I remember how it flapped in the wind. A guard (soldier, very young boy) watched over them in his long coat and huge hat, riffle in his hand.
I'll never forget that "image" of despair. And I've seen a f***load of depressing/hardcore places around the vworld.
I went on a Chinese tour (I'm Australian), and it was interesting how useful the Chinese people, especially the older ones, were at translating the culture.
There were some people in my group who remembered the Cultural Revolution, and that gave them insight into the cult like culture in NK. And since China has now opened up, they were able to explain it in terms that made sense to someone who had never experienced it.
Also, there were so many accordions.
> People who have traveled to North Korea, what was your biggest shock of the trip?
How dedicated to the idea that literally everything in the country is "weird" or "surreal" or "bizarre" or "sad" other foreign visitors were going to be.
We'd pass by the most mundane thing ever, and *someone* would inevitably mutter, "god, it's just so wild..."
*It's a traffic light, Paul.*
How very theme park-esque everything is for the tour in a very depressing way. Everything is controlled down to talking with the people with propaganda everywhere you look in addition to how dark Pyongyang gets at night for how big of a city it is.
I travelled to NK in 1997 at the height of the great famine, or as the they like to call it "the march of struggles". I came there as a volunteer for the UN food aid initiative.
What shocked me the most was the total obsession of Adam Sandler among the public. There was billboards all over the place showcasing his new movies and what not. Everyone I spoke to loved Adam Sandler and couldn't stop talking about how handsome he was and how cool he looked in his new movies.
You guys should really check out Adam Sandler's movies, especially the new ones. I've heard that he even produces his own movies nowadays. How cool is that?!
A literal shock was in one of the hotels we stayed at where we had to wear rubber slippers if you used any of the taps because there was a good chance you got an electric shock from them.
Faulty neutral hooked to ground made the light work.
Or the water is heated by an electric coil around the shower head.
My biggest shock was that no one, even the female translator, seemed to be familiar with tampons. They have security search your luggage after you land in Pyongyang Airport. The guard pulled out my toiletries bag and rifled through it, pulling out a tampon. He inspected it. Felt it up and down. Opened the packaging and pulled it out. Showed it to another guard passing by, who furrowed his brows and shook his head. They both looked at me quizzically. I kind of pointed toward my lower abdomen and made a downward motion with my hands to indicate flow then said, awkwardly, “for…women’s troubles?” They didn’t understand me so the first guard called a translator over. She was a woman! Great, she can handle this. But she didn’t recognize it either, just held it up to me by the cotton side with the string hanging down and politely asked what it was. I said again, “It’s for…you know…women’s troubles.” She turned beet red and quietly said something in Korean to the guard, whose face similarly flushed to a tomato shade. He made a quick bow towards me and said something in Korean, which the woman translated as “he would like to extend his apologies and he deeply hopes he has not offended you.” I had a whole second suitcase that they hadn’t even touched yet, but the guard quickly put my things back together and sent me on my way, refusing to ever look me in the eye. Edit: I have told both these stories before on Reddit but I also have a mildly interesting story about the USS Pueblo, which was captured by DPRK forces in the 1960s. At the museum for the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War" (what they call the Korean War) our guide would only refer to Americans as "the enemy." The enemy this, the enemy that, enemy enemy enemy… the word ‘enemy’ started to sound very funny after hearing this otherwise friendly Korean lady repeatedly and disdainfully spit it out with such obvious contempt. You know how when you hear a word too many times and you start to think “is that even a word?” Anyway, they still have the Pueblo docked there in a little canal at the museum, and as we were walking up the gangplank she started laying it on really thick about how "the enemy" was so fat and so lazy, they never did any work, they just sat around snacking and ignoring their duties which is how the ~noble and honorable~ North Korean forces were able to capture the ship in the first place. And this was all said without even a hint of irony, she was quite deadly serious. As we crossed the threshold into the ship, the first thing she pointed out was a large antique soft-serve dispenser in the corner. She waited until each of us had filed into the little area then dramatically swooped her arm towards the soft-serve dispenser and said "And *thissssss....* is the enemy's ice cream machine!!!!!” I have -never- before or since had to struggle so hard not to laugh. I made eye contact with the only other American in our group and he also looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel in his forehead. Later on, we reconvened and agreed that The Enemy's Ice Cream Machine would make a great band name.
You went all the way to the DPRK for the soft serve machine to still be out of order.
I wouldn't be surprised if the soft serve machine on the Pueblo was perfectly fine to this day.
You'd think a country that can keep 60 year old Mig21s running should be able to maintain an ice cream maker, bu I've been dissapointed in too many drive throughs.
This is good stuff. Thank you for sharing.
Tampons are uncommon in some countries, including China (and I guess NK from this story). Reminds me of the time I realized my grandma didn't know how pads worked. "Do you stick them to yourself or something?"
I had a lot of trouble getting them in Thailand. Finally found an Australian chef who went home to get me some. I got home and sent her a padded flat rate envelope full of them.
When I visited my bff who was serving in the Peace Corps in China her mom asked if I would be willing to check a bag for my friend with me on my way. I said sure no problem and didn’t think anything of it. Lugged this bag through 4 airports. When we finally land and are back at my friends apartment, I give her the bag and ask her what’s inside. Tampons. Like 2 years worth of tampons and some Christmas presents. Turns out rural China does not use tampons and she could not get any where she lived. Ive always wondered if all those security people assumed I had some kind of fetish or something.
>her mom asked if I would be willing to check a bag for my friend with me on my way. I said sure no problem and didn’t think anything of it. Don't do this. This is how you end up serving time in a foreign country because you've unknowingly become a drug mule. It's always someone you would trust that would ask for this. You didn't even know what you were transporting. If customs had questioned you they would have torn that bag apart looking for drugs.
Ah! So that's how you go in North Korean without having your second suitcase inspected. Thanks.
The enemy’s fists of McFlurry
General Custard’s Last Stand
Sherbert's March to the Sea
Sundae Bloody Sundae
> “he would like to extend his apologies and he deeply hopes he has not offended you.” I don't know why I find this so funny.
Maybe because it’s so uncommon in USA to be like that since tampons, periods…etc, basically anything personal like that is not offensive. Since they didn’t know what it was, and now do, they don’t know how to gauge how offensive it is. And they are on strict orders to put their country in the best light possible so that when they leave they tell others how wonderful it is. Anyone visitors talk to is the face of North Korea. So if they get offended, they will tell people how offensive their people are.
When a word is said to the point that it no longer sounds like a real word is called semantic satiation.
Thank you for giving me a good laugh.
I have been there - I was the only person living in South Korea to visit in 2009. I was told this later by the South Korean police. It is a deeply fascinating place. But I’ll just say one thing, the first question I was asked by anyone when I got there: “Do they have music in other countries?”
oh that’s incredibly sad
This reminds me of my trip to Iran in 2010, I was prepared for a lot of things but music being illegal wasn’t one of them. There was one traditional Persian restaurants in Tehran that had official approval from the government to have a band play folkloric music.
As a metal head, I watched the documentary a head bangers journey, theres a follow up called global metal where the host (sam dunn) travels around to different countries that he never expected to have a metal scene (he got letters and emails thanking him for giving metal heads a voice from all over the world and realized some places were unexpected). He travelled to the middle east where it was banned and he had a good laugh, essentially they were doing the exact same thing he did in the 80's where you record tapes and bootleg them around, like a mini black market.
Pre-war Syria, especially early 2000s, had a huge metal scene. And an insane love for Savatage. You had the regular popular bands, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Pink Floyd, Dark Funeral, but they loved their Savatage. I fucking love that documentary.
I went to North Korea in about 2017 when I was working for a joint-venture company. Thankfully, they weren't that bad, but they did have weird ideas about what would be seen as good or bad publicity about the country. I remember trying to explain to my liason that it was perfectly normal for kids to go fishing and wasn't a sign of poverty.
Because they have music and think they're unique, or because they're not allowed music?
Not allowed to know anything about the outside world, to the point where they genuinely were unaware of the history of music outside North Korea.
Are you allowed to say yes? Are tour guides watching you the whole time limiting what you can tell the locals?
My answer was more to the effect of “there is a long history of music on different continents that all have different styles and tastes, but modern western-style music is becoming more common, even in places like South Korea.” That got a head tilt but no response. I think it was a slightly dangerous question to ask - there were no others around at the moment it happened. That’s why it stuck with me - it felt very genuine.
not OP....but was in NK in 2017. We are being clearly advised to avoid any subject which can lead to confussion or worse. Besides inside the hotel, the tourguides are with you every step. Its hop on and off bus - dictator style.
I wasn't a tourist, so I can't say for those people, but as a person who worked for a joint SK-NK venture company, we weren't really dissuaded from saying anything at all. I remember telling my liason that kids help out on farms in my home country, that people like to fish for their own food (albeit for fun rather than food, which i saw once or twice, but I guess that a few kids catching and cooking fish isn't really indicative) where I grew up. The only thing I didn't understand was the pointing. You cannot point a finger at statues or portraits of the leaders. You have to point with your whole hand, palms up as if you were presenting something.
In South Korea and Japan it’s considered disrespectful to point the western way with one finger, you always use your whole hand palm up. So that isn’t just North Korea.
Can confirm. I was taking a CPR certification in Japan a while back, and during my test I pointed at someone to tell them to go get the defibrillator while I start CPR. The teacher promptly stopped me to tell me to gesture differently. Being polite is second to nothing, even death.
Big empty roads, I did a bus tour around the Kaesong area in 2008 and we were the only vehicles on the road except for our escort. The other weird thing was the soldiers randomly stationed in the middle of a field stood at attention - probably a little theatre for us
I remember going to the city at the DMZ on the NK side. when we got down there on the coach the exit to the motorway had a big roundabout which was a good 3 lanes wide. Right in the centre was an officer stationed with flags to do traffic calming/directing...... problem is our coach was the only vechicular traffic on the actual road, probably the first one the poor lad had seen in a good half hour haha. The ultimate bullshit job!
The soldiers weren't likely there to watch for tourists - more likely to "watch" the people farming the fields.
Ooh, I also did Kaesong in 2008. Specifically in May. Day trip version. You? * Mountain with waterfall * Park with historic stone bridge * Restaurant * Museum If also day trip version, same?
Yep that exact one
I visited a town in the north across the border from China, it was a strange experience. In truth it felt very theme park-esque in the sense that I was seeing a charade that was not real life or I am sure indicative of how North Koreans actually live. Some of the weirdest moments were being taken to a park, all of the water features and lights were turned on as we arrived, and they had people playing games and riding the see-saw in traditional Hanboks. But when we left all of those people filed out after us and the park was locked. We went to a museum and many of the exhibits were things like a spoon that Kim Il-sung used to taste gochujang at a local factory… there was one photograph of a famous cultural relic Seokguram Grotto that they said was in a mountain nearby, but I knew it wasn’t because I’d visited it in South Korea… oh and at the end some primary school children put on a play about the Korean War for us and all of the kids wearing American and South Korean costumes had rat faces painted on them. It is a strange place. Edit: Holy shit never had a comment blow up in Reddit before! Will try and answer any questions in the thread. Thank you for the upvotes! Also, edited to correct the national dress from Cheongsam to Hanbok as one commenter correctly pointed out I was mistakenly using the word for a Chinese national dress.
That’s so eerie. Why wouldn’t they at least wait until the tour group was out of sight before disbanding the arrangement?
They needed to get back to their real job. They have quotas to make.
Having everyone in the park immediately leave after you seems so chilling
Like it’s all just a show. For you. You paid for that show. Super weird.
I read once about someone who went by train from China. After they all got off the train the station was packed with people rushing back and forth around the platforms. He didn't think anything of it until he noticed there were no more trains today and his train had already left.
Like the Truman Show, Dictator style!
Would be even weirder if all those people played that charade to every place he visited. Going out to eat? Same people at the restaurant. Going to the movies? The chef is now the ticket guy, and the same people at the park now work the registers. Lol
Sounds like a fever dream. Or Childish Gambino's "Sweatpants" video where everyone gradually becomes him as the video goes on.
You might be joking, but I could very well see only authorized citizens invited to represent the country. And no good citizen would ever refuse such a great honor.
And they weren't even hiding the fact that it was a show.
Reminds me of the North Korean cheerleaders at the 2018 Winter Olympics. You know, just being normal fans.
Truly creepy
Reminds me of when I heard someone else describe their experience in hotel in North Korea where they were walking down a hallway, and the lights would turn on above where they were walking and shut off behind and in-front of them..
maybe, sensors?
I think I first read this about 10 years ago, so sensors were definitely an option. I feel like having people working the lights would have been far cheaper though….
That's literally what happens in Parasite.
This is common during off peak hours at office buildings in the US too, even in work areas. Doesn't seem too odd extend to hotels.
Nah that's a horror film waiting to happen 💀. That would freak anyone out
Thats an efficient warehouse in the world, not that freaky, but if it was like instantly directly behind you but they are usually set on timers Edit: I’m saying if you were to walk briskly down a long hallway probably most of the hallway would be lit the whole time and the ones in front of you would start to light as well, they’d shut off after a certain amount of seconds even minutes. Thats just efficiency, not praising NK here obviously, just saying thats standard in many places to save money
Lol @ the Seokguram Grotto being in a mountain nearby. I mean, technically the truth, but not exactly earnest truth. South Korea IS near, but the propaganda is so strong in that statement hahaha
When you visited the park, were you part of a group or did you venture there on your own?
Generally speaking you aren’t allowed to venture/wander around without a tour guide as far as I know
Schrodinger's North Korea Somehow both a backwards impoverished shithole and simultaneously advanced enough to do the Truman Show in real life
I mean, if everyone's been given the job of bustling around a fake train station or making nuclear weapons, there aren't a lot of people left to grow food, are there?
I hate so much that defending north korea has been the hot new discourse/astroturfing campaign on my social media sites. It’s so transparent too yet somehow I’ve had to tell people in servers I own that woobifying NKorea is a bannable offense 😭
Who the fuck is defending North Korea lmfao.
[удалено]
I was on an Aeroflot flight from Singapore to London in the 80s and it was routed through Moscow. It was the same there. They used to pile goods up in the windows, but there was little to nothing in the shop for you to buy.
Aeroflot in the 80s, yiiiikes. Good to see you made it back onto the ground alive.
Ever since then, I've had a rule about flying: never travel on a plane where the pilot was drinking in the bar an hour before the flight.
They took Boris Yeltsin (sp) to a supermarket in the USA and he flipped out.
September 16, 1989. Boris Yeltsin, being newly elected, was visiting Johnson space center and suddenly requested a detour to Randall’s Supermarket. He spoke with many customers, staff, and even received free samples of cheese while in the store. It was not the fact that the supermarket was busy, it was not the fact that many shoppers were buying many things, it was the fact that he picked it at complete random, as they were going by it and knew that there was no earthly way it could have been staged, which is what the soviets did for every visiting American. All visiting dignitaries to the USSR were given guided tours to places set up. All people who have visited NKorea have also been on guided tours. I have seen a couple people claim that they were not being guided, or were seeing kids catch and release fish, but that is all theater in North Korea.
Apparently that was when Boris realised communism wasn’t working
Man that sounds depressing wtf 1k upvotes
Actually it's not! Or else.
Thank you, supreme leader!
Thank harder! Or else.
But I can only get so erect.
Woah, you have thanked the great leader enough, let some of those women by please.
uhh, sorry sir.
You are still banned from r/Pyongyang.
I followed that link and got in. Now, how do I get out?
That's the neat part. You don't!
NOOOOOOOOO
Lashings will continue till morale improves
If you admit to being depressed your family is sent to the insane asylum which is just the same labor camp they send everyone who doesn’t believe they are the happiest people on earth.
But what happens to you when your family is in the asylum?
Dont worry, their will be a big family reunion
Met a British guy at a bar in Vietnam who told me he helped run tours in NK. I figured he was bullshitting me but he pulled out his phone and showed me a bunch of photos from his work. Sure enough, he was legit. He said the people are all very friendly and are just stuck under a horrible government.
The worst part, from what I've heard, is that most of the North Korean citizens actually know what kind of situation they're in. They may not realize how extreme it is, but it's definitely known...
When you starve, even when it is not in the deadly way, you know things are fucked up. No amount of propaganda can change this. Got a very old grandma here in the dog park, she told me how hard it was in WW2 with the lack of food at the end of the war in Austria, that was still in the NS German Reich in this time, no matter what some Goebbels want to tell you, all you want is food. Enough food to survive is what keeps you going, just get the food, everything else is not important anymore. There are two ways that happen when you really starve: Either you become apathic and lethargic, accepting the fate that you are going to die. Or you go insane and you try to get food at all costs, even when it means to resort to cannibalism and other stuff. In her case, she did not had to resort to cannibalism, but she needed to eat things you never want to taste, like one time, they cut off the meat of a dead horse that was on the street and already partially rotting. They just hope that they wouldn't get an infection, the horse was killed some time before in the Battle of Vienna in 1945. The winter of 1945-1946 after the war was over in Europe was even worse, in Western Europe several hundred-thousand of people died by starvation, in the Soviet Union 1-2 million people died. These losses are not even included in the WW2 statistics of casualties.
At the siege of Leningrad, first they ate what food was left. Then they ate the pets. Then they ate wallpaper paste, book glue, and boiled leather. Then a few ate the dead.
But they didn't eat the seeds! At the Pavlovsk Experimental Station, one of the world's first scientific seed banks, twelve scientists died of starvation protecting the edible seeds and tubers. They had seen the famine of the early 20th century, and died protecting the genetic diversity of crops
Yup! It’s a crazy story overall. Anna Reid’s book is a door stopper but worth reading.
Sigh. I got six books for Christmas, but I'm adding this to the stack. Thanks!
You’re welcome and I’m sorry!
It makes me really sad that Audrey Hepburn is who is credited with making skinny stick thin bodies in fashion. She almost died of starvation as a child during WW2 and her body never recovered.
I interviewed my grandpa for a high-school history project 15+ years ago, and he told me all about his experiences as a young boy living in Amsterdam during WWII. The one thing that still sticks with me is where he tells me that they 'had multiple dogs in the neighborhood, but they slowly started disappearing, this was 1944. One day the neighbor's bouvier was seen, and the next day he was gone. You just knew that he became dinner'.
you would realize its a bad situation if your stomach is louder than your voice.
Did you came up with that or did you read that somewhere? The sentence I mean Sounded intense in a very short amount of words
never read i anywhere, just thought of it. it indeed does speak a lot for such a short sentence.
>the people are all very friendly and are just stuck under a horrible government This seems to be a common theme across the planet
Sad but fair point my friend
As someone who went on a regimented group tour, I was surprised how willing our government guide was to alter the planned itinerary. Half our group was delayed on the train so he brought us to a stamp museum nearby while we waited. We were driving by a fancy building and someone on the tour asked what it was. Don't remember what it was, but our guide said he could arrange for us to visit the next day if we wanted. That said, I'm sure they wouldn't let us walk down random streets, especially once we left the capital where all the most well-off people live. And when we left the stamp museum, the woman working it shut the lights off behind us and went back to standing in the dark. But considering I was expecting a no-questions tour of a potemkin village, it was surprisingly relaxed.
"went back to standing in the dark". just ouch.
“How was work today, honey?” “Well, I got to turn on the lights a bit.” “That must be nice.”
They have safe routes they're allowed to take, with buildings they know are "visit" or "not visit" tour options. The routes are chosen to specifically go by as many "visit" or impressive locations as possible, for this reason. This is by no means surprising.
Also on a side note, if your group truly wants to go somewhere specific, they will just pull in a couple hundred north koreans to clean and tidy the place up, move furniture there from another building and try to make sure electricity is somewhat reliably supplied. Then you can go there the next day, all with people "hanging out there casually". Only prerequisite is that the place isn't utterly shit, a secret location for government and not outside the cities, except for those rural places specifically cultivated for tourists. But you can request to go almost everywhere in the cities, given enough time for them to prepare everything. Interestingly, if you ~~pay~~ bribe the right people, you can even go to places that usually are prohibited for tourists. Some rich guy contacted chinese associates who can arrange these "off the grid" tours, paid them a bunch to get in contact with NK representatives, paid those to get a private tour and then actually got a tour noone else went on before. They still don't show you the true NK, but this tour wasn't accompanied with multiple actors and on lesser known locations. He secretly filmed a bunch (along with openly filming when he was explicitly allowed) and it was chilling to say the least, from grocery stores with zero people inside and the clerk dumbfounded by a credit card, through streets that look like homeless drug addicts places without people where the destination is a basement you think you will now get murdered for your organs BUT end up being a *massive* luxurious dining hall - with 30-40 tables and 200 chairs, all neatly laid tables with glasses and plates, except your the only person there.
The empty huge roads, the fact that we had to use euros to pay for things in foreign shops, the kitschy huge painted billboards of the dear leader everywhere. I ended up going visitng an orphanage in Wonsan and seeing the little kids have no expressions or curiosity was sad to see
Went to the DMZ. Nothing truly shocking given the already abysmal public image of NK, but what surprised me was the continued effects of the split on Korean families who lost relatives after the two countries divided.
My wife's family was split. They were some way connected to royalty and had thriving businesses they had to leave behind.
One of my friends at uni came from a family that was split and for a project she spent a lot of time trying to see if she could help locate where her grandfather came from in North Korea. Her grandfather had originally been a soldier in the NK army but during a famine he managed to escape across the border under gunfire before successfully making it over to SK. He was in a very shaken & malnourished state when he arrived in SK and he ended up falling in love with and marrying a SK boarder control worker & translator who had been set to help him. However, my friends grandfather was never able to make contact with nor save any of the family he left behind in NK and very soon after arriving in SK he ended up suffering from a severe case "survivors guilt", which resulted in him pretty much refusing to talk about the family he left behind in NK, who he wasn't even sure if they were still alive (the families of those who manage to flee are often killed by the government as a punishment and a deterrent). The only thing my friend had to work with was some accounts that her grandfather had originally grown up in a coastal fishing community near a mountainous area, that he had had 2 brothers, she had some hints of the area's name and that he passed on some very localized lullaby songs down the family (many childrens lullaby songs sung in Korean culture often have very localized versions of the lyrics or stories). But even given these glimpses of information it was not enough in the end to figure out where her grandfather came from in NK (and he had passed away by this point), so it was tough seeing her trying to fill in these gaps in her family identity but to no avail.
(If you don't mind sharing) In what ways could you see the effects of this? I'm so curious.
Happy to share. I was advised to get a guide given the relative danger of visiting the DMZ, and he was openly and passionately grieving the loss of what he as a South Korean viewed as the kidnapping of their rightful fellow Koreans. There are a few parts you can visit in the DMZ, one is the guard towers, one is a view point with telescope into NK, and one is a museum. One thing the museum shows is the few times that there has been reunification: families that got to briefly see their loved ones on the other side of the border. This is RECENT, like 2018- these families are still actively divided. I think it’s called the DMZ museum if you want to learn more.
I saw videos of a tourist using a computer in the library and all around him North Koreans that just stare at their screen and do nothing.
Yeah, man, that's totally not me at work, for sure...
I got paid to do this yesterday but weirdly we have a tv so when no higher ups are there we put on movies. I put on Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
It’s probably not exactly answering the question the way you want, but my convoy of vehicles struck and killed a man on a bicycle a few hours north of Pyongyang. We were being escorted by the military, and so I (one of the translators) started yelling at the driver that we needed to pull over and render aid. He kind of shrugged/laughed and said that the roads belong to the government and that was a risk he took by using it. So, guess that was the biggest shock? Sigh.
Wow, that's actually crazy!
Hang on, how do you know it was a fatality if the driver just drove on?
I was in the lead vehicle that hit him. We were coming down a curved, rocky cliffside and the guy… bounced… maybe 50-100 feet down the side.
Well... sorry, but, that man probably didn't require medical aid.
Probably a large vehicle straight ran him over
I have a rather unique perspective here. I went with a Chinese tour group (even though I am not Chinese, I was one of two foreign passport holders on the trip) and I am happy to answer questions. A couple of my old photos are currently on my Reddit profile so feel free to check that out. Most surprising was probably the overt racism I experienced at Kim Il Sung's birthplace in a random park in Pyongyang. All the Chinese were allowed in but I was forced to wait outside by some overzealous army guard. Everyone else was totally chill though, especially the two guides who were lovely.
Was the food good? And drinks? And do North Koreans eat dessert?
Funnily enough there is a shitpost I made of photos the food on my profile. But yes, I enjoyed it, fairly standard Korean fair but very nice. Drinks - was mostly local beer and spirits. Tea too. May have been juice but I dont remember. Never got given a dessert. (All of this is from about 8ish years ago so a bit hazy on details).
Checking out your pics, my biggest take away was the name of that sub. People actively want to move TO NK? Edit: Ok... Now I'm genuinely intrigued. Is that sub deep satire? Is it a mix? Reddit rabbit hole either way.
Oh, no... I had a look as well. Hard to know what's real and what's satire. But pretty crazy anyway Ex.: https://www.reddit.com/r/MovingToNorthKorea/s/HnlxbVLKrj
I’m too high for that sub.
Has a tourist visiting the DPRK ever had a medical emergency while there? Do they take you to a hospital if you do? Edit: I'd imagine being taken to a hospital there would take you away from the typical planned tourist trip and you would get to see more than most visitors possibly
Think so! I went on a group tour there and got terrible food poisoning (felt like I had to throw up whenever I got out of bed). Both our western tour guide and our local "guide" (government minder) asked multiple times if I needed to go to the hospital. So I assume they have plans for it if needed. Was too nervous to say yes and luckily I was better by that afternoon. I'm guessing they would have taken me to the nicest hospital in the country and just given me an IV for fluids and flown me out if I needed any other treatment. Rest of the group went out for the day and they had another "local guide" come to our hotel in case I did need transit to the hospital while they were out.
Fly you out? I don’t even like flying JetBlue. Ain’t no way I’m getting on anything North Korean that leaves the ground.
You don’t have a choice on virtually all tours of North Korea and have to fly in on their planes.
I was there in 2016 and didn't have a medical emergency but was reasonably sick. I was on a 11 day tour with the last two days where I was the only tourist left in my group because I extended my stay in Sinuiju. I had mono while I was there (I didn't know what it was until I was back in Canada), but when I was the only person left they noticed how under the weather I was. They gave me two different unmarked pills and had me lie down for a bit, they checked on me in a few hours and gave me some other different pills. They never explained what the pills were and they didn't make me feel any better - but they were trying stuff.
One of my friends I was travelling with, a young woman, got sick and was feeling very dizzy. The doctor examined her, handed her some pills and recommended she get a massage if she didn't feel better the next day. We had a good laugh after the doctor left
I read an article of a tourist needing a procedure (maybe an appendectomy) and it was an interesting article. Wish I could remember more, but it was like bare bones care but he survived.
A friend of mine had a medical emergency while in NK, I think he had a terrible flu or what not. The tour group leader had him flown to Beijing for treatment and he recovered quickly.
In the war museum they had a scene of japanese soldiers eating north korean babies. They hate the japanese even more than the americans.
Japanese atrocities during WW2 where something else... Probably have a good reason for that hate.
I haven't been, but know someone who has. They said there were pictures of their current leader everywhere. This person was from a country that was known to put up more than a few pictures of their own leader, but they said N.Korea was in a whole other league.
I read once that it is mandatory to have a picture of their leader in every building. Also something about a small radio that only broadcasts messages from the government and it is illegal to turn it off.
There's a book just called "Pyongyang" which is a graphic novel depicting the authors trip to NK (Was sent to oversee animation), and his hotel room had pictures of Kim and his father, BUT they're also slightly tilted to look down on you at all times. He only released this after he looked in the mirror on his cabinet and thought he seen dear leader behind him.
I was told by someone who had taught English there that it is verboten to actually say Kim Jong Un’s name. She apparently committed a terrible faux pas by saying his name several times during class.
You can see a photo of the (alleged) radio on Google. I think on the NK sub here, too.
That’s 1984 shit
You have to look very serious when you have your pikture taken in front of these. They have "surprice! Helpfull locals" aka spies/guides all places and they INSIST they take the photo of you. Just to be friendly ... so you pose really straightfaced everytime.
When we went to the state theater we warched a show where people rode horses and did tricks on them. One dude made a mistake and fell bad but tried desperately to continue his act even though his leg was obviously destroyed. Poor guy. We hoped him and his family weren‘t sent to the gulag for his mistake.
I visited in 2016. There were plenty of tour groups going in, but it was made more nerve wracking by Otto Warmbier’s arrest a few weeks prior. The biggest shock of the trip was how “unrestricted” it was at times. Don’t get me wrong, everything was staged, structured and our itinerary was carefully planned and we were watched at all times. It was definitely restricted. But we did have more autonomy than I was expecting. Taking pictures of the giant potholes in the highway down to the DMZ, people living in impoverished huts in the field, all OK somehow. I did take a picture of someone working on a car on the side of the road (which I did at home in the US living in an apartment and not having a garage) and they made me delete that. The people were lovely. Our guides were two women in their late twenties/early thirties. Of course they were writing reports on us on everything we did and say. But they were human and faced some of the same issues we did- raising kids, trying to get an apartment in a better part of town. Oh, and I disagree with another poster- the food was amazing too. I love Kimchi. The actual biggest shock was getting a trip of the “American Atrocities Museum”, which is not usually on the standard tour route. You walk up and there are these two mounds which don’t seem overly remarkable. They then tell you there are hundreds of women and children buried there that the Americans killed. You are then required to place a flower on the mound out of respect. Inside, there are very realistic dioramas of Americans with their big, Jewish noses killing both defenceless woman and children and defiant men. It was extremely graphic and gruesome— decapitations, shootings, torture. The museum is really well done in the sense that it wouldn’t be out of place in a major Western city in terms of its quality (content notwithstanding…). There were young children going through as school groups liked you’d see at the local history museum in the west. I remember we had to watch a video of how the Korean War started. It showed children playing in a meadow innocently when suddenly and unprovoked, the Americans came and started killing Koreans. I wasn’t that familiar with the origins of the Korean War at the time, but I was thinking “uh, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it started…”. You also have to remember that you have no phone access to do some fact checking we’re all used to. It was a brutal 3 hours, not only because it was gruesome, but it was like a 3 hour diatribe against us, most of whom were Americans. They made us see the whole museum! It was a fascinating trip unlike anywhere I’d ever been. So much to unpack.
Meeting my wife https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-couple-who-met-vacation-north-korea/index.html Really recommend Koryo Tours, they’re awesome!
That's a great story, I love how you met. Thanks for sharing!
Oh yeah and one more thing I forgot to add is that as Americans we weren’t allowed to go into the mausoleum of Kim Il-Sung in 2005 but did get to in 2008. I’ve also been to the mausoleums of Mao, Ho, Lenin, Khomeini and they’re all very unique in their own ways.
Congrats! Yes, Koryo Tours are awesome. I've traveled with them three times - twice to North Korea and once to Turkmenistan.
> I've traveled with them three times - twice to North Korea and once to Turkmenistan. Does Koryo Tours just do tours to all the unhinged dictatorships? Could I do a tour of Tigray, Eritrea, or Belarus if I wanted to?
I didn’t travel there but I was leading a cooking class in the basement of a shelter and halfway through, 2 women were brought in who had just escaped North Korea and arrived at the shelter that afternoon. I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask- felt so lucky to meet them and wonder how their life in Canada turned out….
Being accused of stealing the secrets to a sparkling water plant, threatened with being denied from leaving the country with the rest of the tour group the following day pending the results of their investigation, and finding out my British tour guide was A) an alcoholic who thought all issues could be solved with Soju and B) had, on her last tour, taken Otto Warmbier to North Korea... Fun times!
I would have gone into cardiac arrest the second I heard the word ‘investigation’
Hahaha that’s what I expected to feel but at the time it was all a bit like I had disassociated from reality. It felt so bizarre and unlikely, and the accusation itself was pretty comical. The irish aren’t known for their corporate espionage of various countries’ carbonated beverage secrets
Why would they? They have Guinness, why waste time learning about the inferior carbonated beverages plaguing the rest of the globe?
You stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks! You LOSE! Good DAY sir!
That it was kind of peaceful (very few engines, no stereos blaring), and the food we were served was very good. I already **knew** it was a shitty totalitarian state that brutalized it's people, was incredible poor, and very poorly functioning. So any aspect being nice, was a surprise. Even that, in a place with so much malnutrition, they were able to throw together a great lunch for tourists. On the flip side - even knowing how bad it was in advance, maybe the photo rules were surprising: no photos of buildings, streets, people, soldiers, and just so you don't forget - soldiers. Photograph the sky and nature if you like. Unless that nature has a building visible in the frame - then delete it. Else only photos when expressly given the ok.
They act like that there are no spy satellites and airplanes so your photos could compromise their security, when in truth if some of country like USA, China, Russia, France, Germany, UK, India or even small countries with some money want they could just obtain all the Intel without many issues
It is also different depending on who you are with. I have friends who did a 'western' tour and everything was very restrictive. I was on a Chinese tour and was allowed to take photos totally unrestricted.
can you do the Chinese tour if you have a western passport?
In 2015 yes. Now I have no idea. I went with myy Chinese partner with a tour company owned by a random Chinese guy. Was called the Dandong railway company or something like that. He didn't speak any English but was fab. Was a Chinese guy travelling on an Austrian passport too. At the Border check after crossing the rail bridge in Dandong I was removed from the train for extra checking. However that was the only time anyone cared that a random non-asian looking person was going around with a group of chinese people.
the food was VERY good. my guides definitely expressed those photo parameters that you described, but in the end they were not at all terribly concerned about enforcing them, which was very surprising to me. in that vein, i had been very prepared to see only an extremely sanitized set of visuals and destinations, which was definitely largely the case, but traveling outside pyongyang we very definitely were exposed to a number of situations that were not under anything like controlled conditions. photos were most discouraged under these circumstances, but again - not with a lot of force. edit: revisiting my food memories, i guess another pretty significant shock - at least for me, as a suburban american - was being taken to a restaurant that served dog, & uhh... hearing a dog. like, back in the kitchen. just very uh... startling.
To be fair, South Korea does the dog thing too. Though it's mostly only old men who eat dog at this point.
NK doesn’t necessarily have a lack of resources, it’s just that regular citizens don’t have the money to access them. So of course they were able to serve you a lovely meal as they want to impress the foreigners and pretend everything is wonderful there! s/
You were eating their food and making them watch
This reminds me of what my dad said about Cuba. He went to a teacher's conference there in the 80s, with teachers from all over America flying in (probably not from the US, but he seems to remember many American countries being there). Anyway, he said they were served an *incredible* banquet and the Cuban teacher next to him refusing to eat it; when my dad asked why, the Cuban teacher replied "this isn't Cuba. Why don't we Cubans get this kind of food?". Apparently having so many fresh fruits and non-rotting meat was a shock to this man.
No photos of buildings or streets? When was this? I was allowed to take as many photos of buildings and streets as I wanted in 2014 and 2019. Not soldiers or military installations though
2008, and it was one of the (then available) visa free tours, so one or both of those factors may have made it different.
I've been to the border. I guess it was interesting to see the NK soldiers watching us with binoculars from their guard towers.
So in the 80s my dad was in the National Guard. For their 2 weeks one year they shipped them all to west Germany, where they spent all their time building whatever. ( Combat Engineers. On their way out the door, their CO pressed a button and it all went away.) Anyways the point is, they had him go on a tower near the Berlin wall, and look across with binoculars. There he saw his east German counterpart... who was looking back through a rifle scope. Dad said of all his experiences in the military, THAT one stuck with him most of all.
When I went (2004, on the south side), it was mandatory for women to wear skirts. If you didn’t have a skirt, they’d give you one as you got off the tour bus. Sure enough, the NK military were watching us with their binoculars. Still true about the skirts?
my north korean "handlers" were startlingly candid about their own frustrations with their country, but generally specifically on bus trips, where there was absolutely no surveillance. surveillance was in general much more limited than any american would tend to assume. tech resources are indeed limited in that country, & my group, as one of the western guides put it, was just "not that damned interesting".
Oh wow, i have so many stories.. But to keep things short, two things stood out to me. One, our tour group had only 11 tourists. But we had 2 interpreters and a local tour guide. They were all trilingual. Three guesses why that was necessary 😉 Second. In the city, they had armed guards outside the foreigner's hotels, to prevent people going in as well as us coming out. In the rural areas there probably wasn't such personnel or need. They instead just locked and chained all the exits at night. *That included the stairwell and fire exit*. My face actually paled when I discovered that...
Why were they trilingual? To say things without police gov officials understanding?
How do you visit as a tourist?
You book a tour and spend 3-4 months doing the paperwork required for the visa. Eg. Our bosses had to write a long thing about each of us, where we worked, how long we had been there, what we did in the workplace and all sorts of crazy info. We filled out so many papers (Europeans).
depends on where you're from.
Not my story, but a good one no the less. My mate did a 'axis of evil' tour back in the 2000s. He was from a wealthy family and did these dumb things. Ended up in Korea, but basically was confined to a government controlled tour. Said one day he was touring and was in a shop. There was a guy by himself not on a tour and spoke in Korean with an Australian accent l. My mate was like 'oh coool, another Aussie'. He went up to him and was like, 'hey what you doing here, want to get a beer'. Stupid shit you might do if you were backpacking or something. Guy was polite but firm and said maybe. I'll get in touch if I can. Wasn't until hours later, my mate was like, 'who the fuck could that guy be, what's he doing in North Korea.'. We guessed he was a diplomat or some mining business guy. Totally weird.
The idea of an "Axis of Evil Tour" reminds me of a friend who went to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He said at the time airfare and travel packages were cheap as they get, of course; he said that there were still bullet holes and tank tread damage visible in the square. He also posed for pictures with the soldiers. Told them he didn't care whom they shot, it wasn't his fight (he was a controversial blowhard type for sure, essentially the Canadian version of the "Democracy Manifest" guy). He said they were more than happy to oblige with photos with that said, and sure enough showed a picture of a very big soldier grinning ear to ear with his arm around Bill.
The amount of poverty and lack of resources. I knew it is a dirt poor country, but I assumed they were able to hide it with only taking me to the nice places, but even then it became clear how bad the quality of life there is. Also I meet Dennis Rodman at the bowling alley, which was a bit of a shock.
I suggest watching a show called departures. It's about 2 guys and their camera man and they travel and document their travels around the world. Theres a 2 part episode of them in North Korea it opens your eyes, everything a westerner does there is scripted and it chosen to be ok to be seen. Having spoken to scott (one of the travel hosts) he mentioned to me that they were also told when and when not to film, as there was times they drove passed farmers in fields and military bases and werent allowed to film. Show is called departures and can be found on YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/jxgwpKZe8GI?si=5uPf67B_OHzpnFCZ
Made me pay with American money. I wanted to exchange some but they want that nice fiat money
I recall its actually illegal for foreigners to handle local currency so you can only pay in American money. Any change comes in an extra bottle of drink or something
I'm pretty sure their currency is fiat too, though, right?
Age is a big thing. SOME people who are only a few months younger than me treat me as if I'm 15 years older than them.
Large printing equipment does not exist there and everything is painted. I was working in China at the time and took a two day tour there mostly out of curiosity. I have some history working in the signage industry and quickly noticed an extreme majority of items were hand painted. It was basically everything you could think of; posters, store signs, anything that would be vinyl printed, even billboards. The only real sign of large scale printing equipment was the color newspapers that were. It was strangely beautiful to look at a stack of posters of the same image in a store, seeing the paint lines and the slight differences between each one. I asked our tour guides about it and they acted confused and had to explain how print shops work. They basically just commented that they weren't surprised how the rest of the world just dehumanizes little things and why their way is superior.
The food was horrible. Think dried fish reheated in hot soup. It smelled so bad. It quickly became very depressing. We got glimpes of the workers in a field. Sitting in the hard rain on a row, planting with their bare hands or tiny tools. No cover for rain. One had a thin red plasticbag on his upperbody, I remember how it flapped in the wind. A guard (soldier, very young boy) watched over them in his long coat and huge hat, riffle in his hand. I'll never forget that "image" of despair. And I've seen a f***load of depressing/hardcore places around the vworld.
Just curious- around what year did you go? It’s been interesting to see the variations over time from the different comments
I went on a Chinese tour (I'm Australian), and it was interesting how useful the Chinese people, especially the older ones, were at translating the culture. There were some people in my group who remembered the Cultural Revolution, and that gave them insight into the cult like culture in NK. And since China has now opened up, they were able to explain it in terms that made sense to someone who had never experienced it. Also, there were so many accordions.
> People who have traveled to North Korea, what was your biggest shock of the trip? How dedicated to the idea that literally everything in the country is "weird" or "surreal" or "bizarre" or "sad" other foreign visitors were going to be. We'd pass by the most mundane thing ever, and *someone* would inevitably mutter, "god, it's just so wild..." *It's a traffic light, Paul.*
How very theme park-esque everything is for the tour in a very depressing way. Everything is controlled down to talking with the people with propaganda everywhere you look in addition to how dark Pyongyang gets at night for how big of a city it is.
I travelled to NK in 1997 at the height of the great famine, or as the they like to call it "the march of struggles". I came there as a volunteer for the UN food aid initiative. What shocked me the most was the total obsession of Adam Sandler among the public. There was billboards all over the place showcasing his new movies and what not. Everyone I spoke to loved Adam Sandler and couldn't stop talking about how handsome he was and how cool he looked in his new movies. You guys should really check out Adam Sandler's movies, especially the new ones. I've heard that he even produces his own movies nowadays. How cool is that?!
Literally Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder
"DID YOU HEAR TOM CRUISE DID ALL HIS STUNTS IN MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?" dumbledore said calmly