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I took a trip to North Korea. (Pic heavy)

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I

Izuna

Banned
I mean... we have people giving us material like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdhSuJ47Zqw (Street Food in NK by Indonesian dude)

is it really worth giving money to the regime, however little, to see how fucked up NK really is because of said regime?

edit: propoganda store video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYJ9u0sEE4
some awesome customer service where the lady rips off how much betteries he needs, and doesn't require him to buy the full packet. haha, the one good thing about communism?
 
T

The Omega Man

Member
SuperBanana said:
The government is very fucked up like I said. Did I ever say that wasn't the case? You pity the people there and it's a very different, bizarre, and disturbing place. However, it's also a beautiful country with friendly, respectful citizens and you hope in their life times things will get better, not worse, and not a war. People are like "Why don't we just blow it up and stop the camps?!" but a lot of those people would fight and die against an invading force simply because their entire life is their country. It's nationalism cranked to 100. There's no easy solution.
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Nobody here has said that, but the fact that you went to NK as a tourist and supported whatever tourist industry they might have is pretty disgusting, sorry that's just how it is.
Nobody questioned NK has nice good working people, you didn't discover anything new.
 
S

SuperBanana

Banned
kess said:
Ah, yes, the evil American government. But tell us more about the riff raff from Alabama and Texas and how their punishment is justified. I trust there are suitable punishments for disturbing what must be an ideal society.
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What? I'm talking about the 3 TRAVELING Americans.
 
R

richiek

steals Justin Bieber DVDs
Bronetta said:
I wanna fuck Miss Puk
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trre.gif
 
R

reckless

Member
SuperBanana said:
How so? Everyone who went is fully aware of what NK is. No one left being like "Aaaah these guys are pretty cool!". And we're told from the start a lot of what we see is the 5 star treatment. It's the bits around that that's the more interesting parts though. Riding the subway, going into the department store, taking the train and seeing the little towns you can't visit go by. Ect.
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The whole we totally went to a random store with random people and it's totally not fake or anything.

Talking about the farmland and how everyone gets food and housing. (Just ignore all the starving people)

The general it's not so bad, I totally saw what it's really like on my completely scripted tour.
 
G

Gin-Shiio

Member
In my opinion, trips like these are valueable for the insight they give us into the regime, including the lies they feed to outsiders. Someone mentioned Nazi Germany, and I'd have said the same then.
One must realize that the number of tourists they get is abyssmal - and thankfully so - that any monetary support that this offers to the regime is hardly worthy of note, and again, imo, outweights the negatives.
 
F

FelixOrion

Poet Centuriate
if i knew the rooms were gonna be bugged I'd do the Code Talker thing and talk in a language obscure to N. Koreans, like Lakota or Esperanto or Klingon or something. No way NK has translators for those.
 
V

VendettaRed07

Member
Fenderputty said:
The OP even wants to buy a possible future export of their beer so he can send more of his money to the regime. lol holy fuck.
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That I found troubling as well.

Like even in a scenario where NK did try to bottle and export beer, it would be incredibly illegal to even attempt to import it here
 
G

Great Rumbler

Member
Like believing that everything at Disneyland is real because they successfully hid the areas where the actors go to smoke and change clothes.
 
G

GAMEPROFF

Banned
reckless said:
It literally the same tour as every other tourist, you don't have freedom to go anywhere else.

The tour is literally just propoganda.
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Doesnt changes that this is still super interesting. And I hate how everyone here gets batshit because they dont read what he is posting or act like he is some shill because he liked the beer.
 
S

SuperBanana

Banned
Cobalt Izuna said:
edit: propoganda store video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYJ9u0sEE4
some awesome customer service where the lady rips off how much betteries he needs, and doesn't require him to buy the full packet. haha, the one good thing about communism?
Click to expand...

The store we went to was nothing like that. It was big, packed full of people, and from how everyone reacted they weren't expecting us. Walking over to where the beer that people were drinking everyone pretty much stopped and looked at us like "What the fuck are these people doing here?". It was really awkward. The grumpy guide wanted us in and out quickly too and seemed annoyed the other two agreed to stop there. If it was set up then it was done way better than the other stuff they did.
 
M

Mega

Banned
Overall, it's a weird country. It's poor but not as poor as I thought. There aren't people eating tree roots or fully emancipated. I can't claim I know every part of the country but I saw as much as any westerner will ever get to see for a long time. Even the country towns we went past are clearly poorer than the cities but they seem like many other Asian countries such as Vietnam or even parts of rural China.
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Yeah... no. You saw and photographed exactly what they wanted you to see and photograph. It's like someone said earlier... some of your pics are exactly identical to photos of past NK visitors, down to the angle. You went on an extremely tightly controlled tour where you were witness to exactly zero of the many horrors of NK and walked away with the totally wrong impression that it's like any other Asian country. This illusion included the interaction you were allowed with the "hard-working but not as poor as I thought" people. You didn't meet the people starving and in crushing poverty.

You saw absolutely nothing except the dictatorship's best effort at Disney-ing up their country.

SuperBanana said:
The store we went to was nothing like that. It was big, packed full of people, and from how everyone reacted they weren't expecting us. Walking over to where the beer that people were drinking everyone pretty much stopped and looked at us like "What the fuck are these people doing here?". It was really awkward.
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Actors with a mix of genuinely surprised people, all still a part of the version of NK you're allowed to see. C'mon, don't be this naïve. It was all propaganda to convince you the country is doing just fine. It appears to have worked.
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
The problem, OP, is that you tried to glean an unbiased opinion about the country from this trip. It's not possible. You say you could spot what was fake and what wasn't, but in a country that is so focused on propaganda and essentially brainwashing its citizens, you didn't see ANYTHING they didn't want you to see. You didn't hear anything they didn't want you to hear. That fact that you're seeing their side on anything is proof of that.

I mean, the pictures are cool, and I'm not going to say you shouldn't have gone, but I can't take your opinion of the country as anything of substance.
 
M

mollipen

Member
Kim Jung-un's rule over North Korea was on the brink of collapse, but then SuperBanana decided to go, and his tourism dollars saved the government at the last minute. So sad the freedom they could have had if you hadn't have been so selfish, OP.

And yeah, super curious to know of any prices you might have seem for particular items, to see how the exchange rate is.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
GAMEPROFF said:
Doesnt changes that this is still super interesting. And I hate how everyone here gets batshit because they dont read what he is posting or act like he is some shill because he liked the beer.
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It's not interesting. It's fake, and is also the same post from two years ago. It's disgusting.

mollipen said:
Kim Jung-un's rule over North Korea was on the brink of collapse, but then SuperBanana decided to go, and his tourism dollars saved the government at the last minute. So sad the freedom they could have had if you hadn't have been so selfish, OP.
.
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Yes because that's why the OP is getting slammed. What a fucking oblivious post.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
SuperBanana said:
The store we went to was nothing like that. It was big, packed full of people, and from how everyone reacted they weren't expecting us. Walking over to where the beer that people were drinking everyone pretty much stopped and looked at us like "What the fuck are these people doing here?". It was really awkward.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but this would have been an interesting thing to snap.
 
mhayes86

mhayes86

Member
Great story, and glad that you enjoyed your trip! NK is fascinating to hear about from tourist's perspectives, but...

SuperBanana said:
If you're wondering if our hotel rooms were bugged, yes, they were. However, we were told they really only bug them for diplomats and important people and probably don't even have them turned on for us. They don't care what we do or say in our rooms. We can wander around the entire hotel and even walk outside but we can't leave the premise. They also collect our passports here and don't give them back until we leave.
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Nope, nope, nope, nope.
 
D

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Kinyou said:
A photographer from London recently managed to take some prohibited pictures

http://nextshark.com/michal-huniewicz-north-korea-trip

The one of the almost empty supermarket is probably the most noteworthy.

D2LZ1Er.jpg
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you know that's probably fake. These places are just stages for westerners.

I remember seeing some photos from a guy who went to NK and when his train turned up at the station there was loads of people rushing around but they were on literally the only train. It's super weird.
 
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