Exploring the axis of...
It was an amazing experience to be in the DPRK - not sure I could spend one year there, but if someone paid me enough for a few months of work, I'd do it. I'll have 4 blogs on the country, as there is soooo much to tell. First one should be appearing shortly...
Reply to this I'll have 4 blogs on the country, as there is soooo much to tell.
I was hoping you'd say that. I dont know if I will get to go there or not, so blogs are great. Virtual travel! Did you take many photos?
Reply to this I took almost 2000 photos - but thanks to my netbook I was able to put them all there - at the border only about 200 of my photos were checked - and none were deleted - mainly because all of the possibly suspect ones were already on my computer.
Reply to this 2000! Wow! And cool that you managed to get them out of the country!
Reply to this Reading Shanes blog now. 😊
At approximately 150-200 Euro per day, this is definitely not on the budget destination list.
Geez, that is expensive enough to kill my curiosity!
Reply to this What the blazes is so expensive there??
The dear leader and cohorts have pricey lifestyles I suppose, and the money has to come from somewhere.
Reply to this Reading on. Now I understand.
Guess they spend the money on rockets, sorry, singing satellites.
Reply to this The most striking aspect of this passing parade was the very high number of military type uniforms - they came in colours of cobalt, navy, olive, khaki, grey, and the occasional white. North Korea would have a difficult task to convince the world that they do not have one of the largest standing armies in the world.
Typical communist trait - in East Germany there was no one out of a job. If you didn't have one, you were with the Vopo - Volkspolizei/Border Guards.
Reply to this This equated with seeing women employed in equal if not greater numbers to the men in security work ..
Equal maybe, but the communists did a lot to damage the perception of what it means to be feminist by removing all feminity from it.
Reply to this I saw more uniformed men at the DMZ and along other parts of the border, but most of the guards in other areas were female. I would suspect that the front line army (which is hidden from view) would be mostly men, but it is only a guess. I thought that there was a lot of equality in terms of work in DPRK.
Reply to this I thought that there was a lot of equality in terms of work in DPRK.
Are there women in decision making positions in the power structures of N. Korea. Government leaders? Religious leaders? ...
Discrimination is the same against all groups. Standard to be measured against is set to suit the needs of dominant group and others have to assimilate because there is more to be gained than by not assimilating. So, in N. Korea women are in the army, working in the fields and all the other things that men do, because there is more to gain if they do, or it is the only way to survive, but they do not get to set the standards by being in positions of power. When N. Korea gains democracy many women are likely to reject this ''equality'' in the way they do in former Soviet countries.
Reply to this Simply put we were to photograph nothing unless we had the express permission of either the Guide or the Official.
Which things did they stop you from photographing? Lucky you are so good at describing in words, or else some of us would never realise what it is like to be there. It will likely have completely changed by the time I get there, because right now I am unwilling to pay what it costs to travel there.
Reply to this We could not photograph normal street scenes or anything in front of the vehicle we were in - only behind as we had already passed that way. My theory was this was implemented in case we accidentally photographed a military person. Some rooms which had pictures of the Great Leader we were not allowed to photograph either. It did became tiring after a while asking whether I could take a photo - and since I took 1900 of them, I did a lot of asking.
Reply to this To fully understand the emotions that are nurtured deep within the hearts and minds of the North Korean people, one must understand the enduring love they have for their Great Leader.
Do they really have an enduring love for the Great Leader(in your opinion)?
I kinda got the impression that all that grief was staged for tourists, or that the few who benefit from the Great Leaders version of governing a country are the ones that are mourning and also partly because there are consequences to not putting on enough of a grief show.
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