The Boston Globe has a bleak but fascinating gallery of photographs from North Korea.
They were captured on a tour of Chinese visitors. I can’t say that Pyongyang looks like an inspiring destination…
If you’d like a game to occupy your afternoon with, count the lights in this photograph.
A caption informs us that the North Korean government is trying to show the “vitality and possibilities of their country”. Here’s the picture it’s attached to…
Children, by and large, are the happiest of people. It says a lot about North Korea that they couldn’t find a genuinely happy child.
September 24, 2011 at 1:41 pm
The top photo looks like Croydon. The link to the globe gallery shows the Metro where they use old Berlin Metro cars with the old German graffiti still scratched into the windows.
I’m something of dictatorship tourist, having made it to Yugoslavia, Belarus, Syria and the unrecognised state of Transdinistria, I’d love to go and see North Korea. Say what you will about totalitarian states they are fascinating placed to visit.
September 24, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Oh, no doubt. One thing about North Korea, thought, is that it’s so totalitarian I’m not sure what they’d let you see. There was a fascinating programme on a group of pro-North Korean activists…
September 24, 2011 at 4:04 pm
well, they let Pete Hitchens in. Make sure know one from HP sauce sees this video, they’l go into overdrive.
September 24, 2011 at 4:20 pm
I doubt it. There’s a limit to which one crazy Timothy Spall look-a-like can be made to represent da Left.
This one’s interesting ‘cos he insists on questioning the guides, which seems a little dangerous. One “wrong” answer and they might be for the chop…
September 24, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Isn’t Timothy Spall the Hitchens senior look-a-like? I like how all the tour guides are just thinking ‘whattah twat’.
September 24, 2011 at 5:30 pm
That’s the feller. But he and this bloke don’t have the Hitchens sneer.
September 24, 2011 at 7:42 pm
I always thought that Pete is actually rather dashing when he loses his almost permanent disproving-pompous expression.