North Korea

http://imgur.com/mmqgFW3.jpg

http://nomad2007.blog.sohu.com/304479350.html

That airport and the (old, I guess) Pyongyang airport I experienced have so little in common that I don't even know where to start.

There were no chairs, for starters. Definitely no coffee shop. There was a gift counter, but it was unstaffed so I don't think anyone managed to buy anything there.

I can't remember if there was a baggage carousel, but I'm pretty sure not.

Want to show these pics to my spouse but then I'm afraid we will have to go back in order to see the new airport.

oops, too late. He saw them. I know I will end up back in DPKR one day. At least this time I will have a better idea what to pack.

not that long ago, i watched a Nagisa Oshima film from the late 1960s called three resurrected drunkards. the story was about how three young Japanese guys go for a swim one day and their regular clothes are replaced with Korean military uniforms (don't remember if the uniforms were South Korean or North Korean). they have to walk around dressed up like Korean soldiers, which is bad for them b/c of Japanese anti-Korean bigotry.

i know that there was a period in time when North Koreans kidnapped Japanese people on beaches in Japan. i wonder if this was going on at the same time as or after three resurrected drunkards was filmed.

I believe the kidnappings were in the late 70s, around about the time director Shin Sang-ok and actress Choi Eun-hee were kidnapped & put to work making Godzilla ripoffs

as featured in this book I have not read but have heard good things about
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DqoDFuU7L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

these books are both good

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Leader-Dear-Demystifying-North/dp/9749575695/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436420378&sr=1-1&keywords=great+leader+dear+leader

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Loving-Care-Fatherly-Leader/dp/0312323220/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1436420420&sr=8-18&keywords=north+korea

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/07/north-korea-to-turn-clocks-back-by-30-minutes-to-establish-own-time-zone

I say the Americans, Australians, Indians and who knows who else should do the same and get off Greenwich Mean Time.

Mr Choe was executed after he 'expressed discomfort against the young leader's forestation policy'

Close to 70 officials have been killed under Kim Jong-un's rule, Yonhap says.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150513104648-01-kim-jong-un-0513-exlarge-169.jpg
Kim stands on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in North Korea in a photo taken by North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on April 18 and released the next day by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim scaled the country’s highest mountain, North Korean state-run media reported, arriving at the summit to tell soldiers that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons.

No, this is a great look. The government wouldn't have allowed it to be released if it wasn't.

http://i.imgur.com/kcn9byj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/M7uO8Mr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/LKSqiyl.jpg

v dapper, with the unbuttoned jacket, henley shirt, hands rakishly in pockets, straw fedora
real misery on little guy’s face :(

Is he standing on a landmine in that last pic?

lil general

hmmm

https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/684564391782518785

thought maybe this was about a nuclear natural disaster like fukushima (tho presumably much worse bc north korea is a basketcase) but apparently "Officials at the Korea Meteorological Administration in Seoul reported a magnitude 4.2 tremor and said that the tremor pattern looked “artificial,” not likely to have resulted from a natural earthquake."

oh boy!

Successful h-bomb test, apparently

That would put them ahead of much of the nuclear club.

http://www.nknews.org/2016/01/north-korea-says-it-tested-hydrogen-bomb/

officially non hilarious

Officials and analysts in the South say that the estimated yield, or energy, from the explosion appeared to be too small to be that of such a weapon. - NY Times

so, prob just a really beansy entree

officially non hilarious

Chinese still finding North Korea hilarious.

The hashtags "Fourth Korean Nuclear Explosion" and "Another DPRK Nuclear Test"

汉字 always seems like so much fun

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/world/asia/north-korea-american-arrested.html

The University of Virginia student, Otto Frederick Warmbier

heading over to Great Real Names now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/12135252/North-Korea-bombards-South-with-used-toilet-paper.html

A government spokesman described the North's psychological warfare methods as "immature".

learned Stalin's lessons well:
http://news.yahoo.com/north-koreas-army-chief-staff-executed-report-005503170.html

No new friends

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/12/04004192.jpg

haha

north korea was the only realm from Game of Thrones that survived to the modern age

Is it just me, or does it seem like DPRoK's saber rattling is getting less traction than it ever has?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/north-korea-praises-trump-and-urges-us-voters-to-reject-dull-hillary

Awesome

the Dennis Rodman of American politics

interesting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/satellite-imagery-suggests-china-is-secretly-punishing-north-korea/2016/06/30/8638d8d6-3ee8-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/08/louis-cole-vlogger-north-korea

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/asia/north-korea-executes-deputy-premier.html

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has executed his deputy premier for education and purged two other senior officials, sending them to re-education camps, the South Korean government said on Wednesday.

Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry, said at a news briefing that the South Korean government had used various means to confirm the execution of Kim Yong-jin, the deputy premier, and the purge of Kim Yong-chol, the head of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party, which handles relations with, as well as spying operations against, South Korea. Choe Hui, a deputy chief of the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, was also banished for re-education, Mr. Jeong said.

should send my resume to the agitation department

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/08/18/who-is-kim-jong-un/

iirc this piece goes over a lot of the same ground as the one published on NK in the LRB last year, with the same conclusions (i.e. what an incredible fuck-up). Except it gives Jong-Un a good review, of sorts.

It seems he is actually pretty good at the old totalitarian dictator game. A few pieces I have read in the past seem to have overstated the importance of his gift economy game without even mentioning his frequent liquidations of top brass and clever playing of S Korea's fear of regime collapse to his own advantage.

could regime collapse really be any worse than it is right now? are there really worse actors than kim?

regime collapse = millions of destitute north koreans pouring into south korea

you may be aware of situations in which bordering countries wish to keep our immigrants from poorer neighbouring states?

this thread title bums me out

Can't it get changed to "North Korea: Still Bizarre," or something like that?

you may be aware of situations in which bordering countries wish to keep our immigrants from poorer neighbouring states?

― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Thursday, September 1, 2016 6:13 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

never heard of it

does SK really think of north koreans as foreign refugees? i know that there are still a lot of divided families w/ ties that go to before the division. wouldn't they be happy for an opportunity for reunification? and doesn't kim jong-un being overthrown suggest an opportunity for that? (i really don't know i'm just theorizing)