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nied. The things that can get you denied include living in the
"southern" part of Korea or being a journalist. It's interesting
to note that there is no record of me ever going to the DPRK
in my American passport; they provided their own booklet.
things that stood out
I figured our guides would be the elites of Pyongyang and
basically have been trained on how to deal with "Westerners."
I also thought this means they would essentially know
everything that we knew to better "accommodate" our needs.
I assumed that they knew about the opinions we held and had
access to the same information outlets.
I was very wrong. I was probably right that they in fact are
elites in Pyongyang, and they have the best grasp of the english
language. However, they only receive news once a week.
The week I was there, they heard about the US Imperialists in
Libya (they had no idea Gaddafi was dead) and that a bunch
of wild animals got loose and were all shot. It was pretty obvious
that although we had BBC in our rooms, not even our
guides had access to this channel. I'm not exactly sure how
they controlled this from internal hotel staff. During my trip,
I was a firm believer the more comfortable our guides felt
with us, the better our trip would be. We *only* asked vanilla
questions, always asked permission before taking photos, etc.
It was pretty easy to get answers without having to ask our
own questions. I remember when my guide asked me, "Have
you ever had pizza before?"
Part of the custom of visiting the DPRK is bringing a gift
for your guides from your home country. I thought it would be
really cool to bring my guide an iPod shuffle with music that
represented America. I debated what I should put on it (What
would be the most valuable type of music to a DPRK guide
in Pyongyang?) and ended up with the top 100 Billboard hits.
Turns out my guide had never heard any other type of music
besides Korean and a little music from some of the American
movies she saw. She didn't know the titles of what she has
seen, but one of them was about a "girl who would sing and
dance on top of the bar." (Coyote Ugly?)
I spent a good part of the three-hour drive to the network
DMZs explaining some of the genres like country, rap, and
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