Who would go to North Korea for a holiday? A dreary, militarised country rife with hunger and oppression, the Hermit Kingdom isn't at the top of most people's travel list. But some Chinese tourists, perhaps nostalgic for the days of Mao Tse-tung, regularly make the trip across the border.

It's not the only traffic, says North Korea expert, Dr Bronwen Dalton. There is a steady flow of information and pop culture crossing the Chinese border into North Korea while drugs and defectors flow back the other way.

Pop culture flows across the Chinese border into North Korea. Credit:David Guttenfelder/AP

The growth of these black markets between China and North Korea over the past few years is evidence of deep-mantle changes in a totalitarian society, says Dr Dalton, Director of the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

"It's the beginning of the end for North Korea," says Dr Dalton, who has organised a photo exhibition that opens today of rarely seen images of the world's most secret country, along with a seminar teasingly titled: North Korea: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll.