Last year, when the world seemed on the brink of a nuclear war, my brother and I went to North Korea. As so many others, we had been exposed to the country almost daily through the news, or documentaries. The stories about concentration camps, mass surveillance, and a crazy leader known to execute his opponents with heavy military equipment were far from anything we had ever experienced as 90’s kids growing up in Scandinavia.

We repeatedly found ourselves left with more questions than answers, so we decided to go there and see for ourselves. We knew that visiting wouldn’t answer all our questions, but hoped it could provide us with a frame of reference.

Visiting the country proved to be quite easy. We decided to travel with Young Pioneer Tours, and they took care of everything from visa to train tickets, while promptly answering any questions we might have. From their large catalog of different tours, we decided on “The Real Deal Tour: DPRK”, which offer a rare view of the countryside, and what we hoped would be a more nuanced view of the country.

The Real Deal Tour of North Korea

It was a ten day tour like nothing I’ve experienced before. It was, of course, highly orchestrated. The people we met and the places we saw had quite obviously been carefully selected to tell a story of prosperity and self-sufficiency, which is the bedrock of the political system and the raison d’etre of the Kim dynasty. In spite of this, or perhaps because of this, they failed to hide the extreme poverty of the country. They could not hide the power-outages and the lack of running water, the ox-drawn carriages transporting farmers and withering crops, the old lady in the rice fields gathering grains left from the harvest for her family or the black market. Nor could they hide the rusting trains or streetcars of Chongjin, which once carried workers to the steel-plant. Or the peeled paint on the mascots of the Mount Chilbo national park. The poshest vinylon wasn’t chic enough to hide a forced smile at a post-dinner karaoke.