ITavisen-exclusive : Hence, it went almost wrong.
(ITavisen-exclusive 
Read part one: Change visited North Korea – as the world’s most extreme and isolated country.
Supervised
Change confirms a trend we have seen previously from documentaries about the country: one is cautious, it is possible to sneak a little off the beaten track and the snokete “mind holders.” This is a sign of some easing that they look the other way, but they do not hold the door open for you. At the same time that the scheme is softer for students.
Still, the guide follows the always with, and that you will always be within line of sight.
Change: – Are you at the hotel you are not allowed to go out, then you will quickly overtaken by armed guards. We had several cases of innocent deviations during the trip. One of the people in the group went three quarters and bought sausages. It was too much, and something they whatsoever not allow. When the person came back with a sausage in his hand realized the female guide what had happened and was terrified of what might happen to her.
Armed guards are everywhere. Change and group witnessed guards “confiscated” phones – not to see if they had taken illegal pictures, but to get a glimpse of the outside world.
Change: – It’s a bit strange, but when one is in it so one feels not caught, one feels free, but within a given frame. They are hospitable, but also specific, especially when they did not know us well enough. They were looser in the collar as time went by. For any other country would have been extreme, but since we are talking about North Korea felt framework around the visit almost mild.
ITavisen : – Did you get permission to use mobile or other electronic device?
Change: – Yes, actually. I had already hidden files in Android Explorer, including a highly critical book regime, and mobile has of course GPS. Several times it appeared that we were completely elsewhere than what the guides told us! What certainly was not allowed was camera with GPS logo . They understood clearly that it was not GPS on mobile ours. Flash drives and SD cards? They were absolutely hysterical when they saw that.
– At some checkpoints they know what they’re talking about, but not everywhere: I did bring my Galaxy S6 having explained, that no, this mobile contains no GPS. All my belongings were logged and photographed. Brand and serial number registered – this to make sure nothing is left.
Technology in a closed country
Information is what is going to overthrow the regime say the experts but things take time in a country where leaders have maintained a ban on self-set radios for over 50 years.
Change: – You can only buy radio’s which are plumbed and tuned to a frequency; State channel. If you are lucky and have a complete radio one can listen to Chinese and South Korean broadcasts, but just close the border.
ITavisen : – It happened something important in 2005, what?
Change: – To keep the population under control is the most important weapon strictly controlled information flow. This they have managed with an iron grip until 2005. Since 2005, experts have seen that the regime in the process of unraveling due to information dissemination is happening at an accelerating rate. They try to keep out the cameras, flash drives and PCs, but we see that technology has come so far that even North Korea fails to control everything.
– What we now see is that the lower the elite , maybe even upper middle class have access to a simple smart phones and PCs. It has grown up an underground illegal entertainment: Western film, South Korean film and pop as well as international news. The family has a laptop or smart phone, they can easily buy movies Skyfall (a favorite when I was there).
It is difficult for us, absolutely impossible in fact, to understand how it can be not having any kind for show how the world works.
A blank world
Change: – They see only a blank map. They have no idea of how Europe and the United States looks. Their notion of the United States is a capitalist hell where residents live as slaves, guided only by the desire for capital. Of those I spoke with were familiarity with nations outside England and France nonexistent although the guides had naturally somewhat better idea after repeated exposure.
– What we see is that when North Koreans are exposed to Western culture , be it James Bond or pop from the south, we see that it changes the vision residents have on the outside world and themselves. They begin to understand that the propaganda they’ve been fed since childhood inconsistencies. A student at one of the national universities talked eagerly about India after seeing “western inspired media.”
Therefore we are now seeing an increasing number are regime-critical. It’s not that they have not realized that they are fed lies – they have known that something is wrong, but they have been without enough information to white what is right . Some of this information they receive now thanks to technology-flow regime is unable to stop.
Change: – I tried to explain an English speaking guide what Google is. It is not easy to do above a person who does not comprehend that there can be a global information system that can find all of human knowledge. It set very far inside. I did not convinced him that this was real.
– He thought it was pure propaganda, but then I show him the Google Translate to translate from Korean to English … he gets totally jaw drop. Future Technology for someone who does not realize it, is the same as magic (Arthur C. Clarke: “ Any Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic “). This was such a moment. That he could put his finger on the display, draw Korean characters then be translated on the fly was pure magic for him.
scary hotel with hidden floor
ITavisen : – You say you were watched in a hotel room, how can you be sure?
Change: – We can not, but if you search for “pyongyang hotel 5th floor” shows the that they have hidden an entire floor of the hotel. One can go there via a staircase. One finds bolted doors and regime propaganda on the walls. This floor believes many are made exclusively for monitoring. Tourists have experienced the things they have said confidentially in the room, has been followed up by the regime without that they could have been joined by what was said except by eavesdropping.
These are ordinary people who are trapped in a propaganda game they have been since they were little, and it is clear that characterizes them, nevertheless sees humanity in one every man also in North Korea. I’m glad that I got confirmed. It is the regime we should be critical of – not population. They are what we would have been if we had been in the same situation.
ITavisen : – What is the most dangerous thing you can say in the street?
Change : – Without doubt to say anything negative about the leaders. The death penalty, even for Westerners. Oh waving a South Korean flag will probably be very scary, and it is of course also finished if you tear a poster with the leaders in the street. The proliferation of religious materials are also strictly prohibited.
Pure fear
ITavisen – You experienced something sinister on his way out of the country . What happened?
Change: – We took the train from Pyongyang to the border with China to the north. During this trip I noticed that I had lost the camera that was recorded by the regime and who had an SD card in it. SD cards take those mentioned very seriously. I had to go up there to the professor and explain that I was in big trouble. The first thing he asked me was if I had lost the small visa-tag. Without it I would not have come out. It turned out namely that it is almost as bad to lose a camera with SD card in. Both were recorded at me on arrival, and I would be examined upon departure.
ITavisen : – What you risked?
Change: – I would probably gotten away with a few days person in jail, something that happened to a tourist for a while back. The person concerned was then served fried dog meat after they hit the same dog in front of him for dinner. It is cruel enough, but I was also very aware that it was good to be Norwegian. As an American, I had been sent directly to one of North Korea’s many prison camps.
– Having said that, it is advantageous to be white, so long as one is not American. They treated us Europeans significantly better than the local Chinese and the local Hong-Kong. It is obvious racism elements in their culture.
Corrupt thousand notes
Change explains that the otherwise always quiet professor was extremely stressed and wide-eyed: – We were sitting around hour and discuss how we should deal with the situation, since there was talk of a new border post this time. We began to wonder if they had information about what I had with me between the two border stations, and if so was the case, how we should deal with this?
– Fortunately the professor with the nearly 20 000 in cash for just being able to bribe us out of this situation. North Korea is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, so it is just to spend money. But while this was a serious incident that we were not sure whether we would be able to pay us out. The 20-strong group was in danger of being stopped, after it had the cage me inside first.
What happened to change eventually? Yes, the guards examined everything, and the camera was found, just before the control station. For a thriller: the bag had his rent, and the camera fell out.
– After we arrived at the border station, we found the same time that the control system had huge holes. No one had control over what we had with us in because the computer system had failed in the meantime. So even though I really had lost the camera I’d been lucky enough to escape with fear, and I am very, very happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment