Ask me about North Korea

Today we continue with discussing the impressions of the people, who travelled to North Korea back in the pre-COVID era. In this episode, Mr. Vitaly Konovalov, who went to the DPRK in 2009 for professional purposes, shares his experiences of staying in that reclusive authoritarian state and draws parallels between the North Korea of 2009 and Brezhnev’s Soviet Union.

People fleeing from North Korea are not a new phenomenon. Since the division of Korea after the end of the Korean War, citizens of the DPRK have fled from their country for not only political or ideological, but also economic and personal reasons. So, the area from which my question stems is quite well-studied – there have been hundreds of interviews, media reports, memoirs, and research articles written in this area. However, in this episode I would like to give you a quick introduction on the topic and, more importantly, explain why the numbers of people fleeing from North Korea has been dwindling even before the COVID-19 outbreak.

For quite some time I have been meaning to talk about how people travel to North Korea – not for diplomatic or political purposes, but just as ordinary tourists or business people. Even though I could have recorded a more or less standard episode in my attempt to answer that questions, I thought that perhaps there could be a more interesting way of telling you about this. So, after some pondering, I came to the conclusion that there is no better way of doing that than asking someone, who had actually visited the country. Hence, in this and in the next episodes two different people will be talking about their stories and impressions of traveling to the DRPK.

Kim Yo-jong is another member of the Kim dynasty, who has recently been attracting a lot of attention on international social media platforms. Being Kim Jong-un’s sister, she is seen as one of the key members of the narrowest circle of top North Korean elites with many media speculating about her being Kim Jong-un’s potential successor. But how did she get to that position and what is her role in the North Korean authoritarian system?

You will find out in this episode!

When browsing some Western media outlets, you might encounter a misplaced stereotype about North Korea being a Chinese puppet. Others argue that these two countries are very close allies, recalling how Mao Zedong called the relationship as close as ‘lips and teeth’. However, the reality is that Sino-North Korean relations have never been particularly easy or straightforward. They have been marred by complex twists and turns of history and even today the national interests of both nations remain at odds. Today we will together explore the history and current political intricacies of the Sino-North Korean relations.

In North Korea, your wedding is not just your moment – but also a ritual demonstrating your filial piety both to your family and to the state. So how do North Korean weddings look like? How do families prepare for them? What are the main wedding traditions? Are they similar to the South Korean ones? I talk about these questions in today’s episode.

Living in a lockdown is never easy, but it is especially hard when you are stuck as a foreign citizen in North Korea. The numbers of international expats, who live and work in North Korea usually as a part of some foreign missions or international humanitarian organizations, have never been high to begin with. With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, their numbers have fallen drastically. In this episode, I am explaining how the situation looks for them right now and why this decrease in foreign residents living in the DPRK might have negative humanitarian consequences for the country’s general populace of North Korea.

Palace or military coups is something that you often witness in a variety of different autocracies – ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe; from one-party authoritarian regimes to personalistic dictatorships. However, you probably have never heard about one happening in North Korea. Have there been any coup attempts in the DPRK? Were they successful? What does it mean in political terms? Today I will be talking about these questions at the request of one of the listeners!

Leisure is an essential part of humans’ daily lives – wherever we are, we try to carve out some free time for our hobbies ranging from watching TV-series to going on mountain climbing expeditions. After all, working all the time is physically and mentally impossible. Thus, even in the most authoritarian of countries, both the state and the people have to think about the questions of leisure. So today, I will be talking in broad terms about how the leisure and entertainment industry in the DPRK looks like today.

Kim Jong-un is one of the most well-known leaders in contemporary world politics, who gets a lot of press – and a lot of very bad press. Despite that fact, very little is actually known about him as a person and, especially, about his early years of political career before becoming the leader of North Korea. While he is often seen by many Westerners as a rather comical figure due to his cartoonish appearance and body constitution, Kim Jong-un is actually one of the most cunning and Machiavellian politicians in East Asia. Kim Jong-un’s rule was transformative for North Korean society as it began to improve economically but became even more oppressive politically. This episode focuses on Kim Jong-un as a political personality.