Visiting North Korea

I am not going to specify the website but I read this traveler’s blog on his visit to North Korea. “It isn’t all that bad and westerners are provided the one-sided extreme perspectives.” It may be. We never know what is really going on in that country. But I do believe in this young North Korean girl who escaped the country and she saved her life. She is an inspirational speaker and I was in tears hearing her speech on one of her videos.

I have had my own shit growing up and felt trapped in some ways in Japan but I cannot imagine what it was like to literally defect and run your life. And your family members are still there and this girl can’t do anything about it. At least I was able to travel outside of Japan, come back and go..but people in North Korea are cut off from the rest of the world. They are terrified of breaking the regime rules because the violators and their families would be in one of those concentration camps and don’t think that you can make it out alive.

That’s how the Kim controls the country and they are extremely wealthy. If they can continue to enjoy their authority and wealth, why would they give that up? It’s a common sense.

I found several western tourists who have visited North Korea..”It wasn’t that bad..” “North Korean people have lives and have places to go to entertain themselves.” Sure I am sure they do and maybe not everybody is starving to death there. But in this modern world, especially in East Asia, people in North Korea don’t deserve to live this way and trapped in the country without any other way out..they would have to risk their lives.

I have seen the stories of defectors on youtube videos and I don’t think these stories were for the show. I think these are the real stories of real people who literally saved their lives. It angers me that this is still happening in East Asia.

Sure there are equally horrible places in the world..Cambodia, child sex slaves in S.E. Asia, Middle East..list goes on but I wouldn’t want to visit these places if any of my travel fees go to their government.

This article highlights the fact that there are everyday people in North Korea who work, live and dance just like anybody else around the world but they don’t know any better so they are not crazy. Thank you for explaining this in articular manner. It is important for the world to have some compassions for these people. Instead of just labeling them as stupid and crazy. It makes perfect sense. After Japan’s horrible occupation, the Korean war started and North Koreans are told to believe in an extreme sided story of which the KIM is the founding father and the god. Without him, “we wouldn’t be here today.” That’s the only version of the history North Korean people learn since they are children. I do feel for these people and I hope that US and other countries can either impose more sanctions to force North Korea to open up to the world or we will have to forcefully open the country in order to free the citizens. The Kim is totalitarian if that makes sense.