Journalists Get a Rare Look Inside North Korea, A Land Trapped in Time

Kansas City Star ^ | September 18, 2007 | By Tim Johnson

[JACKRUSSELL]

(PYONGYANG, North Korea) -- As soon as you settle into the seat of the Air Koryo flight from Beijing to Pyongyang, it’s obvious that North Korea is a nation like no other.

The plane is a Soviet-made relic with whining engines and small overhead bins. The flight attendants pass out sandwiches in plastic throwaway containers, then collect the containers and plastic cups to be reused.

North Korea is so poor, and so determined to be self-reliant, that it salvages what the rest of the world considers trash.

In contrast to booming, chaotic China, North Korea is an oasis of cleanliness, order and quiet. There is almost no litter: Every item is used to exhaustion. In the countryside, rivers and streams run clean, and forests dot the landscape.

North Korea, it seems, is too impoverished to despoil its countryside. The last Stalinist holdout on the globe, it seems trapped in time, decades out of sync.

But upon looking around, a thought occurs: Is this the past or the future? Could a world so ravenous for resources eventually enter an era of scarcity in which every scrap everywhere must be reused?

The realities of North Korea, a police state, quickly end such reveries.

Tour guides, rather than being solicitous, are often stern and rarely out of sight. They commandeer passports and mobile phones at the airport, and return them upon departure.

“Delete the picture!” guide Kim Hyon-choi scolded one man among a small group of foreign journalists. “You mustn’t take pictures of the bad side of our country, ugly things. … We will confiscate them.”

On subsequent days, however, the rules changed. No photos of soldiers. No photos of the rickety electric trams in the capital. No photos from the moving tourist bus......

[Andy from Beaverton]

[hometoroost]

North Korea - The Democratic Party’s vision for America.

[SpaceBar]

North Korea, it seems, is too impoverished to despoil its countryside.

A radical environmentalist's dream.

[Old Sarge]

The tour guides seemed more afraid of one another than they were of the foreigners, each one whispering in private that he or she wanted to offer more freedom but feared being ratted out by the others.

Yeah, sounds like 2009 already, under the third Clinton term.

[Jet Jaguar]

ping.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The Hildebeast looks at North Korea and sighs wistfully .

[ProtectOurFreedom]

North Korea is so poor, and so determined to be self-reliant, that it salvages what the rest of the world considers trash.

Sounds identical to the plan that leftist envirowackos, globalwarmists, Dems and assorted RINOs have in store for all of us.

[shield]

Such sad looking babies...how sad.

[listenhillary]

Pretty short article. I was expecting a little more substance I guess.

[RushingWater]

A tour guide prepared to take visitors aboard the USS Pueblo, the American spy ship that was seized by North Korea in 1968 and remains a trophy for the communist country.

That face shows the epitome of a communist utopia, hey?

Hmm, a little before my historical memory - how did the US allow this ship to be captured and why does the US still allow them to "show" it?

[TigerLikesRooster]

Bump.

[jaz.357]

why does the US still allow them to "show" it?

IM with you Rush.

Why can't we drop one of them satellite bombs on this thing.

POOF! No mo trophy!

[RushingWater]

Sounds identical to the plan that leftist envirowackos, globalwarmists, Dems and assorted RINOs have in store for all of us.

While they dine on their caviar and Chilean Sea Bass, they will be unaffected by the ribs showing in our children.

[reagan_fanatic]

That ship should be blown out of the water. It is outrageous that the NK’s are using it as a tourist attraction.

[Candor7]

[Candor7]

[sinanju]

I thought all the trees had been cut down for firewood.

That was why they get devastating floods every spring.

[tiki]

Ah yes, waxing poetic on the corpses of starved children. I have heard that they recycle them too, as food.

[SevenofNine]

You know what guys I remember that 60 minutes story where that lone Policewoman directing non existing traffic