In Welcome to North Korea. Rule No. 1: Obey all rules, Steve Knipp describes his trip to North Korea’s Diamond Mountains, a tourism development run by South Korea’s Hyundai:
A Hyundai executive half-jokingly says that his company’s excursions are called ‘Don’t Do It! Tours.’ Cellphones, laptops, telephoto lenses, and powerful binoculars are strictly verboten. Visitors must wear photo ID tags at all times. Photos are forbidden inside the DMZ and in the North. You are not to point at a North Korean, and, in the unlikely event you talk with a resident, you are to avoid any political statements.
Two years ago a South Korean woman reportedly asked a North Korean why President Kim Jong Il was the only fat man in the country, and was detained for several days as a result.
Melodramatic, but effective:
Driving slowly in convoy, we trundled past 12-foot-high barbed wire fences, over small bridges with massive concrete tank traps (each mined with explosive charges), and, finally, past smiling South Korean soldiers standing inside sandbagged guard posts.
Those were the last smiles we were to see for the next 72 hours.
It gets crazier:
Our convoy continued northward through dry, rugged terrain that evokes the landscape seen in old cowboy films. But Hollywood Westerns don’t have armed North Korean soldiers standing at attention every 100 yards, mile after mile, every one holding a red flag. Should anyone decide to sneak his camera up to the bus window, a flag would be raised, and presumably the bus would be halted.
Here’s the real question:
In a nation where the average monthly salary is $47, North Korea earns $50 for every foreigner who visits. Moralists might question the wisdom of giving money to a harsh totalitarian regime. But the UN’s World Tourism Organization endorses the Hyundai program as a way to help reduce poverty in North Korea.
The money goes to a harsh totalitarian regime, but the UN supports the program? The money goes to a harsh totalitarian regime, so naturally the UN supports the program.