Zaruka Loc: Illinois

I returned last week from my sixth trip photographing North Korea and the challenges of photographing life there are always interesting. Much will depend on who you go with and the relationship you have with the guides. I have been doing this since 2008 and I do not recommend this for everyone.
I go to see the harvest and visit factories or places previously not open to tourism.
More photos may be seen at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zaruka/collections/72157647585749360/

Rice Harvest

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North Korean School Bus

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A crossroads in a rural area

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bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thank you for posting and sharing.

David Popham Loc: French Creek, British Columbia

I find it ironic that beneath your three photos is an advertisement for scanning 10,000 Asian females.
While touring through China I had the chance to see some North Korean "fine art". The technique was excellent but the subject matter gave a whole new meaning to the word "banal".
In Vancouver, British Columbia there is an outdoor installation by the Chinese artist, Al Wei Wei, of males with what are perceived to be "happy faces". They are not, they are grimaces. The installation would likely have been destroyed had it been returned to China.
Sometimes I believe that we have no idea just how fortunate we are to live where we live.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

In all these photos it look like N.Korea is a sparsely inhabited, and wealthy country. Are these shots the only ones allowed by the Government. Did you have any freedom to photograph any other locations so as to give a more realistic view of the country?

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I hope you know how and where those ads come from. What you get is not the poster's or UHH's direct fault. PopUp adds bring a little revenue, but you don't have to have them on your screen. They are optional.

I use Chrome for a browser and have "Adblock Plus" installed. I don't see the ads where you do.

Back to the OP's photos, the cultural differences around the world continue to astonish me. I'm getting old enough that I can look back and say that my generation has not been successful in embracing cultural differences. I'm enjoying the OP's photos of a place I will never go to and may never understand.

Zaruka Loc: Illinois

Allowed, well not exactly. While we are taken by minders it is inevitable that we see the rural poverty and things they do not want us to see. We try to photograph as honestly as we can and sometimes they make us erase things. There in an incentive to let us shoot anything - the tip at the end of the tour. They have rules they must follow so we let them do their job. They tell us not to take photos and we sort of respect that by keeping our cameras on the down low or switching to another small inconspicuous camera.
The problem is they cannot hide everything and if you spend time in the country as I have they really cannot hide anything. They are not very good at it anyway. Oh I have seen the bad stuff but the trick is taking the photo and getting it out. That is a high risk venture and I do not recommend it.
They do not like us photographing construction, free markets, misery or the military. Scenery fine. People, no. We do it anyway.

The photos were taken in Pyongsong a city that was just opened for foreigners.

They do not like this at all - construction

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Not approved and would be deleted - bad street scene

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Always approved and what they like

Zaruka Loc: Illinois

I have photographed over 28,000 photos all over the country. I have done things few have and been to closed areas and in military zones. I have been in the country 52 days and seen the inside of homes, factories, many schools, medical facilities, markets and food distribution areas.
Any country is many things and North Korea is no different except that it is the most regimented society on earth. Life is very hard.
I can say I have seen it. I will not display some photos because I would never get a visa again if I publish them.
They are trying to open up and the party members will discuss the opening up of the country. They are very clumsy and have some strange ideas of how to open up. Shooting and arresting tourists is just not a good way of going about opening up to the world.

Harvest in Rural North Korea

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Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Interesting thread. Thanks. :thumbup:

David Popham Loc: French Creek, British Columbia

Zanuka, I do understand just how miserable life can be for some people. As a tourist in China I was propositioned by more than one mother asking me to marry her daughter. The North Korean artwork revealed it through its banality.
Perhaps its new leader can improve its situation.

Zaruka Loc: Illinois

Rural North Korea is somewhat worse than what I have seen in rural China. Rural China is poor and undeveloped but there is hope in the future to migrate to a city and get a factory job. In North Korea there is none of that. The only hope in North Korea is to sell on the street some excess food and maybe someday get an apartment with your family. The restrictions in North Korea are such that you have little or not influence on your future. I will say things are changing but at a glacial pace. The economy is far better than in 2008 and 2009. People even in the rural areas have money to purchase an occasional ice cream during the summer or some clothing from China. The food situation is better yet still a city can be cut off and food shortages can occur.

Textile factory worker


Women's fashion in Pyongyang

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People not in the capitol

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Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

I am fascinated by these photographs and hope you post many more. 8-)

tbohon Loc: Olympia, WA USA

Me too --- and the narrative is wonderful as well.

Thank you for posting, looking forward to more.

Zaruka Loc: Illinois

The first rule you learn in North Korea is "This is North Korea and all rules do not apply." The only thing we have in common with this society is gravity. Signs stating "We do things the Korean way" actually reveal that the society is very Korean. In my political science training we were told to try to separate that which is cultural from what is political. In North Korea it is 99% cultural. The red flags and marching are a thin veneer over a deeply Confucian Korean closed society. Remember that North Korea was always "bandit country" and was closed back hundreds of years ago. When the USS Sherman sailed up to Pyongyang in 1866 the crew was killed after disobeying requests not to come up the river. Foreigners were killed hundreds of years ago so North Korea's actions are not out of the historical character for the area. They do not like any of their neighbors.

The North is stuck in an crazy position but it is one of their own making over the last 65 years and they do ask us as to how they can open up without losing their culture. I tell them you will have to define your culture. My view is that they have a warped vision of Korea - people living in pastoral villages raising their own food. One thing I hear is that we want the freedom to live in our own country and be Korean - not dominated by Japan or the United States but that is still a twisted view. They do not know much of the outside world and the changes that have occurred. The planet went global and they thing they are in 1953. The North Korea of today is a warped idea of what a nation state is. They have borrowed heavily from Imperial Japan, the USSR, the Cultural Revolution in China, everything bad about Confucianism, and the Koryo dynastic period. Nations long ago rejected the USSR model, the Chinese rejected the Cultural Revolution model and Imperial Japan no longer exists. North Koreans exist in a time warp and are really having a problem saying "we were wrong" because it would mean Kim Il-sung, the founder of the DPRK, was wrong. They are caught in a Confucian trap.

They did not like Kim Jong-il. When you go to a monument where both are immortalized you see flowers on the Kim Il-sung side. I have heard comments from locals that tell you what they think. They allude to the disdain. "There was only one leader of this nation!" Yes, I get the sub-text. They are very subtle.

But... one day we asked the guide why the portraits of Marx and Lenin were gone from the Worker's Party of Korea building. He said, "We don't need them any more." If they can do that then maybe they can change.

More photos below. I am posting all the time on Flickr.

Brick making in rural North Korea

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Middle School Boys in rural North Korea

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Propaganda at a Pyongyang Metro station

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Women working in a textile factory

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An apartment construction site in Pyongyang

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Farm workers in a wagon

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Jbat Loc: Charleston, SC

Wonderful photos of a place most of us will never visit. You have far more nerve than I have to visit there considering what happens off and on. Thanks for sharing these interesting images.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thank you again Zaruka.

I have a personal interest in that my DW and I adopted a Korean orphan after I ended my role in the Vietnam war.

There was an an adoption services agency in Oregon called Holt. Their mission was to find a future for kids with a raw deal around the world. Vietnam created a lot of such kids, but oddly, so did South Korea. We were trying to help out a Vietnamese kid. Hold called one day and said politics would never let it happen but they had some desperate kids elsewhere. We agreed to go forward. Our daughter Amy is now 42.

About two weeks after we started the paperwork, politics changed in Vietnam and they loaded a 747 or two with orphans that are now living as adults around the USA.

Zaruka, your descriptions and photos of North Korea provide a fascinating contrast to South Korea. Besides a Korean made daughter, I have various electronics from there! South Korea joined a global community while North Korea did not.

I doubt I will see how it all comes out. It may be that North Korean cultural identity is strong and deep enough for it to remain completely unique and isolated. At the same time, one of you pictures above shows two women wearing fashionable shoes that I would not expect to be allowed!