What's It Like to Be a Tourist in North Korea?

On special guided trips, arranged for tourists and permitted by Pyongyang, Patrick Chovanec, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, has twice visited North Korea. On each trip, he and his fellow travelers were accompanied by official guides, only permitted in certain areas, and asked to delete "objectionable" photos from their digital cameras. Yet the visits afforded Chovanec a rare glimpse inside the Hermit Kingdom.

FP recently caught up with Chovanec to share his experiences to take us, vicariously, inside Kim Il Sung's mausoleum, a North Korean classroom, and a gilded casino that has seen better days. What we learned: North Korea is indeed a real place, where ordinary people must make due in extraordinary circumstances.

Foreign Policy: When were you in North Korea -- and where did you visit?

Patrick Chovanec: I've made two trips to North Korea. The first was two years ago, in October 2008. I visited the capital, Pyongyang, and some surrounding sites including the DMZ [demilitarized zone]. It was organized as part of a special U.S. citizen tour invited to witness the Mass Games. At the time, we were told our group marked the 1000th U.S. citizen to visit the country since the end of the Korean War.

I just returned from my second trip in July. This time I saw a very different part of the country, the Rason "Special Economic Zone" in the far northeast corner of North Korea, bordering Russia and China. Only a handful of Americans -- or any Westerners, for that matter -- have been allowed to go there. This is the border zone where the two U.S. journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, were captured last year.

FP: What kind of restrictions do foreign visitors face? Were you free to move about?

PC: Most Americans tend to assume that traveling to North Korea is illegal, like Cuba, but that's incorrect. There are economic sanctions, so you can't do business there, and since there are no diplomatic ties the State Department warns that you're essentially on your own. But the main barrier has always been on the North Korean side, which rarely grants visas to U.S. citizens. That's started to change in the past few years, but only a few groups are allowed in every year.

Visiting North Korea is unlike visiting any other country. It's very restrictive. You cannot bring your cell phone into the country. When you enter, they mark down any books you bring in, and you're expected to take same number out again. Bibles or anything related to [South] Korea is prohibited. Each group has two "minders" to keep an eye on everyone. You cannot leave the hotel without a minder, and when outside, you must stay with the group at all times (and that's no joke -- in 2008, a 53 year-old South Korean tourist who wandered off on her own to watch the sunrise was shot in the head and killed by a soldier). You must ask the minders' permission before taking any photo, although most visitors end up taking hundreds of photos anyway. When you exit the country, however, the border guards may review the photos in your camera and make you delete any they find objectionable.

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AALTINDAL

9:30 AM ET

August 17, 2010

Visiting North Korea

Interesting article. Having been to North Korea myself in June, I fully agree Professor Chovanec's last statement about North Korea being a real place. It is a real place and real people live there. It is important to keep that in mind. Despite its poverty and oppression, life does go on somehow.

At any rate, I found it to be a fascinating country. Pyongyang in particular but most country felt surreal in many ways. With the empty and damaged highways and the looks-good-from-distance-but-decrepid-when-you-look-close buildings give the whole place a post-apocalyptic tinge to it. Oddly enough, the emptiness is misldeading. While driving through Kaesong, we saw people leaving an anti-South Korean rally (about the Cheonan incident) and the streets were abolustely packed with people. As you know, Kaesong lost its Special Economic privilages after the incident and there was some anger about the issue.

I guess the limitations one experiences during visits differ significantly between groups, however. I experienced no book searching (although we did have to leave our phones and laptops in the airport lockup) and the only time our photos were erased were near the Koryo Hotel, in a government district. Every other time, we were told to avoid taking photos on particular spots but our guides did not seem particularly paranoid. Likewise, our hotel had access to Western TV channels (BBC and CNN in particular) which came as a huge surprise to me.

One of our guides was in fact quite talkative and was happy to talk to us about his perceptions regarding the currency devaluation as well as the nuclear issue and the military first policy. I loved how he explained the currency devalution: Basically, it was a conspiracy by the finance minister to incite riots in North Korea on behalf of the South and he was talking about how the minister was "revealed" to have been a South Korean sympathiser for years and ran a conspiracy that started with his father who had stayed in the North to act as an agent provacateur for the South. Not sure if he himself believed it but he was part of the privilaged class, having visited the Soviet Union and East Germany in his youth and Austria in recent years. So he probably *has* to believe in it if he wants to keep his privilages. He was a very staunch Korean Nationalist though.

Pyongyang remains mostly alit during nights but every other city goes dark after 10pm. The only exceptions are the monuments of Kim Il Sung which remain fully a-lit. It is to "keep up morale", according to our guide.

Not sure what else to say that hasn't been said in the article without turning this into an essay. Feel free to check my photos if you like http://www.flickr.com/photos/russthecheetah/sets/72157624516829108/

CPTWALL

4:11 PM ET

AALTINDAL - your photos are amazing!

I have never been to North Korea. I have just finished reading: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Your pictures helped illuminate the culture and made it "more real" to me.

One day, I hope there is a Korean Reunification, just as Germany was unified, but I would think it would be very difficult.

Thank you for the photos! They are illuminating!

9:44 AM ET

August 18, 2010

CPTWall

Thank you for your comments ^^

I wish a reunification was possible. The country and the people certainly have potential. Chalk it on the communist work discipline but with proper skills and direction, it would not be hard for them to catch up with thw world if given the chance. There are also many cultural similarities to help but, unfortunately, also huge differences. I myself sometimes feel the time for reunification may be past but a gradual integration through the normalisation of relations would be possible. The problem is just how we get to the point of integration. A sudden shift like Germany would, I feel, problematic. East Germany was the showcase of the Soviet Union and, therefore, most advanced compared to the West. This isn't the case in North Korea and a sudden opening could lead to mass migration as well as destitude for North Koreans. Not to mention other countries would not be happy to bear the brunt for the reunification in this economic climate. Oh well, here is to hoping a change :)

Not sure if you have seen it but there is a documentary buy a Dutch filmmaker about the day in the life of a North Korean family. Gives a lot of insight to the daily life of an (albeit privilaged) family. If you are fascinated by that, you should find this interesting :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIRjJGZa4oQ

PRIDEAUX

12:34 AM ET

August 19, 2010

purely out of curiosity, was

purely out of curiosity, was your guide a somewhat older fellow named 'Mr. Ba' who had a tendency to push to keep everything running perfectly on time? because my guide had travelled to similar places in his youth.

12:48 PM ET

August 21, 2010

Ours was a Mr. Kim (which seems to be their version of "Smith"). Dark haired, tallish, in his late 40s. Mr. Kim had a similar habit too now and then. He seemed very intent on staying on schedule but he wasn't too bad.

On a note, he was just meant to be our minder, not our guide. But our original guide, Ms. Kim's (unrelated) English proved insufficent so he took over.

JKOLAK

10:22 AM ET

The Best North Korean Tourism Video

http://www.strategypage.com/military_videos/military_photos_2010060717227.aspx

SHOEFAN

10:46 AM ET

September 17, 2010

North Korean Videos

There are some interesting videos on youtube about daily life in North Korea.
shoefan

JACKC111

12:46 PM ET

Best North Korean Travel Video Ever

Three parts - about an hour total - shot in HD. Incredible footage!

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3

CANDACECORWIN

12:48 AM ET

My friend

i just sent my friend to read this article. it's funny because today she asked me the question on korea..."which should i visit the north or south ...in korea"? which is the safe one.... you can lookup family history from these sites, C o ndace

12:37 AM ET

International Friendship Exhibition

When I went, I was proudly told that I was the first Canadian to ever go to the International Friendship Exhibition. Re-reading this, I'm thinking that that was more likely North Korean flattery.

I'd also like to point out how open it was possible to be with the guides. By the end of the trip I felt comfortable asking any question, however when I asked about Laura Ling and Euna Lee (at the time they were in captivity), my guides had heard nothing of this and wanted to know more.

Really, an interesting trip.

ATARI5200

12:21 PM ET

August 28, 2010

It's amusing that everyone's photos are so similar

I think it's telling that most (if not almost all) of the photos that visitors take are so similar- everyone follows pretty much the same program...
You can see my own shots here, and it's funny that some of my pictures are even from the same angles as Aaltindal's.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathangroth/sets/72157622889334634/

It was truly the most surreal place I've ever been, but it ended up being much more multifaceted than I expected it to be. The pervasive, driving force of Korean nationalism is something that becomes obvious when you visit, yet is generally ignored or at most, glossed over when western media discusses the country. An exception to this is the work of BR Myers, but most of what I had read prior to my visit downplayed the nationalism considerably.

The raw emotion on the faces of visitors to Kim Il Sung's mausoleum was something that surprised me as well, but this had been tempered by my own visit earlier to the International Friendship Exhibition, which was pretty comical in it's desire to show how much the rest of the world respected the Kim family. My 2 favorite items were part of the Kim Jong Il building, and they were a pair of cufflinks given to KJI by Roger Clinton who was credited on the placard as an American Rock Star (my paraphrasing, sorry, can't remember the exact text) and the cheap plastic menorah given to KJI by the Baruch Society of NY. I assume that was a joke gift from them but one can never be so sure...

NAIUY

6:41 AM ET

September 15, 2010

East Germany was the showcase

East Germany was the showcase of the Soviet Union and, therefore, most advanced compared to the West. This isn't the case in North Korea and a sudden opening could lead to mass migration as well as destitude for North Koreans. it will take more than prison to keep this tycoon away from the company he founded." Search for m2ts converter ? flv to wmv converter. Hulu Downloader

Foreign Policy Magazine

An American business professor, Patrick Chovanec, visits fields, casinos, and kindergartens in North Korea -- and explains how the Hermit Kingdom is and is not like Mordor.

INTERVIEW BY CHRISTINA LARSON | AUGUST 16, 2010

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