Tourism is open only for Russians. It's been closed for the world since COVID.
My friends were there in 2017, and all photos and videos were looked at by a border officer before leaving back then. The border officer could ask you to delete a photo for any reason, including not putting a Kim in the center of the shot.
With NK's population not having freedom of movement, and checkpoints between cities, it's safe to say getting a real picture of how North Koreans really live is hard.
It's so strange that in the age of the internet, we still can't find out how North Koreans live directly from them. It's crazy, but at the same time, it's so fascinating.
I recall a PBS documentary that had video of people who snuck across the Chinese border to film. I remember them meeting a 5 year old boy living on the street who said his mom moved away for work and “she didn’t come back”.
That's actually sort of impressive, that a 5-year-old survives without parents or a home.
In the USA they would be immediately scooped up and placed in a protective foster home of some sort. Teenaged runaways can evade capture and return, but a 5-year-old cannot go trotting around wherever they please. I cannot imagine the fate of a girl in those circumstances.
Surely, this boy could not be surviving without support and guidance from elder allies. I am not sure what "fending for oneself" looks like in NK culture, but I can envision a lot of people taking pity and giving help and handouts of some kind.
My impression was that abandoned children sort of live in bands, the folks sneaking across the border brought them food and money. They were in pretty rough shape visually. It wasn’t clear how long they last.
>Tourism is open only for Russians. It's been closed for the world since COVID.
This is no longer true. They've opened up again in the last year and there's been a small flood of extreme travel of people going.
https://youtu.be/TUmEcL3Feo0
I went there pre-covid and yes they check your camera and tell you which ones to delete. They told me to delete some photos of soldiers. I had transferred photos to an external memory card so didn't matter.
But you're not going to get photos of what life is really like on one of these tours because they take you to places they want you to see.
My friends were there in 2017, and all photos and videos were looked at by a border officer before leaving back then. The border officer could ask you to delete a photo for any reason, including not putting a Kim in the center of the shot.
With NK's population not having freedom of movement, and checkpoints between cities, it's safe to say getting a real picture of how North Koreans really live is hard.