We were stopping on a street corner in the middle of Pyongyang. We were allowed to roam the area freely and take pictures of whatever we liked. The afternoon was setting and the evening was coming up. People were coming back from work. Children coming home from school or after school events.
In the afternoon sun
The scenes we were able to experience were authentic and gave the impression of an almost regular life in this city. I think this is the biggest issue with all images published here. They just don’t go behind the curtains. A thing that I already expected to happen and explained in the first post of this series: Photography trip to DPRK. I have now published 11 articles about my stay in the secluded country of the DPRK. I got requests from journalists to publish some of my thoughts. I’ve consumed half a dozen documentations and still I am no wiser. The country remains mysterious and I can’t see how my publications will change that.
I think I will finish the series soon because I also have the feeling it’s keeping things stuck in my creativity.
The magic cube
One thing I found truly remarkable during my visit was how quick my mind turned from amazement to problem solving. I was thinking about ways to infiltrate the system and change it on a very small scale. Like start teaching computer science and get the students to work on some side project that you could take the resulting source code across the border and monetize their efforts. With the money earned you could cash the students in and start building closer to a commercial operation than what this country has seen in recent years. The problem of money transport would be solved by using encrypted currencies which are not back traceable. I guess that is part of the strategy how the regime keeps things running at this place.
There is no other good than digital intellectual property that you would be wiling to smuggle into or out of this country. I bet the risk of being accused of smuggling encrypted media would suffice to put you into jail or forced labor as soon as someone steps onto that little mine in your pocket. On the other side I bet this country has some highly talented skills and workers that would be more than happy to contribute to something which makes sense in “the real world”.
However the neighbor of South Korea has obviously the same or even major competencies. And setting up business in Korea must be so much more appreciated over there that the thought remained what it was in the first place. A dream.