Not the North-Korea we have come to know?

Anybody who knows me should know that I am fiercely anti North-Korea. Or at least, I was until recently. Take a look at this photo gallery by the Denver post - http://photos.denverpost.com/mediacenter/2011/11/photos-north-korea-in-autumn/23651/#name here

Does that look like the despotic hell hole of country we have been told about all our lives?

Despite what you may think about the guy, This video by MRN is pretty interesting too. (This thread isn't about him though, so I'm going to ask that you don't go bringing up whatever opinions you may have about him.)Also, compare the documentary below to the pictures in the previous link.

How doesn't hate North Korea?

It's certainly not a nice place to live in, it's also not a bunch of people dying in the streets and Hell fire burning alive anyone who resists the glorious rule of Kim-Jong il. I would find it to be something like a Banana Republic.

Yeah. I'm not saying it's super-fun-happy-land. But I'm starting to think that maybe.. Just maybe, the truth is exaggerated. Just a bit.

If I was to live in a socialist state I would pick Cuba, it's a lot better than NK. Doesn't seem to be a lot of cars in the street in those pictures.

A large quantity of propaganda will keep the people from resisting the rule of Kim Jong il!

Dammit, Ler, nobody said it was hell, just that it is stupid.

It's a little hard to make cars when such a large portion of the world has trade sanctions on you.
And yeah, I'd pick Cuba or Venezuela. They are probably the most 'Real' socialist countries on the planet right now.

@Battleearl/Shaw - Could you both elaborate on what you meant?

Well I meant that you make it seem that everybody thinks that North Korea is pure evil and oppression, when in reality it's just a stupid excuse for a nation.

Cuba seems to be moving away from it's socialist past, recently the housing market has started to join the free market.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/uk-cuba-housing-idUSLNE7AA01P20111111
Venezuela's economy is stagnant and socialism will only exist there so long as Chavez can keep spraying oil money the discontent.

Private enterprise exists in Venezuela. Chavez bullies them with anti-business practices, but he's not removing them from their businesses and doesn't have plans to. If Venezuela is socialist, so are Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

And an extremely backwards nation at that.

Socialism is dead, Social Democracy is flourishing.

I liked the VICE Guide to North Korea. Feel free to watch all 14 parts. One thing that strikes me in all these pictures and videos is how empty North Korea looks. And how Orwellian it is.

Hahah, no, you're not alone. I'd like to see it too. I just want to see this place with my own eyes, look at the statues, the people in uniforms, the commie blocks. My father had a similar fascination with the USSR too...he told me a lot when I was younger just how much he wanted to visit it before it collapsed.

Same here, I'd love to visit the DPRK, just seems like a world we in the West have never experienced, and that makes the place very interesting to me. Sometimes I wish the USSR still existed today so I could visit it too and see it with my own eyes instead of merely learning about it in history books.

I wish there was a student exchange program with the DPRK.

On the VBS documentary I posted (if you watch a few more parts in), the main traveling guy Shane Smith says that going to North Korea was like going into a time machine. There are no concepts of modern music, art, or pop culture. For him, it was like going into 1930s Russia or China at the height of Maoism. I'd love to see this kind of society, just because there's no place else like that on earth. Even here in Germany during the Cold War, the East Germans at least had access to Western TV and could watch it, and see what was happening on the "other side." Besides travel being heavily restricted, pop icons like Marlene Dietrich, David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen could still visit and preform in the Eastern Bloc. North Korea, on the other hand, is just so closed.

I sometimes wonder what it's like to be working at a foreign embassy in Pyongyang, or being a North Korean foreign service worker at an embassy overseas. I walked passed the North Korean embassy in Prague once, and I had to think to myself what exactly do they think when they look outside their windows.

I think that it is foolish to think of N. Korea as some kind of hell hole. However, there are many other places I'd rather live.