If you’ve got the time, money and patience, it is possible to visit North Korea. But only the side of North Korea that the government is happy for you to see. You’ll be introduced to smiling well dressed people, look at office workers with computers and well lit shops with Western goods in them. This ultra-thinly veiled ruse gets harder to maintain as technology develops. With digital cameras and ever smaller devices it’s harder and harder for border control to edit the snaps you’ve taken.
The following photos are fairly recent and come from a trip to North Korea by a professional photographer Eric Lafforgue. This guy was known by North Korean officials to be a photographer, he had published photos of North Korea in 2012 and been asked to take them down but refused. So this time border officials went through the images he had with a fine toothed comb.
The photographer was asked to delete all of the following pictures for various reasons, some understandable from the regime’s point of view, others not so much. Somehow he managed to smuggle the SD cards back and these powerful images were left for him to share.
It certainly is a fascinating insight into the country they’re trying so desperately and unsuccessfully to hide from the West.
This first photo is taken inside a dolphin torture training centre. You are allowed to take pictures of the prisoners dolphins, but not the army. Never the army. They made up about half of the spectators.
As I said, you can’t take pictures of the army, especially not when they are forced to push the dilapidated failure of a bus.
More of the army…
The black market in North Korea is, as the name suggests, illegal. But it is tolerated by the regime. The people at the bottom of the ladder are starving and crushingly poor. The leaders know this fact very well, but are in no position to help and arguably not too concerned for their welfare. Black markets provide a little income for people and actually help keep the country afloat.
Occasionally there are crack downs on these mini-marts but as a general rule they are allowed to flourish. An interesting side effect of this black market is a shift in gender roles. Men work for the state in jobs which are paid pennies and often wages don’t turn up at all. North Korean women are not really welcome in state jobs so it’s down to them to run these “illegal” stalls.
This underground economy run by females means that women are often the primary wage earners; that puts the men in an uncomfortable position. According to UN reports there has been a marked rise in domestic crime as men struggle with feelings of emasculation in this Chinese style patriarchal country.
This photo was initially allowed because it shows workers using computers, but when officials noticed that the computer wasn’t actually working they got rid of it:
People queuing to get on buses to head for work.
Children working in the fields. It’s obvious why they weren’t so keen on the West seeing these…
This next shot is from within the Demilitarized zone on the border of North and South Korea. No photos please.
The next picture was deleted because you shouldn’t be seen mucking around underneath pictures of such serious and revered statesmen. There are many rules and regulations around images of leaders past and present. Each house is legally required to have well maintained portraits on their walls. You can face punishment if you either haven’t got them up, or they are damaged in any way.
Personally I have a life size portrait of Tony Blair hanging on my bedroom wall.
Many kids have never seen an escalator (poor things) so they look at it with a sense of fear and awe.
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I suppose the picture below was banned because this guy isn’t fishing to have a nice relaxing day, he’s probably fishing to stay alive. The regime knows this.
North Korea limps onward only through the donation of aid. But it’s not keen to let people know about it:
Photos of people suffering from malnutrition are of course not to be shared…
Man washing in river…
This is a photo of a defiant young boy that stopped their bus in its tracks.
Kid sitting in the road…
The photographer was told not to use the flash on his camera because it would “frighten people”.
This is a photo of a man having a rest but the officials told the cameraman to delete it in case the Western media thought it was an unattended corpse.
They didn’t like this next picture because they didn’t want the West to think that the people are so hungry they are eating grass. This guy isn’t picking grass to eat. Others, however, are.
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Initially this photo of people painting their street was allowed as it shows a nice sense of community. They ended up changing their minds because they didn’t want people to think it was forced labour.
This man wasn’t properly dressed apparently:
This pic was disallowed because the painting wasn’t yet finished:
The next shot shows a power cut in an art gallery which was blamed squarely on the “US embargo”.
A mother and child relax on a bench. Nothing untoward. The North Korean officials thought they looked like they might be homeless, so it was deleted too.
People taking a break on their long journeys to work…
A woman hurriedly sorts out a man’s collar when she realises they are about to be photographed by a tourist…
The army and a man wearing his hat in an unconventional way…
Soldiers are often seen carrying out menial tasks…
Soldier at rest. The North Korean official line is that soldiers never rest.
Children rescue spilled corn…
I think you’ll all agree that these are some pretty amazing snapshots of life in North Korea. They show just the tip of a very bleak, black iceberg. Pyongyang and the surrounding area are the showcase for North Korea but even in this most carefully monitored of places the truth bubbles violently under the surface.
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What’s Going Viral In South Korea Today
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