Starting off with North Korea

It's odd. Having waxed on about how having a blog was going to be my metaphorical window into the big, fascinating world AWAY from my housewifish life, the only thing I've written about so far IS about precisely that. And at rambling length too.

No more!

Would it be too strange, in this search for interesting things, to start with North Korea? (I've just asked R, who has responded, overly-patiently, "It's your blog, do what the hell you want.").

So, North Korea it is. I have been both intrigued and horrified by the little I know of this bizarre totalitarian state for some time. One can only imagine what it must be like to live under such massive daily constriction and golly, there are so many things I would dearly love to know. You hear so much about starvation, natural disasters, disasters through industrial accident and desperate economic mismanagement, that it's nigh on impossible to form any kind of picture at all.

During our years in Japan, there was constantly simmering hype about the place (unsurprisingly when one considers the North Koreans are not adverse to lobbing a few missiles over Japan for practice): for instance, we were often urged to be alert near the Weatern coast line because "North Korean's whizz across the Sea of Japan in magic submarines and snatch you back to spy". It is indeed no truer joke than it need be, as cases of kidnapped Japanese being forced into NK espionage are well-doucmented. However, I was never quite sure about the magic submarines.


Anyway, these photos by Eric Lafforque are indescribably fascinating. I now want to meet Mr Lafforque and bombard HIM with my uninformed questions, and even more, I want to go myself. When you follow the scant yet horrific reports which come out of North Korea, and try to create your own images, you cannot fail to be struck by the vibrancy or the beauty of these photos.


If anyone can tell me anything more about this country, I would be massively eager to listen. I would also like a North Korean friend but I imagine that might be harder to organise.

AFTERTHOUGHT
I was living in Japan when Kim Il Sung died in '94 and was utterly confounded by the endless footage of small children, young soldiers and middle aged workes alike, all howling hysterically and banging their heads in what seemed inconceivable outpouring of public grief. Let alone the newscasters sobbing through their broadcasts announcements.



Ok, it's not actually a giggle to watch but I DO think it's worth seeing, if only to digest, for a sobering second, how different other people' s lives can be. Fascinating and frightening at the same time.