These are fascinating, but please keep in mind that this is Pyongyang, not North Korea proper. The city itself is managed to look as modern as possible; a more interesting look would be into the villages, where they use horse-drawn carts and have barely a television in each home.
People who live in Pyongyang are selected, usually because of their connection to politicians. The rest of the country resides either in primitive villages or labor camps in the north, where they are barely clothed and fed during the harsh winters.
Unable to log in to post this comment, but there is discussion in the comments about how nobody is smiling. One observer points out that although people in the US and Europe rarely smile on streets, nobody was even smiling in the wedding photo. I'd like to point that if you look at wedding photos from a lot of hispanic cultures from more than a few years ago, you won't see many people smiling either. "Say cheese" may be very ingrained in western / European culture, but it's absence is not necessarily a sign of oppression. I'm sure there are plenty of sinister goings-on in North Korea, but I think it's easy to overlook some key cultural differences and see all sorts of signs that aren't there.
I photo bombed a wedding photo in that same spot. Apparently most Pyongyang weddings include a family photo there, several a day. They were not smiling in their photos, and I don't think the bride smiled at all (the dress and makeup didn't look entirely comfortable). However, there was plenty of smiling in between photos, mostly caused by the awkwardness of our inability to communicate.
That reminds me, I read somewhere that people in North Korea tend to smile when uncomfortable.
In an amusement park, at a bowling alley, at dancing events, in the park, and playing in streams, it seemed like people smiled about as much as you would expect them to anywhere else. I encountered some who wouldn't stop smiling.
What always tends to happen with photos and conversations of certain things (e.g. DPRK) people tend to see what they want to see and manifest their own narrative. Tend to.
Spot on. One should also keep in mind that when photography was something new and rare people also took it very seriously and didn't smile in the 'western' world. If you only get relatively few number of pictures taken over the course of your life you want to leave a respectable impression for the future generations. I'm not sure about how wide-spread and available photography is in NK but that might also have to do with this.
The last photo is very interesting. Why does the plot of Madagascar need to be explained beforehand? Is it noteworthy that they omitted that the initial setting is New York?
Maybe it is to save on energy costs? I imagine most citizens are used to it. Furthermore, if they have never experienced indoor heating, they would not see anything odd about it being so cold indoors.
I saw some photos from Easter Europe before the Soviet Union fell, and the most striking difference to the West was lack of advertisements on every corner.
Looks like a nice place to visit. Too bad this is the "Elysium" (Pyongyang) of North Korea. Where are all the pictures of the political camps and people literally starving to death (including children) and living in complete filth and sub-animal conditions.
You can see the outlines of the camps on google maps. They are fairly huge. Surrounding them is a strip of short grass between two fences, which is very visible on satellite photos.
You can see similar strips in the west around secure areas, for instance nuclear power plants or particular buildings in secure sites. Sometimes these are dog areas, or contain mines.
I suspect the inmates don't have android phones though.
People who live in Pyongyang are selected, usually because of their connection to politicians. The rest of the country resides either in primitive villages or labor camps in the north, where they are barely clothed and fed during the harsh winters.