Travel to North Korea is an essential part of peace efforts to ensure that active war on the peninsula not begin anew.
North Korea’s nuclear program, claims about its human rights record and the past detention of U.S. citizens are commonly cited as reasons to isolate North Korea. Yet cutting off engagement and diplomacy with North Korea ultimately leaves us ignorant of the realities there, and perpetuates U.S. assumptions that it’s only we who have something to teach North Koreans and nothing to learn from them in turn.
When directly faced with experiences that were mundane and unremarkable, rather than heightened and imbued with a vaguely sinister air, I was able to put aside manufactured fears and engage with people on an everyday level. Our experiences with our guides in particular showed the contrast between the common depiction of guides as a constraint and our experience with our guides as invaluable resources who provided insight and facilitated our engagement with the people we met.
Our meeting with students at Kim Chaek University of Technology stands out. We were ushered into a room with lots of chairs. After introductions, each of us wound up sitting among a group of students to have smaller, more intimate conversations. The aim was not only to know them better, but to also share about our own lives and experiences.
The students were not shocked or surprised at my answer, but they were saddened. They asked me to tell people about my experiences. This is a refrain we heard at many of our site visits: “Tell people what you saw.” At no point was I asked to paint North Korea in a particular light or to say only good things. They only asked me to share my experiences.
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