We Tried Sneaking Journalists Into North Korea

Watch more of VICE on North Korea: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDbSvEZka6GGOrQuonllt75…

“Don’t point, don’t take pictures” takes video of himself pointing

“We had nothing to lose” ....... yeah besides your lives

Respect to everyone who did this, especially the cameraman, or woman, who risked their actual lives filming this for our sake, so we can get informed on what happens in that place

It's crazy how far our camera technology has came in such a short amount of time.

2012 Vice : "We Tried Sneaking Journalists Into North Korea" 2020 Vice : "I Make Dildos For a Living"

alternative title: "We tried to kill our staff"

Crazy how 10 years after... this documentary is still interesting.

I'm acquainted with a gentleman who escaped N Korea about 15 years ago and as crazy as you found N Korea, he found the U.S. even more so. He made his way to china and then from China through a few more countries before he made it to a U.S. consulate and told them he was from N Korea and wanted to defect. Seems he had a lot of knowledge about the military having once served in the N Korean army as an officer so they let him come to the US. He had spent so much time hiding and stealing food that he never actually saw the inside of a grocery store until he got to the U.S. The moment he stepped inside he dropped to his knees and burst into tears. He said there was more food in that grocery store that day than he had seen in his 52 years living in N Korea. He said that he thought there was probably enough food in that grocery store to feed the whole population back home. He could not believe how much food there was and all the other comforts either. He was shocked at all the things we throw away. Next he visited a Walmart then a shopping mall and he couldn't deal with it emotionally so he had to go back to his little cottage where he was staying. He couldn't believe that he was allowed to unplug the TV. In N Korea TV's and radios are on 24/7. You can't turn them off. If you get caught not watching the propaganda programming you can be sent to the concentration camps up north. And when you are sent there they send you and your children and their children and your siblings and their spouses and their children and all your aunts and uncles and first cousins. They all go to the concentration camp with you and there you are worked to death or starved to death and if any of the women happen to get pregnant and the guards never find out resulting in the baby being born in the camp they grow up in the camp and live out their lives in the camp. Your whole family is socially quarantined forever which tends not to be very long because it seems the average life expectancy in one of those camps is around five years. He says you don't ask about the Park family who suddenly disappeared last night from their 20 sq meter apartment. If someone you know all of a sudden isn't there any more you don't ask. People who ask questions also disappear. As for the food, it is very scarce. He informs me that it is not an exaggeration to say they eat grass. They eat grass, flowers when they can find them, leaves, tree bark, insects, worms and anything else. A fish or bird is a rare treat. The government tells you that you should be grateful for the bounty they pretend to give you and you pretend to be grateful for it.

Respect to the cameraman who took the real risk and got no credit

The North Korean officers have so many medals that you could defeat them with a magnet

Crazy to think this is ten years old and almost nothing there has changed.

That one kid in school who fools around but still gets good grades

"Don't point". Immediately starts pointing after arriving at the DMZ

The division happened many years ago so the generations who remember strolling freely around the entire Korean empire without boarders are already old by now, or were mostly kids during those days. I can't imagine how it must have felt like for those who used to live in the now other side of the boarder, worse, having your parents, siblings, relatives, childhood friends, teachers, etc. on the other side of the DMZ. It's really sad when you think about it.

Actually, you can take your cell phone into North Korea now, and actually, at 2 hotels, tourists can pay (large amounts of money) to access outside international (yet very slow) internet. and can even bring a computer. On;y thing is that sometimes they will want to check the pictures you took on your phone to make sure its not something that is a negative appearance of the country. Edit: didnt realise this was from 10 years ago

"We had nothing to lose" Are you guys feeling ok???

I thought you were supposed to sneak out of North Korea not sneak in

9 years later and this video still gives me chills

that shot of the banquet area on that camera in north korea and him being alone and tables everywhere but no one expected just feels so weird, chilling, liminal, beautifully poetic and sad at the same time