North Korea is a place of deep contradictions.
It confirms our worst fears with its nuclear belligerence, only to reveal its romantic folkloric past.
It confirms a taste for criminal delights – then seduces us with its unexpected charms.
Functioning cities are just a short bus ride from unimaginable prison camps. Those prison camps are only miles from the beautiful sights of Korean mythology, which tell of magical birthplaces and undead leaders who still rule.
These paradoxes make North Korea what it is. Here we present the wonderful contradictions of North Korea.
Pyongyang appears relatively prosperous, well-maintained and happy.
But Pyongyang is in many respects a Potemkin Village.
Fun fact: North Korea does in fact maintain an actual Potemkin Village: Kijŏng-dong, located in the DPRK’s half of the Demilitarized Zone. According to intelligence, Kijŏng-dong was built in the 1950s to encourage South Koreans to defect to the North, and is now home to a small number of people whose sole job is to keep the place up.
Want to know what it’s like to land in Pyongyang? Read about the first day of the journey »
North Korea is extremely poor.
But the country is sitting on one of the world’s greatest caches of natural resources.
North Korea is open for business. Here are 5 awesome ways to make money from North Korea »
The de-militarized zone, a 160 mile-wide stretch of land separating North from South Korea, has largely maintained peace since the 1953 armistice.
But the de-militarized zone is hardly de-militarized. There are nearly 1 million soldiers poised and leaning forward on either side.
North Koreans despise Americans. That is what they are taught in school, that is what state newspapers preach, and that’s what we’re told in the West.
But North Koreans are actually fascinated by Westerners. And we found that most of them — especially the young ones — absolutely love Americans.
North Korea was founded by Kim Il Sung and ruled by Kim Jong Il — demigods who are as quintessentially Korean as you can get.
Kim Il Sung died in 1994 and now lies in state — perfectly preserved — at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.
But Kim Il Sung — despite being dead for almost 20 years — is still “Eternal President” of North Korea.
But Kim Il Sung was born in the USSR, and Kim Jong Il’s birthplace (now closed off to visitors) was invented at Mount Paekdu. Both died of natural causes.
Kim Jong Un is ushering in a new era for North Korea.
But Kim Jong Un’s first year as dictator has been a general continuation of his father’s policies — and in many cases, even more brutal and focused on keeping the regime alive.
North Koreans are generally kind, modest, humble people.
But they sure know how to party. It’s a huge part of the culture.
There isn’t much civilian technology in North Korea.
But cell phones are everywhere — over 1 million of them across the country.
North Korea considers itself a unique, exceptional nation.
But the regime is obsessed with mimicry and competition.
Most North Koreans have never played frisbee.
But they’re *amazing* at it.
Certain North Koreans are actually actors playing the part of “happy citizen” for Western visitors.
But even those “actors” are just real people living out their lives, with little control over their career choices.
At the same time, the country employs true career actors to perform in North Korean films.
The DPRK continues to be a strange and wonderful enigma. Heartbreaking and inspiring, terrifying and charming, bizarre and familiar — it is the last bastion of extreme, unapologetic, definitional contradiction left in the world.
Now you know why we go back every year.
Because as William Blake wrote,
Do what you will this life’s a fiction,
And is made up of contradiction.
Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.