Reddit reviews North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors

What kind of shitty, outdated information are you spouting here? You can go into multiple department stores in Pyongyang and buy a TV pretty much for the same price as in China. Shit, my Siemens washing machine was cheaper on offer than in Shanghai. (Before anyone asks: you can visit a decent amount of department stores in North Korea but you absolutely cannot bring a camera. Otherwise I'd have provided images.)

I'm stunned to see bullshit comments like yours getting upvotes. You're just regurgitating old stuff you heard somewhere.

A good book for actual information is https://www.amazon.com/North-Korea-Confidential-Dissenters-Defectors/dp/0804844585

I totally get where you're coming from. But calling the entire country brainwashed is not true. James Pearson and Daniel Tudor wrote a book called North Korea Confidential, which describes North Korea as a theater state.

According to Pearson, who is a reporter with Reuters based in Seoul and regularly interviews defectors, many North Koreans lead a double life. We tend to see one side of that double life: military parades, goosestepping soldiers, etc. But he argues lots of North Koreans aren't all these brainwashed robots who want to do as the Dear Leader says.

Check out this report from NPR about North Korea's underground black market. Lots of North Koreans are involved in grassroots capitalism, which undermines the regime.

Anyway, just wanted to chime in!

On the current state of life in North Korea, here's a summary of the picture as far as we know from defectors and a few other sources: https://smile.amazon.com/North-Korea-Confidential-Dissenters-Defectors/dp/0804844585/

One thing I was surprised about: since the 1990s famine, the government is no longer the main source of food/income for many citizens. There is an underground economy of contraband that many North Koreans are involved in, and survives because the bribe from the smuggler is more reliable than the salary from the government. Many people skip work to do this other economy, and bribe their bosses to claim that they showed up. Or bribe whoever is taking their boss's place while their boss skips work, too. South Korean CDs and MP3 files are quite common, and so North Koreans are not as cut off from the world as you might think.