Five facts about the North Korean Arirang festival

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I was led to believe these people are impoverished, their leaders are despotic, they are isolated, and travel to and from the country is restricted. Now I read that this (apparently) lavish "festival" is attended by millions of foreigners-- how can this be ?! Who are these visiters and how did they get there, and how many are westerners? Is this a case of our newsmen not knowing what really goes on there, or purposely painting a false picture of their standard of living for some reason?

8-16-2010 @ 12:05AM

Schmice said...

The article said that over 12 million had seen the performances and of those seeing it, 118 thousand were foreigners. Assuming that the 118 is even true, that is an infinitesimal percentage of the 12 million. I don't believe that their standard of living is very high, If you see any North Koreans who seem fat, it is just their stomachs bloated from starvation. Their government only survives because starving people cannot muster the energy to fight a better nourished militia.

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