North Korea ☆

Today's assignment is very difficult for me because there are so many interesting countries: the UK, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Austria, Germany, India, France, the Netherlands, etc. If we were living 40 years ago, I would have chose the USSR, but, as it doesn't exist anymore, I'm going to choose North Korea.

I'm not choosing this country because I like it's political system, in fact I don't agree with it at all, but I think it makes the country a very interesting place to visit. It is the most secretive country in the world, with every aspect of life controlled by the government. Not much is known about human rights inside the country, but many people who fled from there told horrible stories about prison camps and stuff like that. People there believe anything the State tells them, they're told to hate the North Americans since they're children. Its system's style is a deformed soviet socialism, everything is State owned and personal liberties are nonexistent. I don't think State owned property is bad (in fact I think it's a good idea if it's well managed), my problem with the system is its lack of liberty, because I don't think socialism can be built by oppressing the people.

I can't really say that there are "nice" things about North Korea, because everything that can be seen as good according to our standards has some really bad characteristics. For example, housing is free, but quality varies a lot. Education is also free, but people do not control what they are teached, the State chooses what to teach and what to not. It has the world's biggest stadium, Rungrado May Day Stadium, where they organize massive yearly competitions, and people from every part of the world can go to see them. It is a very nice and artistic presentation, and apart from seeing everyday life and investigate about the society I would like to go to see those games. 

I would not like to stay and live there, because of obvious reasons (also I don't think they'd let me). I think it's a very interesting place to explore, and I would like to learn the truth about it, because the government says something and the capitalist countries say other things and I can't really believe any of them.

Cheers!

(Korean Peninsula at night)