UPDATE: YouTube has pulled Inside North Korea from their site due to copyright reasons. For those interested you can click the link to buy the Inside North Korea DVD from Amazon.com.
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Living overseas I wasn’t able to watch Lisa Ling’s National Geographic Explorer’s, Inside North Korea, but fortunately Nomad posted links to two You Tube postings here and here of the show. Lisa Ling travels with a Nepalese eye doctor and secretly films what she can of life inside North Korea during her trip. It was amazing to watch the eye doctor restore eye sight to people who had been blind for years and they immediately walk up to pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to thank them for giving back their eye sight without a word of thanks to the Nepalese doctor. The most chilling scene was when one old woman pledged to work harder in the salt mines for the glory of Kim Jong-il for returning her eye sight.
Lisa Ling rightfully points out how a system of fear governs the country. If these people didn’t give thanks to the Kim regime they and their whole families would have been sent to one of the massive concentration camps that Lisa Ling spent plenty of time covering. The funniest portion was when Lisa Ling visited a North Korean family and asked them if there was anything wrong with Kim Jong-il. The North Korean interpreter kept pretending he didn’t understand the question. Overall, definitely a must see documentary about life in North Korea. I’m definitely going to purchase a copy of the complete program once it is available on DVD.
Looking on the National Geographic webpage for purchasing information, I began reading through some of the comments left by people about the show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised about this, but there was people comparing North Korea to what America is today under President Bush. There were also people condemning Lisa Ling for filming the show because the Nepalese doctor could never be allowed back into North Korea to help more people and the North Korean minders with them would probably be sent to labor camps for not clamping down on the filming. I for one thank Lisa Ling for presenting an accurate picture of North Korea which is a personality cult that many people just don’t understand. It is one thing to read about it in a book or newspaper, but when you see what North Korea really is staring you right in the face on television, it is hard to ignore.
You can read more over at OFK.
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12:32 am on March 13th, 2007 1
Dawn Patrol…
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6:18 pm on March 14th, 2007 2
Incredible. No matter how many times I hear or read about the DPRK, I am always amazed. It’s beyond anything Huxley or Orwell imagined, it seems.
People who would compare the US under the Bush administration to North Korea are idiots, plain and simple. A wealthy Westerner’s desire to be a self-righteous victim should not belittle the actual netherworld struggles of North Koreans or, even worse, the lack of such a struggle.
Undoubtedly, Lisa Ling’s minders were told what they could and could not show her. Either way, the good that could be done by increased publicity around the world, increased knowledge of what is happening is invaluable.
Thanks for the links - I didn’t even know National Geopgraphic had made such a series.
5:02 pm on March 15th, 2007 3
[...] link to the actual post you are looking for can be found here. Please check out the rest of the site and the link bar for more Korea related sites. Thanks [...]
6:10 pm on March 15th, 2007 4
I posted the video on youtube.
I posted only about 18 minutes so that people hopefully would watch the whole thing on NGC if they get the chance. They deserve the attention for producing it. Or buy their video.
But I also wanted the 18 minutes to be informative and representative of the DPRK’s fear tactics and peoples’ reactions thereto.
6:21 pm on March 15th, 2007 5
rpongett, thanks for posting the video clips. National Geographic and Lisa Ling have done a great job bringing the horror of North Korea to life on television. I hope the attention to the National Geographic program that has been generated on the internet will hopefully encourage more people to watch the program that haven’t already seen it.
12:46 am on January 26th, 2008 6
7:55 pm on February 20th, 2008 7
Hi all i would really love to watch this documentary.
Please could you help me get hold of it.
I have just spent five weeks in South Korea and visited the DMZ today, and i am absolutely devistated and thoroughly intrigued.
Bee , South Africa
8:54 pm on February 20th, 2008 8
I see that YouTube pulled the videos which is unfortunate. You can purchase the DVD of the show from Amazon.com.
If you have any issues with Amazon then send me an email and I can find another way for you to get the DVD.
7:10 am on May 9th, 2008 9