I get the feeling that South Koreans are a lot less keen to be unified than West Germans were before the cold war ended, probably justifiably so.

There was at least some exchange between West and East, nothing like the complete isolation of North Korea. East Germans could just turn on their TV and watch some West German television when they wanted to compare systems. (Areas the West German TV signals couldn’t reach were called “Valleys of the Clueless” :) East Germany was also one of the most “progressive” eastern bloc states, supposed to be a showcase for actually existing socialism. And, as far as tyrannies go, one of the milder ones, while Kim Jong-il is all the way up there with Hitler and Stalin.

Then there is time: East Germany survived for forty years, North Korea is in its seventh decade. It survived the last twenty years without a cold war keeping it alive (except the one between North and South Korea, I guess).

The German unification cost billions and caused many problems. By no means an easy process that’s now, twenty years after it started, by no means completely finished. So I kind of can understand South Koreans who are weary of the prospect of unification. Unification did work out ok. I don’t know whether that would have been the case had East Germany been a lot more like North Korea.

If you want to see more of North Korea from the inside (and from a tourist perspective), I highly recommend the Vice Guide to North Korea: http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-14

I recommend the British documentary A State of Mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456012/ as another rare insight into North korean life.

It covers about a year in the life of a family who have two young girls training in preparation for the Mass Games. Utterly compelling and handles a very difficult subject matter with sensitivity and without passing judgement.

I looked at the BBC video embedded there. I noticed the DELL logos. It makes me wonder how the DELL logo is explained to the students who encounter it. Are they told DELL is a Korean company? Do they wonder why they don't see that hardware elsewhere?

Having the benefit of hindsight in looking at outside interventions elsewhere (Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan etc ) I think that maybe the best thing would be for all other countries (including China) to stop interfering in North korea. It's not possible of course

This is a preview of the future without oil. The North Koreans lost all their oil subsidies from the Soviets in the early 90s. That's why they had the famines in the 90s, nobody drives cars and why there are no tractors.

The list of search results displayed from the DPRK's search engine was interesting. The query "handbook" brought up quite a few hits on IBM's Websphere Application Server, and even a guide on deploying UMTS towers. Does anyone have more information on how the country's network access works?

Edit: Some discussion over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426919

Ah this again, I call dupe. We had this 8 days ago.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1406757 (more interesting discussion there)

Anyone know why NK keep letting these videos get made, even though it makes them look like total douche bags? Do they really believe something good would come out of it?

doubleplusgood!

I hold that the existence of North Korea, and it's conditions, makes a mockery of the United Nations. How can the world community of nations allow a country like that to exist and treat it's people like that? Why do supposedly "good" and civilized nations allow that to continue? Yes it might require military action to end it. But perhaps it would be worth it in order to reduce the suffering of 20+ million people.