There's an article on BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/from_our_own_correspondent/newsid_1994000/1994008.stm), that I wish to comment on.

In my preparations for the trip to NK I went through as many NK travelogues as I could find (a bit like you possibly, dear reader, reading this now?).
Some were extremely interesting and well written (Simon Bone, David Franken, various at Byron Schmuland) and I can only hope that my site here adds at least a little bit to the sum of light already shed onto the mystery that is the DPRK.

However, this BBC article I found objectionable, especially coming from the good old BBC, who we are expecting better of!

I quote and reply:

By Adam Brookes, BBC correspondent in Pyongyang, North Korea

Inside North Korea's bubble

It took me a year to get my visa for the people's paradise. When it finally arrived, it allowed me and a cameraman four days in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
The schedule was prearranged and a pair of cheerful, ruthlessly efficient minders met us at the airport and never let us out of their sight. [His visa probably took so long because he's a journalist and the NK authorities are not keen to allow them in. I agree with the cheerful minders, or guides as I'd call them, who indeed are efficient. What's wrong with efficiency to call it 'ruthless', though? I was glad ours were on the ball!]

Life in North Korea is dominated by Kim Jong-il and his late father, Kim Il-sung.

Pyongyang has an unnerving stillness to it. The traffic, even at rush hour, is little more than a trickle. [very true]

Public transport is scarce. Everybody walks, often alone and silent, down green boulevards, past huge white apartment blocks.

North Korea has been in crisis for a decade now. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Soviet aid dried up. No more subsidised oil and food. North Korea had to fend for itself.

By the mid-1990s the famine was so severe that more than a million people are thought to have died from malnutrition and related illness. International food aid saved North Korea. But only in part. The country owes its continued cohesion to its politics.

Life in North Korea is utterly dominated by the cult of personality surrounding its late President Kim Il-sung, known as the Great Leader, and his son, Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader.

Kim Jong-il is now in charge. He smiles from billboards, and from the lapel pins that every North Korean wears. He drops into factories, farms and offices to give what is called on the spot guidance. His subjects burst into applause and grateful tears. [all this is true]

No-one has ever interviewed Kim Jong-il. [That is only partly true. He answers questions from newspapers, but they have to be handed to him beforehand and they will never be about him and his private life, but always about Juche, NK or NK achievements.] The BBC wasn't about to be the first to do so. [Did they try?]

Sightseeing

In fact, our schedule turned out to be a mixture of those things reporters dread most - monuments, exhibitions, and performances.

We saw Kim Il-sung's birthplace. We wandered through an exhibition of North Korean achievements in heavy industry. And we were taken to the Children's Palace for a cultural performance.

The lobby of the Children's Palace is a monstrosity in marble and chandeliers. [No, it's not. I thought it was, like all other entrances to such buildings in so many countries, built on a grand scale and designed to impress. It wasn't spectacular, but neither was is badly done. In the huge foyer escalators would take you down to the lower ground, past a waterfall, and the practice rooms were all around the atrium. The area was well lit in natural light, with pastel coloured highlights here and there. It was not 'monstrous', maybe old-fashioned in a 1960s Russian kind of way.]

In it stands a model - some 20 foot high - of the space shuttle on its launch pad. In a strange fantasy of technology and power, the space shuttle has become North Korean. It has North Korean insignia on it and North Korean slogans. There is no reference to its true origins at all. [true. We saw this blatant attempt to steal foreign achievements and pass them of as their own. It is of course wrong and I think the NK have got a nerve to display this here, with so many foreigners passing through, who all will know better!]

North Koreans are forbidden to speak to visitors [true, even though we were free to wander around Taesong Funfair and talk to people, or when one of our group was talked to on the metro. None of us really spoke Korean well enough to have a proper conversation anyway, but it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if we did.]

Every day 5,000 children come to the Palace after school for lessons in music, dance and martial arts. It is a hothouse. Children who show talent are taken into special classes in the accordion or dancing with hoops.

In the martial arts hall, as the afternoon light streamed in, we watched 14-year old girls practising Tae Kwon Do.

They were focused and concentrated unlike any children I have ever seen. [probably an exaggeration. Just look at any kid playing sports, for example tennis, or chess]. One girl, a brown belt, caught my eye amid a flurry of punches. Short haired, arms like steel cable, she looked as if she was about to tear my kidneys out. [What's this rubbish 'about to tear my kidneys out'? For starters she's practicing martial arts, so she won't be all smiles during the routine, and secondly this sentence just reeks of a subconscious fear of all things NK in general that no doubt predates his trip and that he is looking to find justification for. If Mr Brookes were to reject this first interpretation, then I have another one, namely that he's not much of a journalist, only writing what he thinks his readership (and the BBC) are expecting him to write. In this case he'd not be objectively reporting at all, but merely reinforcing stereotypes to serve his paymasters.
Either way, you can see I have a problem with his sentiments here...]

'A cultural performance'

The children take their inspiration from the revolutionary exploits of the Great Leader Kim Il-sung, said our children's palace guide, and ushered us on.

The "cultural performance" was a waking nightmare. [There he goes again. It was not a 'nightmare' unless you want to see it that way. I truly believe that the kids were enjoying themselves and proud to show off their skills. We Westerners may scoff at these naive attempts at creating a wholesome picture, but to the children in the palace this is a chance to develop their talents. What really worried me was the thought that there is not outlet for their skills once they're past their early teens. There just are not enough dance troupes or orchestras to accommodate all these expertly trained dancers and musicians. So where do they go and what will become of their talents? I fear that they will just go to waste, which is a crying shame.) Tiny girls in thick makeup and skimpy costumes did coy little dances. Talented boys in sequins thrashed away on xylophones [and drums. The three boys fronting the drums performance would have been worth the entry fee alone! They cannot have been much above 6 years old, but their swagger and self-confidence were a sight to be seen. I loved them!] And a choir turned in teary salute to a portrait of Kim Jong-il surrounded by white doves. [I cannot recall 'teary' but it was certainly a heartfelt tribute to KJI]

It was all technically brilliant, and void of any meaning or artistic merit [It wasn't art, admittedly, but I think it had meaning inasmuch that the NK put on these shows in the firm believe that their achievements will be admired by foreigners, thus stimulating them to join them in singing the praises of Juche, KIS and KJI], a tribute to despotism by exploited, overwrought kids [a tribute to the regime, certainly, but 'exploited and overwrought'? I'm only half sure. Obviously a tremendous amount of training had gone into any of the performances, but as I said before, the kids looked to be enjoying themselves. Take any sport for example: Training begins at a very early age and takes up the best part of childhood. Look at any of the tennis players or figure skaters. They train incredibly hard in pursuit of personal glory and ridiculous amounts of money, with parents all too often the driving force behind their careers. How is that better than the kids at the Children's Palace, who train for the greater good for their country, but no financial reward? One is probably as bad as the other, but let's not pretend that the exploitation of children is to be found only in communist countries. It's not. It's far closer to home, too.]

The children's successes, said our stony faced guide [no longer cheerful then?], were thanks to the wise leadership of the Dear Leader and Supreme Commander, Comrade Kim Jong-il. [I'm sure the guide was perfectly serious!]

I have reported from other cities that labour beneath repressive regimes. It is often surprisingly easy to spot the small, spirited acts of dissent - a scrap of graffiti, a taxi driver's joke, an article of clothing worn askew.

The Kim cult

But in Pyongyang, nothing. The Kim cult has imposed more than ideology; it has imposed a whole climate of thought and behaviour. [all true]

North Korea cannot go on forever as it is. The country can't feed itself. Its industry has collapsed. [true. NK does not enter in any talks on international level without expecting hand-outs or food aid.]

But there is no sign of how, or when, it might begin to change. Optimists say that the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il does want to introduce reform, but doesn't know how to go about it. [possibly. KJI will have seen in other countries that gradual reform is difficult to control. His greatest fear will be that as soon as he opens the door just a little bit the floodgates with open and sweep him and his father's achievements away in a tidal wave of westernization. We may think that'd be a good thing, but for a people brought up in the firm believe that 'Korean Is Best' this is a frightening prospect.]

Pessimists say North Korea is trapped in an Orwellian hell of its own making. And nothing short of disintegration will bring change. [I can see that.]

What do ordinary Koreans make of their predicament? I have no idea. I wasn't allowed to speak to any.

I wish I could say that they are just waiting for their moment; that the students are strumming guitars and reading forbidden books; or that gravel voiced dissidents are holding forth in smoky backrooms.

But I don't know. And if they are, I don't fancy their chances. [I don't think such groups exist. The masses have been dulled by propaganda for far too long and there will be very few forbidden books in circulation, if any.
One theory goes that if there are any dissenters at all, they're far higher up, in the army, and biding their time until they feel that their time has come. The first phase of revolution will exchange one totalitarian rule with another, only removing KJI and the current personality cult. But once the 'Father' figure is no longer ever-present, over time a general opposition will form and gradually gain enough influence to lead to reforms.
I was surprised at figures suggesting only a 10% hard-core support, with 60% wavering and 30% anti-regime. How are such figures arrived at? There cannot have been anybody to ask. And those few that have fled the country are hardly representative of the remaining millions!?]

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