North Korea: Introductory Sources: Foreign Residents - Observations & Experiences

"In May 2018, former Monty Python globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. His resulting two-part documentary fascinated millions and won universal plaudits. Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip. He recounts conversations with official guides, teachers, propaganda artists, farmers and soldiers in which mutual incomprehension and shared humanity are constantly intermingled. And he muses on what makes people tick under a regime that to outsiders seems so utterly alien and so grimly authoritarian. Illustrated with colour photographs throughout, the journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea behind the headlines."

"Jeppesen, the first American to complete a university program in North Korea, culls from his experiences living, traveling, and studying in the country to create a multifaceted portrait of the country and its idiosyncratic capital city in the Kim Jong Un era. Anchored by the experience of his five trips to North Korea and his interactions with citizens from all walks of life, Jeppesen reveals how the North Korean system actually functions and perpetuates itself in the day-to-day, beyond the propaganda-fueled ideology"

The book's title comes from the song the students sing each day to Kim Jong Il. "A haunting memoir of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign.... It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields--except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound....where Suki Kim [an undercover journalist] has accepted a job teaching English.

John Everard was the British ambassador to North Korea 2006-2008. His book is about his life there and interactions with the people. Included are chapters on the history of the DPRK, its relations with foreigners, the world's actions and re-actions, and the failures of the system. Bibliography included.

French-Canadian animator Guy Delisle’s acclaimed graphic novel about working in Pyongyang at SEK (Scientific and Educational Film Studio of Korea) in 2001. Delisle depicts with wry observations his hotel and its inhabitants, his work at the studio, walks around the city (rarely managing to evade his driver, guide and translator), and trips he was taken on to various sites, monuments and museums, never escaping ever-present propaganda, even cut into rock faces of what would have been natural beauty.

In 1986 Michael Harrold, a young graduate in Britain, answered an ad to work as an English translator for the Foreign Languages Publishing House. For seven years he lived in Pyongyang "enjoying privileged access to the ruling classes and enjoying the confidence of the country's young elite. In this fascinating insight into the culture of North Korea he describes the hospitality of his hosts, falling in love,... and many of the fascinating characters he met, from South Korean and American GI defectors to his Korean minder and socialite friends. After seven years and having been caught passing South Korean music tapes to friends and going out without his minder to places forbidden to foreigners, he was asked to leave the country."