North Korea: Introductory Sources: Foreign Residents and Travelers - 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"

"Most people want out of North Korea. [Writer and photographer] Simmons wanted in-- and she forgot to check her sense of humor at the border. But "tourism" in North Korea means you will be presented with the singular vision of the country the administration wants you to see-- and nothing more. Her initial amusement and bewilderment soon turned to frustration and growing paranoia. Here she chronicles the strangest vacation she ever took, accompanied by two female handlers who monitor her every step-- and guard their every word."

Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in North Korea, having entered the country undercover, posing as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity; hospitals with no patients; uniformed child soldiers; and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ--where North Korea ends and South Korea begins--all framed by the relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, Sweeney's [book] provides a rare insight into life there today.

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."

In January 1965, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to North Korean soldiers. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead, for forty years he (and other defectors) lived under a repressive, restrictive regime This tale, told by Jenkins (with journalist Journalist Jim Frederick) ,...reveals the inner workings of the DPRK's isolated society, "mundane, relentless, dehumanizing...bizarre and oppressive." When he made it to Japan in 2004 much of what had happened outside of the DPRK in those years was unknown to him except for the 1969 moon landing, the 1986 Challenger Shuttle explosion, and the names of some Presidents.

James Joseph Dresnok, a US Army private, stunned the world in 1962 but walking across the violently contested DMZ that cuts Korea in two and defected to the communist North. Combines historical footage with contemporary interviews to both uncover the Kim-Jong II regime and end 44 years of secrecy and rumor by allowing Dresnok to tell his own story.