A Candid look into North Korea in 2021
During the winter North Korean people are washing their clothes in frozen rivers, collecting water from springs and relying on firewood for heat
A Chinese Xigua (www.ixigua.com) user going by the username 二师兄游记 (Èr shīxiōng yóujì or loosely translated: Travels of the Second Brother) whom for simplicity’s sake I will refer to as Second Brother, has been sharing footage of North Korea, shot from China’s border. The area is Changbai in China and Hyesan in North Korea. He uses a high powered zoom and gives a rare glimpse into daily life in North Korea — all the rarer at this time, since they have closed their borders for travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unlike the Potemkin Village Kijŏng-dong at the DPRK/ROK border, and the relatively developed capital Pyongyang, the development of Hyesan seems to have been neglected. Second Brother’s videos reveal that life is far from comfortable in Hyesan, especially for such a northern climate. His videos reveal a lack of running water and electricity, things that most people reading this take for granted.
In non-pandemic times, Chinese citizens were allowed to visit Hyesan but other foreigners could not. Though foreigners can visit Changbai in China, pictures of North Korea are not allowed and the police will stop you, according to Young Pioneer’s Tours. I feel very lucky, since the pandemic is still preventing me from traveling, that I can have a look into one of the most mysterious countries in the world, in a way that I would otherwise need to go in person to experience and at the risk of unwanted attention from the police.
At the time of writing Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are detained in China, allegedly for spying. The Canadians were detained for over a year before they had a trial. The trial was not open to the public and the verdict has not been made public either. Their case is reminiscent of that of Julia and Kevin Garratt another pair of Canadians who share their story of imprisonment in China in their book Two Tears on the Window.
I wouldn’t want to take the risk of filming or photographing sensitive border areas in such times, so I’m thankful to Second Brother for sharing this with the world.
It’s not too hard to get a glimpse of North Korea. There are plenty of videos on YouTube from travellers who’ve been there. But those travellers are always on state-guided tours with the government strictly controlling where they go. Second Brother’s videos show things that I believe the North Korean state would prefer the rest of the world didn’t see.
Hyesan is a far cry from the showcase capital. Life in Hyesan appears very difficult. Though there are apartments, there are also many homes that appear more like shacks.
We can see women washing clothes in the partially frozen river in minus 20 C temperatures.
In another video, Second Brother shows us people lining up to get water from a spring. He tells us that in the summer, they usually collect water from their roofs, but in the winter they must do it this way. It seems they do not have running water.
We can also see firewood outside many homes. Even in the capital, electricity is inconsistent. The people in Hyesan rely on firewood to heat their homes.
See also this video
From my limited Mandarin ability, as far as I can tell, Second Brother is not intent on making the DPRK look bad. He is curious, as I am, about his neighbors. If he has any anti-DPRK agenda, it doesn’t come across in his videos. But whether intentionally or not, I do think this footage damages the image the DPRK would like to assert, as a strong nation that provides for its people well.
Yeonmi Park, a prominent North Korean defector, now living in the USA, is from Hyesan. Though her story has come under scrutiny, perhaps the candid images from this article offer a greater understanding of Hyesan, North Korea. Her book is called In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom.
