Lina, Seoul and North Korea

Last weekend, I took a quick trip to Korea to visit my friend Lina (a Spanish-Korean girl who I met in NYC a few years ago and really hit it off with). The trip was slightly overshadowed by the fact that I caught some terrible bacteria while eating Korean BBQ on the final night and was at home sick the entire following week. But aside from that, the trip was fun. Seoul is the most Americanized city in Asia I've been to. It's not as polished as Tokyo, which was nice. I took a day tour to Panmunjeom, North Korea and the DMZ. The only way to get there is with the U.S. military and they have all these very strict dress code enforcements. The guide told us that the reason they make foreign visitors dress nice is because European and American backpackers were dressing so bad (you know the type: torn jeans, tank tops, dirty hair, etc.) that the North Korean army was taking pictures of them and then using it as propaganda back in North Korea, saying to their citizens "Look at these Westerners! They are not rich. We have much better clothes, with no holes in them here in wonderful North Korea." So, they implemented the dress code. I found that pretty hilarious. The tour was fascinating (and I got to stamp my passport with one of the "Axis of Evil") but I have to say, I'm not sure how much I believe. If no one can go in or out of North Korea, then how are we so convinced that it is so awful there? I don't think it's paradise or anything, but I just wonder how everyone is so sure that everyone is starving and miserable if they have no clear picture of daily life. And there's so much propaganda! There's this village on the border with what look like high-end, high-rise condos. But apparently, no one lives there. The North Korean's built it so tourists would think "Gee, things aren't so bad in North Korea, look at those condos." But they're just façades, totally empty, The South Koreans call it "Propaganda Town"....weird, creepy place.