Drew Returns from North Korea

Drew, I have the companion to your DMZ photo: http://aowainati.smugmug.com/Travel/20110321-South-Korea/i-thwsJBK/0/L/0031-20110323-L.jpg

@Sooty said:

Horrible country, great video!

lol

Thanks for this

Thank you Drew, thank you Giant Bomb. Amazed. There is not a gaming site in the world that does this kind of content. You redifine things.

This is fascinating, thanks drew

The worst thing about premium stuff is that it loads so fucking slowly. I just want to watch it without stuttering.

Also trying to download it.... Gonna take 9 hours.

Urgh. Can't they host it somewhere good.

In terms of community stuff, this has to be in the runnings for one of the best videos Giant Bomb has done this year, if not in the entire run of the site.

Thanks so much to Drew for sharing this, completely fascinating. Your photography captured things incredibly well - thanks again for this.

Thanks Drew, this was awesome!!!

Very nice and very interesting. Thanks guys.

@face15: Yeah, agreed, i tend to watch most of their videos on youtube these days, the videos download incredibly slowly otherwise (im in Australia) Downloading at 130kb/s :( (my line speed is around 16Mbit)

Awesome video, glad I paid for a membership. Thanks a lot Drew and I hope we get to see you in some more content.

@TheHumanDove said:

@heartlessomen said:

Im currently living in south Korea (have been for a little over a year now) and to hear people back home(amurrica) expressing the amounts of concern regarding recent events is slightly insane. If only because as a current resident in s. Korea, I can say that there seems to be little to no concern by the people about their irate northern neighbors.

Slightly insane? I'd say concern is justified, going by the speeches of their dear new leader alone. A year isn't long enough to say things are A-OK across the border, no offense. What, with the whole shellings and killing of people and all.

Nowhere did i say that things were "A-OK" here in South Korea, all that I said was that there seems to be little to no concern about the North here. And that, when compared to the fervent "HOLY SHIT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" attitude that the U.S. news seems to be throwing out to the public, is just slightly insane to me because while i've only lived here for 14 months, South Koreans are just...used to it I guess.

To expand upon what I said, S. Koreans have had to deal with the "threat of the north" for a good 60+ years now, all boys are required to serve in the military for 2 years when they turn 18 and any male between the ages of 18-45 can be drafted should there be war. It has been like this since 1948, well before the Korean War ended. So really, all that I was saying was that, South Koreans are used to the North poking and prodding them and that most S. Koreans either rely on the knowledge that as long as they're backed by the U.N. and have a U.S. military presence that the North would be insane to try anything serious or that it should actually be S. Korea that does the invading to the North.

That's not to say that S. Korea completely ignores these events, they've returned fire, they've protested, they've prayed, hell schools even have "disaster drills", but at the end of the day you don't see Koreans running around screaming we're all going to die and that we need to start building bomb shelters. No, it's just another day, and whatever happend was just another topic on the news to gossip about. It's done, it's finished, it's over, nothing to worry about.

If anything, South Korea still has more animosity toward Japan than it does against anything North Korea has done (they're still Koreans after all). There are still quite a few families (not as many as there once were) that are divided by the DMZ and living under the harsh (NOT in Pyongyang) living conditions of North Korea. Most South Koreans would love to see a unified Korea so that they can reunite their families, NOT kill them.

Anyway all that I was saying was that if you listen to the news from the U.S. it almost sounds as if we're on the brink of World War 3...but here in Korea...you'd almost never know that anything had happened, its relatively normal.

Amazing video, thank you so much for posting it. It was incredibly fascinating.

This might be the best video on Giant Bomb. Thanks for sharing Drew!

This was fucking RIVETING. And as a strange side-effect it really makes me want to travel and see weird parts of the world. Something I never thought I'd want to do.

I was captivated for the entire 2 hours. Thanks for sharing, Drew!

@SonicBoyster: Yeah I heard that part, but I was just making sure that was the dog story, and we didn't miss another dog story.

@D_O_A: Yeah, I'm in Australia too. I suppose Australia probably makes up a really small part of the audience but it would be nice if they hosted video somewhere that isn't painfully slow for us to download.

Even if they gave us access to the justin.tv archives or something.

Whatever you guys do, don't say "Jeter's on third". That might activate Drew.

This video moved me in ways I never thought a Giant Bomb video could. Great job!

It was awesome that they allowed Drew to tell his whole story.

Reminds me a lot of Savage. I played it a lot while the humans were free to play. (Some kind of beta, I think?)

http://www.giantbomb.com/savage-the-battle-for-newerth/61-4548/

"Time to make the mushrooms."

Best content the site has ever produced.

Wow, Drew's a badass. That was a great piece of content, illuminating and highly entertaining.

Oh, and I was quite surprised to hear that dog soup was so good, but now I'm curious..

North Korea is crazy, and dangerous, but the prospects of a full-blown war are remote, as the North knows full well that they would lose any such war.

Trust me, if they thought they could win, they'd have attacked by now. They know they can't win. The antagonize the South from time to time to keep their military happy and to keep the South from getting too complacent, as well as a threat to get more food aid, but the last thing they want is a REAL war with the South, because they'd lose and the leaders of North Korea know it more than anyone else.

Still, it's disturbing and fascinating. North Korea is almost like an alien planet - everything is so different than anywhere else. I have no problem saying that it is probably the most miserable nation on the planet, with Zimbabwe coming in second place. Even the Congo would be a better place to live, because at least you can escape the Congo. You can't escape North Korea - at least, not easily.

They bad, but not mad. They want you to think they're mad, but they're not, and they won't invade the South - at least, not until they get Nuclear Weapons and ICBMs that can reach the US. Then they'd invade the South.

@Zaxex said:

Something I read comes to mind, you never see a fat North Korean, except their leader.

There's a Danish documentary called "The Red Chapel". It's about a film director from Denmark visiting North Korea with two NK-born Danish boys, one of whom is slightly mentally retarded and in a wheelchair, to enact a stupid slapstick scene in a theater. They have to jump through hoops, because nothing in that deliberately stupid scene sticks well enough with the important peoples of NK, so plenty hilarity ensues at the very start.

However, the most shocking and morbidly hilarious part of the movie happened when the three of them go to a traditional North Korean parade. The boy in the wheelchair is told that he has to pretend he's standing up - because officially there are no disabled people in North Korea, so they actually don't understand the fact that someone can't walk at all and has to be wheeled out. He can't do it, though, so they had to spin a story to the press that he was in such awe of the parade that he had to sit down.

It's so crazy it's amazing. Why look for aliens in space, when Kim Jong-Il and his posse gave as an alien civilization in our own world?

Also, I recommend the documentary itself, because it's pretty good - it doesn't have that condescending tone many Western works about North Korea have, instead deciding to let the madness comment on itself.

This is an excellent video! Thank again for the great content!

Seeing the smiling and waving N. Koreans in all of these photos makes me die a little inside. There are some N. Korean defectors who live in my town, and they've done some interviews for the local Korean radio station. All of them have said it's all a lie, and the government is very good at creating these meticulous images of happy, well-fed people.

I believe I only missed the first 20 minutes and then another 20 minutes in the middle when I ate something, but I'll watch it again.

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Whatever you guys do, don't say "Jeter's on third". That might activate Drew.

Bravo sir!

@kimchibomb said:

This is an excellent video! Thank again for the great content!

Seeing the smiling and waving N. Koreans in all of these photos makes me die a little inside. There are some N. Korean defectors who live in my town, and they've done some interviews for the local Korean radio station. All of them have said it's all a lie, and the government is very good at creating these meticulous images of happy, well-fed people.

Dude do you think we could get a link to some of those interviews?! I'm very interested.

This was a terrific, astounding piece of content.

this was amazing

Amazing video guys! This has to be one of the best videos you guys have ever done. Top notch! A GB meet up in North Korea in the works?

Thanks for sharing Drew!

why do they call a lot of communist states "peoples republic of...."

@SharkMan said:

why do they call a lot of communist states "peoples republic of...."

Because ostensibly, such communist governments are governments "of the people." But it's really little more than a pretty label.

@SharkMan said:

why do they call a lot of communist states "peoples republic of...."

From the Republic Wikipedia page.

A republic is a form of government in which the government is officially apportioned to the control of the people and thus a "public matter" (Latin: res publica) and where offices of state are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed.

So the idea behind calling the State the People's Republic is to make it seem like the People have more control over the State.

I find this a little.... uncomfortable.

I mean, we're talking about a country whose population is perpetually starving, yet the government is spending all its money on developing ICBMS and nukes (for instance, the rocket they unsuccessfully attempted to launch a week or two ago, thus denying huge amounts of American food aid to the people), and yet here we have this American going on the propaganda tour, eating reasonably well, bringing currency into the country, thus supporting said oppressive regime.

I'm not trying to judge, it just feels weird to me. I mean, North Korea is messed up. Like the image they showed of Kim Il Sung's birth place, that's not just a monument, that's a religious shrine. The rulers are essentially worshiped as deities. Supposedly when Kim Jong Il was born, there was a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky. It's a place where the people have no electricity (seriously, check out a satellite image of nighttime over Korea. You can see the border because north of it is almost entirely black). Voluntarily being led around to see only what they want you to see, rather than the reality, I couldn't do that.

Of course the people were pumped, they've all been indoctrinated since birth. The vast majority don't know any better.

This is why I love this site so much. This practically has nothing to do with video games, but it shows how personal this site is. Glad I follow this site! Can't imagine how bored of the internet I'd be without Giant Bomb!

This is super interesting to listen to. I love these new personal podcasts going out. Especially with the new fancy dim room setting. I just dim the lights in my own room at night and hit play.

This was absolutely amazing. Made me wanna go :P

@DCam: Was this comment meant for the Wrath of Heroes QL?

Vinny's comments are the best.

"Did you play Mario Kart with him afterwards?"

"Why is that spoon so long, did you get a sundae afterwards?"

I lived in LangFang & Beijing for some time. Loved this feature. Pictures and some stories reminded me of my first trip to China back in the day, when touristism was scarse. This was awesome. More of these premium type randomness please!

One of the most entertaining videos on here and it wasn't even about video games!

This was an awesome feature.

Great video guys! Add me to the heap that really loved this and could not stop watching it once I started. I went to Cuba seven years ago (I'm an American) and had some similar epiphanies about wonderful people vs. ridiculous politics. Watching this, I was reminded that video games are obviously such a luxury, and felt ashamed that I take them for granted and get upset about opinions on games that differ from my own. Thanks for this great video guys - very glad I've been a member for a few years.

@thebigJ_A said:

I find this a little.... uncomfortable.

I mean, we're talking about a country whose population is perpetually starving, yet the government is spending all its money on developing ICBMS and nukes (for instance, the rocket they unsuccessfully attempted to launch a week or two ago, thus denying huge amounts of American food aid to the people), and yet here we have this American going on the propaganda tour, eating reasonably well, bringing currency into the country, thus supporting said oppressive regime.

I'm not trying to judge, it just feels weird to me. I mean, North Korea is messed up. Like the image they showed of Kim Il Sung's birth place, that's not just a monument, that's a religious shrine. The rulers are essentially worshiped as deities. Supposedly when Kim Jong Il was born, there was a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky. It's a place where the people have no electricity (seriously, check out a satellite image of nighttime over Korea. You can see the border because north of it is almost entirely black). Voluntarily being led around to see only what they want you to see, rather than the reality, I couldn't do that.

Of course the people were pumped, they've all been indoctrinated since birth. The vast majority don't know any better.

That... is kinda the deal with NK.... they've had it drilled in their heads since birth, since birth of their grandparents that the leader is basically God. There some YouTube docs that go in depth about how far the government will go to "brainwash

people.

Giant Bomb must now become a video games/travel site.

Dave, Vinny and Drew bike across Mongolia while Jeff, Ryan and Brad tackle the jungles of the Amazon.

Meanwhile, Patrick hangs out with the Zapatistas.

Think about it.