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(#1) They Attacked South Korea with Poop Balloons
The 2016 "hydrogen bomb" test by North Korea prompted a salvo of propaganda balloons floated over the DMZ by the South. The North responded with their own fusillade of balloons, but these weren't filled with just propaganda, but with garbage. As in actual garbage, including cigarette butts and used toilet paper.
When they popped over South Korea, their human waste-covered messaged floated down to earth. South Korean authorities were concerned it was some sort of biomedical attack, but it turned out to just be crappy propaganda.
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(#16) Kim Jong-un is Cracking Down on Western-Style Clothing
In preparation for the May 2016 Party Congress, Kim Jong-Un dropped the hammer on North Koreans wearing western clothing. Among the items that will now be policed by "inspection units" are t-shirts, short skirts, jeans, along with piercings and long hair. Kim had already mandated that men use his high-and-tight haircut. The ban applies to all of North Korea, but will be especially enforced in villages near the Chinese border.
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(#7) They Kidnapped a South Korean Director to Make a North Korean Godzilla
Shin Sang-ok was a major name in the South Korean film industry, directing dozens of films. He was lured to Hong Kong in 1976 and kidnapped by North Korean agents. Over the next five years he was held in relative comfort while being brainwashed. In 1983, he was finally brought to meet Kim-Jong Il - and learned his ex-wife had been kidnapped as well.
The couple was remarried, and Shin went on to direct the "socialist Godzilla" monster movie Pulgasari. Shin and Choi escaped North Korean control in 1986, and he emigrated to Hollywood soon after. Shin is one of countless South Koreans and Japanese kidnapped by the Kim family over the past few decades.
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(#4) Schools Are Filled with Incredibly Violent Propaganda
North Korean tourists tell of the omnipresence of propaganda. From giant statutes to tiny red pins worn by Pyongyang residents, images of the Kim family and their glory are everywhere. The propaganda is especially virulent in schools, which are tasked with molding young minds to the North Korean philosophy of self-reliance.
How do they do this? Through murals on the walls, some of which are of the standard scenes of the Dear Leader frolicking with his happy people. But others show insanely graphic war scenes, painting everything from adorable cartoon children killing US soldiers to fully realized adults standing victorious over heaps of bloody bodies.
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(#2) They Published a Letter From "Abraham Lincoln" to Obama
It's common for the North to throw operatic insults at the military and diplomatic skill of both South Korea and the US. In April 2016, they went one step further, conjuring a letter from deceased 16th president Abraham Lincoln to President Obama. The "Lincoln letter" was published on the internal state-run website DPRK Today, and was titled "Advice from Lincoln to Obama."
Concern trolling Obama by saying that it looks like he has "a lot on his mind," the letter scolds him and the US for not reducing their nuclear weapons stockpile, while simultaneously demanding the DPRK reduce theirs. "Lincoln" even throws himself under the bus, saying the American people won't stand to be deceived the way he did back in the day.
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(#8) Tourists Have Minders - And Tourist Minders Have Minders
If you do go to North Korea as a tourist, be prepared to have two state-appointed minders shadow you the entire time. They'll tell you who you can talk to, where you can go, what to do and - more importantly - what to never, ever do.
Why two minders? So the minders can watch each other, naturally. The DMZ works the same way, where one border guard actually faces inward - to watch the other border guards.
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About This Tool
North Korea is still a country with a relatively closed regime. For decades, it has seldom interacted with other countries. The outside world knows little about it, people can only speculate based on various public news reports or the observations of a few travelers. Even travelers cannot communicate with too many locals, foreign tourists come into contact with are mainly tour guides, drivers and hotel attendants, etc.
Do you want to travel to North Korea one day? It is a chance to know some weird truths about North Korea, the random tool collected these 16 stories from the Internet.
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