THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

As soon as you leave Pyongchang, the real North Korea comes into view, albeit through the windows of buses or fast-moving cars.  Even aid officials stationed in Pyongchang are not allowed into the countryside without an escort.  On an excursion through Nampo in 2008, I saw people who appeared to homeless sleeping on the grass along the main street.  Others squatted on their haunches, heads down, apparently with nothing better to do at ten o’clock on a weekday morning.  Walking barefoot along the sidewalk was a boy of about nine years old wearing a mud-stained uniform that hung below his knees.  This was the first time I’d seen one of the notorious wandering swallows, the kotchebi.

Demick/Envy