I went to North Korea with a head full of assumptions.
You don’t realize how many you have until you’re actually there—until the place stops being an idea and starts becoming a routine. A place where you wake up, drink coffee, walk your kid to school, argue over groceries, and try to make sense of a world that doesn’t fit neatly into the stories you were told.
I didn’t go there as a tourist. My partner was working with an international organization, and I came with him. That detail ended up shaping everything. Because of the type of visa we had, I wasn’t confined the way most foreigners are. I could move around more freely—walk the streets, visit towns outside Pyongyang, talk to people without someone hovering over my shoulder.
That freedom gave me something rare: not the “North Korea” you see in documentaries, but the one that exists in between—the gray space.
And that’s the thing I struggle to explain most.
Because life there isn’t black and white.
The biggest shock wasn’t political.
It was human.
The people I met were warm. Not performatively polite. Not robotic. Just normal. Curious. Kind. Sometimes reserved, especially in rural areas—but once that barrier dropped, incredibly generous.
I remember running along the Taedong River one afternoon. It was hot. I must have looked exhausted. A group of locals waved me over, handed me water, and insisted I sit with them while they ate lunch.
No agenda. No fear. Just a simple human instinct: you look tired, come sit with us.
Another time, I was invited to a birthday party for a gardener who worked at my partner’s office. It wasn’t staged. It wasn’t for show. It was loud, chaotic, full of food, laughter, and the kind of warmth you can’t fake.
That’s when it hit me: whatever system exists around them, people are still people.
They find ways to laugh. To connect. To build lives.
There are rules in North Korea.
But they’re not always written down.
That’s what outsiders misunderstand.
It’s not that someone is constantly standing over your shoulder telling you what you can and can’t say. It’s that people know. It’s internalized. Like a reflex.
No one sat me down and said, “Don’t criticize the leadership.”
But you didn’t.
Because it simply wasn’t part of the world people lived in.
Loyalty wasn’t just enforced—it was woven into identity. People genuinely believed in their country, their history, their independence. That pride felt real. Not forced.
At the same time, there were small rituals.
People wouldn’t ride bicycles directly in front of the Juche Tower—they’d get off and walk. Not everyone. But enough that you noticed.
No one bowed at every portrait, like some stories claim. But people spoke about the leaders with a kind of careful respect that never wavered.
It wasn’t fear in the way outsiders imagine.
It was something quieter.
A shared understanding of the boundaries.
Life in Pyongyang, especially, had a rhythm that felt surprisingly normal.
There were supermarkets. Restaurants. Even fast-food places we jokingly called “McKim.” Students would hang out there, eating burgers and drinking local cola.
People went out for dinner. They sang karaoke. They drank beer—good beer, actually.
My favorite food was cold noodles. Simple, refreshing, perfect in the summer.
Markets were everywhere. That’s where real life happened. People buying vegetables, meat, clothes, electronics. Bargaining. Chatting. Living.
There’s this image of North Korea as frozen in time, but that wasn’t my experience.
Things were changing—slowly, unevenly—but visibly.
Money was starting to matter more. Markets were reshaping daily life. A kind of unofficial economy was growing under the surface.
You could feel it.
But for all the normalcy, there were edges you couldn’t ignore.
Healthcare, for example.
The doctors were good. Skilled. Dedicated.
But they didn’t have the tools.
When my son got sick, it became painfully clear. The medicine he needed simply wasn’t available. Not because people didn’t care. But because of shortages, sanctions, supply issues, and a system that couldn’t provide what it needed.
We had to evacuate him to China.
That’s when the illusion of “normal life” cracks a little.
You realize how fragile everything is.
I had internet access.
But only because of the organization.
Ordinary North Koreans don’t.
They use a domestic network—an internal version of the internet. Social media exists, messaging apps exist, but it’s all contained within the country.
It’s a different digital universe.
I remember thinking about how strange that is—living in the same year, on the same planet, but with completely different access to reality.
People often ask me: did you feel in danger?
No.
Not once.
But that doesn’t mean people were free.
You don’t see open dissent. You don’t hear criticism. Not because everyone is constantly being punished—but because the system doesn’t leave space for it to exist.
There are committees, structures, and layers of oversight that shape daily life in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived inside them.
It’s not loud.
It’s ambient.
Always there, even when you don’t notice it.
If there’s one thing I took away from those two years, it’s this:
North Korea is not what you think it is.
But it’s also not what it wants you to think it is.
Both things are true.
Yes, it’s an authoritarian system. That’s undeniable.
But inside that system are millions of ordinary people living ordinary lives—raising children, worrying about money, laughing with friends, making the best of what they have.
They’re not caricatures.
They’re not propaganda.
They’re people navigating a reality most of us will never fully understand.
I went there expecting something extreme.
What I found instead was something far more unsettling:
A place where life felt normal… until it didn’t.
Where kindness existed alongside constraint.
Where people adapted, endured, and built meaning in a system that defined the boundaries of their world.
It wasn’t black and white.
It was gray.
And once you see that gray, it’s hard to unsee it.