When our tour group arrived in North Korea, I was a bit surprised to learn that in addition to our driver and three guides/minders, we would be accompanied by a cameraman who would be filming our entire trip. At first I thought this was for propaganda purposes (“Tune in tonight at 7pm, dear comrades, to see footage of American Imperialist bowing before the “Great Leader”!) but the actual reason was much less sinister. On our last night in Pyongyang the cameraman showed us some of the footage he shot and informed us that we could purchase DVDs. Of course, I had to buy one. Where else but North Korea do you get a DVD of your entire trip, complete with the government approved narrative and incredibly cheesy music?
After much trial and error (was having a bit of trouble with the audio track), I finally managed to rip the DVD and cut some footage from it. For those of you who have complained that I’m a biased westerner (yes, I’ve already received e-mails insinuating as much) I’m happy to bring a bit of balance to my narrative of the trip by presenting the North Korean version. 
Over the next few months I’ll be posting more footage from this DVD. The footage from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)/Panmunjom is especially interesting.
This first clip is the intro to the DVD and footage from our visit to the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang (which is basically just us taking lots of photos).
Related posts:
- North Korea: Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, Part II In case my explanation was insufficient, below is the footage of our trip to the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery from the North Korean tourism DVD. It includes the usual laying of flowers, bowing, etc....
- North Korea: More footage of the Arirang Festival Mass Games Eventually I’ll sit down and write another long article regarding my trip to North Korea, but until then here is more footage of the Arirang Festival Mass Games taken from the North Korean Tourism DVD. The first minute is footage of our tour group watching the games, followed by seven...
- North Korea: The Arch of Triumph (because everything’s bigger in the DPRK) There are a lot of monuments in Pyongyang, and as you soon learn, all revolve around the achievements of Kim Il-Sung. The first monument we visited was the Arch of Triumph. You probably think that this arch looks quite similar to that one in Paris, and you would be right,...
From Meg:
BWAhahahaha. Oh, that theme music’s KILLER!
From Lindsay:
My favorite part is the flying “welcome” text.
From Martianka:
They just want to show their country from the best angle… and don’t realise that it comes out a bit too pompous and cheesy. Don’t forget that the US literally bombed to whole place to little pieces for no reason other than preventing them from following their ideology. And now the US is talking a great deal of doing it again. Not surprising that they get a bit uneasy around Americans.
From Lindsay:
Uh, there was that whole North Korea invading South Korea incident back in 1950.
From Brianna:
I think he’s kidding. Or at least, I really, really hope he is.
From daniel:
Hei lindsay, It was so nice to find your blog.
I was wondering so long to go here, north korea.
but seriously i have no idea how to get there
could you give me please briefly explanation how to get there..
or could you give me please the link for it?
thank you so much lindsay..