INSIDE THE TWO NORTH KOREAS
North Korea today is not one republic but two: A “Pyongyang Republic” and a “Republic of Everyone Else.” The
distinction is both geographical and political. The capital city Pyongyang is clean, orderly, and modestly
prosperous. Pyongyangites, most of them Party members, dress better than they used to, buy food at restaurants
and street-side stalls, and talk on their cell phones. Foreign visitors, expecting to see a land of starving people, are
impressed. The regime has the power to make the city—or the most visible parts of the city—to its own
specifications. After all, there is no private enterprise to interfere with government plans. Kim Jong-un and the top
elites live even better than the other citizens of Pyongyang. No matter how many economic sanctions are placed on
North Korea, there always seems to be enough money to support the political elites, with plenty left over for nuclear
weapons and missiles.
Outside Pyongyang, North Korea is a different world. In 2009 Ralph and I wrote The Hidden People of North
Korea. These are the people we were talking about. In Pyongyang, the main streets are as wide as parking lots.
Outside the city, most roads are unpaved. Vehicles are few and far between (even visitors to Pyongyang can see
that). Trains creep along twisted tracks. Although North Koreans have more freedom to travel than they used to
(not officially but unofficially), they mostly hitchhike to get to their destinations. Travelers pay bribes of homemade
wine and cigarettes to get rides on military trucks, or they simply trudge along the side of the road. People are
thinner and much more poorly dressed than they are in Pyongyang. They are also hungrier and sicker. Only local
party leaders and the black-market entrepreneurs who bribe them are pear-shaped; everyone else is banana shaped