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On the Spot with Kim Jong-il
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoTeam America ruined any chance of me taking this guy seriously.
- jcromartie 17y agoI'm fascinated by North Korea. I think these pictures say a lot. The details are interesting... close-up shots, framed without showing much context. Practically everybody has a pad of paper. Intriguing stuff.
- og1 17y agoYeah, it is very interesting. There is definitely a formula to these pictures. Very tidy environment, inspecting a line of product, a dozen people watching in the background, and the same damn coat in every shot. What I really wonder is Kim Jong-il "in" on the staged-ness of these shots? Or does he just operate with a different perception of the world because things are always presented to him in such a tidy manner?
- jcromartie 17y agoI'm sure if you zoomed out you would see a whole lot of nothing. No more than a handful more cows or pigs or shoes or cookies that are in the shots we see here. NK is just a big vacant husk of a nation. He has to be aware of that, at least.
- sili 17y agoSome of those photos look photoshopped. In #10, his glasses are broken, whereas in others (14, 19) he looks very out of place. In many, his hat stand out particularly.
- joshu 17y agoI recall there were several techniques for photoshop detection. Let's bust them out?
- bradbeattie 17y agoNothing too odd: http://i.imgur.com/INgMn.jpg http://i.imgur.com/INgMn.jpg
- smallblacksun 17y agoWhy photoshop when you can stage?
- phil_collins 17y agoYeah, the cows look like they're smiling.
- mapleoin 17y agoI posted this a few days ago but didn't get any attention: A Year in Pyongyang: The fascinating account of a British guy who spent a year in North Korea working as a literary reviser for their totalitarian government http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1178719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1178719 I've started reading the book since then and it really paints a full and seemingly realistic picture of N Korea.
- IsaacL 17y agoGreat link (though it should come with a procrastination warning...) I've just spent over an hour browsing through it. It's definitely a different perspective.
- jbm 17y agoI read that book a long time ago. I always found it interesting how he was constantly in fear of getting ripped off by the government, and moreover, how the North Korean people he worked with never really talked to him about how they felt. I found the story about the girl who was impregnated by an African student and forced to have an abortion to be incredibly fascinating.
- gojomo 17y agoLest we be too proud of our ability to detect the forced, artificial nature of these photographs, this link from the 'Big Picture' comment thread should be considered: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/obama_being_forced_to_look_at.html#photo=1 http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/obama_being_forced_to_l... (Our photo op rituals aren't that much better. US photographers show a lot more creativity in composition, though.)
- dpapathanasiou 17y agoThat's an extremely superficial comparison.
- huhtenberg 17y agoGotta love how the only photo where he is smiling is where he is holding a bottle of vodka :) http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/kcna_03_12/k23_00000010.jpg http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi...
- jackfoxy 17y agoExplains why he wears shades even indoors? Christopher Hitchens wrote an interesting piece on NK recently http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/ http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/
- nfnaaron 17y agoI was wondering if he wears shades so you can never know for sure if it's him or a stand-in.
- philwelch 17y agoGiven how consistently they have famine over there, they must have trouble fattening up his body doubles enough.
- ugh 17y agoHe looks quite skinny, actually.
- philwelch 17y agoI just remember a lot of pictures of him looking rather pot-bellied. It probably wasn't the most tasteful remark but you have to wonder about chubby dictators who rule starving countries.
- ugh 17y agoI have no problem whatsoever with untasteful remarks about, among all people, Kim Jong Il. I was only quite surprised how skinny he looked. I also had different memories. Maybe it’s that ugly coat?
- steveplace 17y agoIf you're looking for some more insight into this country, watch this video set over the weekend: http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3 http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-... A real eye opener.
- adriand 17y ago"I see you have some cows here." "Ah yes. Flour. Very good." "Excellent work on this bucket. But why orange? Ha ha ha!" "What is this, a fishery for ants?"
- jsm386 17y agoI've always been fascinated by the pictures people manage to get out of North Korea. This Flickr account is home to an incredible collection of photos inside of Pyongyang http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/collections/72157603652517132/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/collections/7215760... and out in the country http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/collections/72157603652581080/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/collections/7215760...
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- harshpotatoes 17y agoIn some ways North Korea is one of the few countries that feels really foreign to me nowadays, but I think that might be because there is so little verifiable information about it. Regardless, looking at these photos I only think: Kim is looking really old.
- jrockway 17y agoIf I was a stand-in for some politician that was about my height and weight, I would definitely wear sunglasses. Even at night.
- a-priori 17y agoWhen I saw the pictures of Kim Jong-il surrounded by a store filled with fresh fruit while his citizens starve, I was reminded of the final years of the rule of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. In Ceauşescu's case, to some extent it appears his lieutenants went to great lengths to present him with a sanitized view of the state of his country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceauşescu#Tensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceauşescu#Tensions I'm curious if this is also the case in North Korea.
- anigbrowl 17y agohttp://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15579841 http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_i... An excellent (and short) analysis of North Korea from Banyan, the Economist's excellent new Asia columnist.
- rgrieselhuber 17y agoI'm struck by how old they all are. I bet the younger generation is just waiting for them to all die off.