sqectre

Do you have any sense of how the rise of the internet has affected the government's attempts to culturally isolate and control their citizens? Or, did you ever get the feeling that some of the North Koreans you interacted with knew the world wasn't as the government portrays?

I asked in your other thread about the book Nothing to Envy. It's a series of interviews and reconstructed stories about North Korean refugees who endured the famine in the 90s and though it's still a very insular nation, I get the feeling that the passing of Kim Jung Il and the internet have moved the country forward quite a bit since those years.

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1y5pz5/i_went_to_north_korea_in_august_and_for_one_of/

Here's what he had for dinner one night.

....really? You really think it's recovering already?

Recently, Americans have been allowed to visit North Korea as tourists for the first time. Has this affected North Korean citizens in any meaningful way, as far as you can tell? I know information is tightly controlled within the DPRK, so are they even aware that Americans (or citizens from other enemy nations) are regularly visiting the country?

And if this question is ignorant in any way, please don't be afraid to tell me why.