Quote:
Originally Posted by bricky
You know to be perfectly honest, NK doesn't look nearly as bad as I expected. There are lots of places in the world that seem poorer, dirtier, and more run down. Granted perhaps your guides took you to the better places and better vantage points.
Also, the devil's advocate in me says that it's hard to judge people's feelings from a photo. I have a screensaver on my work computer of a street scene of Broadway in Soho NY. I just noticed that out of the many people in the photo, just by chance no one is smiling or laughing. So are they all depressed and worn down? And I remember reading an old NY times article from like 1990 as a little research project about Korean green grocers in NY, back then they had a reputation of coming across as rude and gruff because they didn't smile and didn't look customers in the eye. But that was just a cultural thing.
I myself would be depressed as hell to live in North Korea. But people are people and they find reasons to feel happy and feel sad in all kinds of living situations. Especially if they grew up in those situations and that's all they know.
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I agree with all your points. I'm surprised at the number of people who feel that the people look down-trodden and down from a photograph. My guess is that some SSPers are transposing their feelings about the regime and country onto the photograph and I wonder how people would feel had they not known the country. It would be interesting to show these pictures to people who didn't know where it was and ask their opinion.
I have friends who lived in Haiti for a number of years and friends who linved in Rwanda. Those places have both had their share of horrible things happen (politically, not talking about natural disasters). Some comments from them are that the people in Haiti, for example, have a wonderful cheerfulness about them, despite being in a dire situation and abject poverty. It's hard to believe Dominican Republic and Haiti are the same island. He also said that he found when he returned to Canada, that people are so stressed and preoccupied with life here that there are fewer smiles here and more positivity in Haiti. They are content with less, and as a result have fewer worries. They care about the needs and don't worry about the "wants." "Too often", he said, "we confuse wants with needs."
Also culturally, some people don't smile for photographs... it's a learned or taught behaviour... usually copying the photographer. Check out photos from the birth of photography time period. Stern, serious, faces. We've been conditioned from birth from advertising, billboards, TV that when your picture is being recorded you should smile... whether you feel like it or not.
As giallo mentioned, you have to weigh the pros and cons of visiting and "supporting" the regime, you also have to remember that these are all part of the same human family. Essentially, genetically, you're related to them if you go back enough centuries.
Beautifully human shots, giallo. The place seems very clean and you've really made North Korea more human to me and less abstract.
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