North Korea, Pyongyang

I thought that getting into North-Korea, or the D.P.R.K. as they call it, would be one of the hardest challenges of the Streets project. But things went different from all points of view. I found out that as a tourist you could actually enter the country and join a tour group for a five day trip through this closed and isolated country.

The project would be o.k.
You did have to sign a declaration that you weren't involved in journalism or professional photography. Which I did. The tour operator checked out the project and said it would be o.k. In the end the goal of Streets is to show countries, or maybe better, the people in countries, in a positive way. So that also applied to the D.P.R.K. On the 20th of November 2010 I entered the country through Pyongyang National Airport.

Being a Dutch photojournalist I obviously had strong conceptions about this country. During our trip many of them were confirmed. Indeed, this country, in my opinion, is run by some very disturbed people. These stories are well known and I have now seen the results of it myself as far as they would let me. Which is barely scratching the surface of what's actually going on.

But there was more. As often happens I saw the people as an extension of the government's politics. And that opinion has changed. I have seen North Koreans in the streets being human beings. Who played with their children, laughed with each other and walked the streets holding hands. In the end we should remember that almost no one in this country has know anything else than this way of living. But they are still human. In essence still like us. There will be a short reportage on www.jeroenswolfs.nl soon.