I was writing a paper for
Government and stumbled across a video about life under a dictatorship,
specifically North Korea, and it really got me thinking about how different and
how much better my life is here in the United States. Obviously I knew that I had
more rights on than what they might have; I can petition the government,
worship who I please, and speak almost as freely as a bird. What I didn’t take
into consideration was how big these rights actually were to my life.
In the video, North Korea seems
like a different world. It may just be how the documentary is assembled but
everything seems dark, dank, and dreary. The oversized streets are peculiarly
un-crowded and most everyone is either traveling by foot or by bike. The
children are taught that their leader is the “most praiseworthy man on Earth” through
overly admiring stories, and singing dreadful songs (to an American eye at
least) seems to be a daily occurrence. Individuality is not seen. Even the
production of coats is exact to the nearest centimeter on every seam.
I know that there are countries in
the world in poverty, and I have heard that many North Koreans were starving,
but somehow I didn’t see any of this in the documentary. At a dinner scene, a
family was eating a table full of food, with many combinations of the dishes
and all of the Koreans shown were obviously not starving in any way.
I guess the most striking thing to
me in this video though was how everything was similar, and everyone was equal.
I wondered how everything could be THIS similar. I guess I came to the
conclusion that because everyone is in fear of being reported, or to really
stand out in a bad way, assimilation is a big thing and widely accepted. I
guess this is all my opinion and not really based on fact so don’t quote me in
a report or anything but if you want to judge it go ahead and watch the video. (345)
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