would they arrest me for not leaving a Bible?

and about ten minutes later the penny dropped and I got it. Heh.

lol

It's also a playground of the elite while the common people starve...but if you can get past that, it's an interesting city.

I just wish they'd demilitarize and stop doing fucked-up shit so relations would normalize and we could try to do something to alleviate the suffering of their people without it being viewed with disapprobation and suspicion by the personality cult of Kim they have masquerading as a government.

I'd rather go to interesting older ones.
And I certainly don't want to visit a place ruled by autocratic self-indulgent psychos.

I prefer to look at it as tourism exposes them to outsiders and forwards the goal of their return to a global society. It's pretty much a pipe-dream but it's one of the few things we can do.

Please tell me that is what you were going for LOL...


You do know google earth works

They like to build grandiose buildings. They're pretty to look at and it's clean. I'll concede it's no Paris but it's a lot prettier than most of the large industrial cities of the region.

North Korea probably claims he left it intentionally hoping to spread the religion.

One thing that seems to be consistent when DPRK detains an American is it is usually because of something to do with religion or criticism of the regime. If anyone is crazy enough to go there, don't bring anything religious and don't say anything against the government. This is a very paranoid, authoritarian regime.

self righteous idiot

When you visit some of these countries, you shouldn't be seen with religious or patriotic items. You are a guest in their country and unless you are there to cause unrest, then it is best not to take the chance that someone would be offended.

When I travel to China, some of the people I work with have prodded me with questions about government and religion in the US. I answer those questions very carefully so as to not seem as if I am trying to change their opinion.

Maybe this is the wrong philosophy, but I don't want to be "detained" or banned from returning.

Always be aware of the local laws customs and political environment of the countries you visit. Many countries do not allow the freedom of speech, religion and expression that we are supposed to have here in the US.

What "tourist" in their right mind goes to North Korea? No sympathy here.

I've lived in South Korea for over 10 years, though 9 months of that was in China. I did have open discussions with students outside of class in China about the country.

In China one of the students I became friends with (he was one of the top students in the class) told me he wanted to join the "party" and get a job. I told him frankly he'd probably be better off getting out with the corruption going on. He agreed that the corruption in China was bad. His girlfriend was in the same class and I said that I hoped she'd talk him out of it. I was there when Kim Jong Ill died and made an announcement in my classes that day.

Here in Korea politics is not something people want to talk about. I am married to a Korean so I have family here. It makes them squirm a little bit when I talk politics. During the last presidential election I was not happy as I was pretty sure the conservative candidate was going to win. The family sat down for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) I was pretty vocal about my dislike of the person and state that she was going to be elected (I was right). My FIL said he was going to vote for that person and I begged him not to. Her policies are turning out not to be very good, so I may jab him a bit for that. To be fair they did talk about the 2008 election and the 2012 election in the US. My BIL thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and I set him straight early on (I was right about that too).

We just had an election about a week ago and I prodded all my students to vote. I was able to vote in Korea for the first time.

There used to be day tours over to Kaesong in North Korea before things got really bad the last couple of years. One of my friends from the US went and took photos. I wanted to do that, but as relations deteriorated they canceled the tours. I'm not so sure I'd do it now that Kim Jung Um is in power. My FIL was born in what is now North Korea in a village outside Pyongyang.

They are always leaving bibles in hotels.

I worked for a small-sized (20-room) privately-owned fancy hotel (a one-off, not a chain. More like a small resort/B&B) that had instructed the Gideons to not leave Bibles. Gideons are not prone to accepting those instructions or at-least the one we were dealing with wasn't. So he'd show up, rent a room and then over the span of a weekend, try to surreptitiously leave Bibles...and my job was to collect up those Bibles and return them before he left.

Finally, we left a note in every room informing guests that a multicultural multi-faith collection of religious materials was available at the desk for the asking. Worse than them not being allowed to leave Bibles, they had to share a shelf with Buddha, Mithras, Elvis Presley, Krishna, and Allah.

he was being clever for God.

Now he must take his punishment by the secular government, something about which he read in the NT.

Numbers: 22:27-29, Where God makes a donkey talk, just like in Shrek

2nd Kings: 2:23-24, Where God sends two bears to kill 42 kids for making fun of Elisha's bald spot

2nd Kings 4:16-17, Where God does a test run on the virgin birth thingie by getting an old woman pregnant. It's a boy!

2nd Kings 19:35 "Angel of the Lord" kills 185,000 men while they sleep. "And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." A biblical "woke up dead joke!"

Every culture has it's taboos.

It's best to be aware of them before you visit.

What the bible guys do is worse than nude sunbathing.

A U.S.A. equivalent might be masturbating in public.

Leaving Bibles in North Korea makes these guys feel good.



Then they'll wait in North Korean prison for some secret or not-so-secret ransoms to be paid. North Korea does that with everyone, even holding the nation's own starving populace hostage.

The sad thing is these Christian evangelists will puff themselves up further in the name of God, accepting their persecution as some kind of religious test, their Holy time in the desert.

The only ethical way to spread a religion, any religion, is by living it, without violence, without overt hostility or lording it over others.

The "I'm here to save you!," and leaving Bibles in hotel room Christians, that's standing on corner and praying in public so that others may see you, and it's not even By-the-Book Christian.