How do people live in North Korea?
Raymond K. Cunningham, Jr., I have traveled extensively in North Korea.
Updated Oct 14, 2014
I go to North Korea annually to study about life for average people. In the DPRK there are classes of people who live quite different lives but for most all but the elites life is hard.
Pyongyang is atypical of the country as a whole. The apartments are better, transportation is better and access to consumer goods is much better. Electricity and running water can be a problem in the capital but
overall life is not bad. Water is pumped for an hour or so in the morning and held in the apartment bathtub. Electricity can go out several times per day and prolonged outages can make refrigeration an issue. Access to affordable recreation is better and access to hard currency is much better in Pyongyang. Office workers enjoy a moderate standard of living and can be rewarded with a television or rice cooker. Remember - North Korea is on a 48 hour work week plus additional "volunteer labor."
Apartments in PyongyangOther cities begin to decline from there. In Nampo I have seen people hauling water up to apartments from a communal well and in Pyongsong I watched people pump water up via hoses outside to their apartments. Elevators in older buildings no longer work. Chongjin, Kaesong, and parts of Hamhung are run down with little or no maintenance. Cardboard can be seen in windows. Electricity there is a problem as well.
Hauling water in Nampo
Apartments in Chongjin
Apartments in Hamhung
Apartments in WonsanOverall in the country cooking oil is one of the most precious commodities. Last month I watched a neighborhood group cutting up a large amount of cooking oil into liter bottles being ever so careful. I have watched as baggage comes into the Sunnan airport and cooking oil is leaking from bags and boxes. Oil, salt and sugar are rare.
The major cities outside Pyongyang will vary in food availability. I have seen times of plenty and little. Food is being dried on balconies in cities. You see squid drying on clotheslines as well as corn and peppers.
The regional towns vary widely. Sariwon is generally nice and Anju is not as good. As you get into these towns that is where you see where most people live - smaller towns, villages and the countryside.
Sariwon, an agricultural town
Anju - poor apartments and bad roads.In the countryside you see small traditional Korean homes. Older ones are in disrepair and the newer ones are well kept.
Rural homes. Those in these rural homes generally have better food security because of their own gardens and livestock as well as neighbors and extended families. It was those in the towns and cities that had problems during the famine.
Corn on rural homesLife itself is hard and I mean that physical labor is often the way to do anything. The harvest is done by hand and even factories and office workers will often be required in the fall to help with the harvest.
Field work last month near Sariwon. Road labor is much the same way. I have seen older people out breaking rocks to fill in potholes of the roads and highways. I have seen younger people digging drainage ditches (younger teens) and work brigades digging during a typhoon.
Working on the Youth HighwayWith transportation shortages the servi-cha is the way to get around. You pay a driver to take you to the next town, otherwise you use bus #11 - walking (Korean joke).
Servi-cha in Kumya North KoreaBicycles are really what is relied upon and vital.
Agricultural workers' bicycles
Bicycle repair on the road - many bike shops are no more than a man with a kit and a pump.With shortages of coal to heat and cook your food, chronic food shortages, long distances to walk, labor, the sheer number of hours spent on food preservation - everything just to survive leads to a hard life.
Coal for apartment heating and cooking. 
Food storage area in a homeWe take for granted many modern conveniences that are unknown in the DPRK. Think of a cash economy with doing virtually everything manually. That is the reality for most North Koreans.
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Tracey BryanThanks for your answer, but aren't you concerned about how writing this answer may impact on your...3 more comments from Jordan Harbinger, Ryan Chew, Dakota Lim
Kruti Munot, likes listening.
Answered Mar 16, 2015
Tim Urban, author of Wait But Why (blog) visited North Korea for five days and wrote an interesting post on what people believe there. It's a (strangely) fun read:
20 Things I Learned While I Was in North Korea | Wait But Why
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Rik Kendell, UI developer/designer, gamer, foodie and comic-book fan
Answered Dec 24, 2014
Rather than reiterating what I've read here, I'll leave a link to the best article I've read on modern life in North Korea:
My summer vacation in North Korea, a journal of my week-long adventure inside the world’s most reclusive and repressive country, by Ryan Nee.
There's some great detail on the minutiae of day-to-day life for North Koreans, and some really nice accompanying pictures.
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Hanhwe Kim, Advocacy for South Korean POWs and their families in North Korea
Answered Mar 23, 2016
Originally Answered: How is it like living in North Korea?
The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
This book by Andrei Lankov is probably the best book about life in North Korea. Prof. Lankov teaches in Seoul, South Korea. He did his undergraduate in no other than Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang! He maintains friendships with North Korean elites as well as with North Korean refugees in South Korea.
43.2k Views · 7 Upvotes · Answer requested by Nishant and Vijay Reddy
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Kenneth Li, PhD from London
Answered Sep 27
This is a translation article from a Chinese version of Quora: 知乎 - 发现更大的世界. The original link is written in 2016-02-13, here: 在朝鲜生活是什么感觉？ - 知乎
It is an answer to such as question: how do you feel living in North Korea. The author is an exchange student. Some (google translations) are below:
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2014, when I was 19 years old, I gave up the opportunity to go to South Korea, and went to the unstable NK without hesitation. I spent 7 months utopian life there. My road has not stopped moving forward, but often think of this, just feel warm. So holding the record this time with interested friends to share the mood to take this phone to write this large paragraph.
1. As a senior food lover (eat goods), in North Korea has been deeply hurt. Because the economic backward materials are limited (we canteen has been considered very conscience) to eat things in fact very few, their daily cooking is basically raw food (lettuce, pepper, cucumber and the like), braised (chicken burning potatoes, pigs Boiled potatoes, potatoes, potatoes), cold (mixed bean sprouts, mixed bean sprouts), steamed (white tofu, white tofu, white tofu with chili sauce), soup (soy sauce boil all). In fact, the first few months is still very healthy and delicious, and even eat three months when the body of each cell are longing for crying, the secret of prostitution we eat red pork spicy hot pot iron. Canteen three treasures, potatoes, bean sprouts, eggs. However, the cafeteria aunt who will write down every person's birthday, and then give you a birthday meal, so birthday will be a day to get a big fried chicken, fish and fruit and vegetable platter.
Pyongyang food top five! 1. Pyongyang noodles / make their own meal 2. Oxtail soup 3. Pickles fried rice 4. To three fresh ... ... 5. Beer (commented that someone said this. Pyongyang has a lot of beer, bottled with Datong River series, good Drink! My favorite is called the gas beer, can not tell the tastes, we go out no drink a drink a glass of beer, tell me, my roommate alcohol allergy can not stop her drink) even if there are imported supermarkets to buy snacks to eat, but Do you have a home tastes! So the only three supermarkets in the Chinese food (olive, red mushroom mushroom, old dry mother) was bought out of our goods, but after returning a month to eat these three ... deep doubt that they are not greedy Crazy ... suddenly thought that after the winter began to sell roasted sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts, basically every 500 meters there is a small pavilion, which read a variety of 군 밤, 군 고 구 마, 빙 수, 솜 사 탕 (roasted chestnuts, Roasted sweet potatoes, cold drinks, marshmallow), of course, not what to sell anything, mainly to see what he has. To the winter, almost all pavilions are baked sweet potato chestnuts, 3 cents a pound? Do not remember, remember to buy 5 dollars enough to eat a building, so we do not do anything else a day to buy baked sweet potatoes to eat. And he is sold every other day, the middle of the day so good? And then when the summer is even more beautiful, the fans of the ordinary pavilion to sell popsicles, 2 dollars a, full of pure flavor of milk flavor, blueberry taste the best to eat spike half of the domestic cold drink. Also sell soda, gas a lot of taste, the experiment, the best drink black Because the bottle and the beer bottle touched the same, the first time in the street to see a half of my high children holding him half of the bottle when my heart is blaming his parents. There is yogurt, yogurt is really lucky, a bottle of 500ml yogurt 5 dollars, but often buy expired (North Korea out of things too much, drank 05 years of Sprite you drink it? Drank it, and later expired half a few days we eat. Seek my mother to see, afraid of her distressed.) As for why we always can not buy yogurt, a seniors driving to the yogurt, do not ask Why he has a car he is there, yogurt people te... (more)
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Susie Downing, A SoCal girl now transplanted to Jolly Old New England.
Answered Oct 23, 2014
For a perspective on how the children of the elite live, check out this NPR story:
Among The Young And Privileged In North Korea
An excerpt:
In the summer of 2011, American journalist Suki Kim got a job teaching English at the elite, all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in the North Korean capital.
Kim, who was born in South Korea and immigrated with her family to the U.S. at age 13, is a fluent Korean speaker and secretly took notes during her six months at the university in Pyongyang. This formed the basis for her new book, Without You, There Is No Us.
. . .
On how cut-off the students were from the wider world
Some were more sheltered than others. Whatever the reason was, on [the] surface, because it is a system so based, built on fear, they're not supposed to admit it, even if they knew. They were never supposed to admit to knowing what's going on outside. So, for example, we talked about the way they celebrate birthdays.
Usually, they go back to their dormitory after dinner and they start singing songs, one by one. And they all always claimed the Great Leader's songs, or songs about friendship. One time, one student said, "Rock 'n' roll." The minute he said that, the whole table went quiet. The student just looked out instantly, as if some horrible thing was just admitted. And then someone changed the topic, and I realized: This is the fear. It was a kind of reality that is so impossible to imagine for us Americans, and I thought it was important to humanize North Koreans.
On how the elite fear they could be purged
I've covered North Korea for over a decade, interviewed so many defectors, and this was the other extreme of the society, and they had no freedom.
I don't know how they absolutely keep that control. But we just saw, you know, [current leader] Kim Jung Un getting his uncle executed, Jang Song Thaek, at the end of 2013. And that is [the] No. 2 man in North Korea for decades, who is a relative of the Great Leader.
I think it's just a different system. I had assumed, also, that maybe the elite — you know, maybe the images that those people control — that they have so much freedom, but that just simply was not true.
On the ubiquitous female guards at the university
It is so controlled. The guards were only women — young women in their early 20s — and they never mixed words with the staff. I tried, but they wouldn't talk back to me. And they were minders, minders living in the faculty dormitory on the ground floor, and all they ever did was just guard us. It was very, very systematically controlled. . . .
I did ask about that several times to the foreign teachers, "Why is this the case?" The answer that I got was that in the beginning of the school, they had put men there — soldiers — but they realized that maybe it just looks too threatening, so they changed the soldiers to women soldiers.
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Matt Chanoff, studied at Johns Hopkins SAIS
Answered Jan 7, 2015
Like thousands of others, I really appreciate Raymond Cunningham's answer to this question, and particularly his photos. But even though he's straightforward about how tough life is for many in North Korea, he sounds way off to me. It's a little as if someone asked (on an older version of Quora) what it was like being at the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865, and a latter-day Quoran who was really there provided a long, thoughtful description of the play. Umm, yeah, but what about when they shot the President? Or in this case, umm, yeah, but what about the totalitarian hell hole part?
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The following are excerpts from the Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry released a few weeks ago. You can read them or see the whole report at Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Alternatively, you could read David Hawk's report on the prison camps at http://www.davidrhawk.com/Hidden.... David was the head of Amnesty International and was the main person who brought the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide to light. He's devoted much of his life to exposing the abuses in North Korea.
Or, you could read Escape from Camp 14, Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West: Blaine Harden: 9780143122913: Amazon.com: Books, the verified first person account from the only person known to have escaped to the West from one of North Koreas huge prison colonies.
The short answer to "how do people live in North Korea? They live in poverty, ignorance, and fear.
Excerpts from UN Report:
Violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion
1. Throughout the history of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, among the most striking features of the State has been its claim to an absolute monopoly over information and total control of organized social life. The commission finds that there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association.
2. The State operates an all-encompassing indoctrination machine that takes root from childhood to propagate an official personality cult and to manufacture absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader (Suryong), effectively to the exclusion of any thought independent of official ideology and State propaganda. Propaganda is further used by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to incite nationalistic hatred towards official enemies of the State, including Japan, the United States of America and the Republic of Korea, and their nationals.
3. Virtually all social activities undertaken by citizens of all ages are controlled by the Workers’ Party of Korea. Through the associations that are run and overseen by the Party, and to which citizens are obliged to be members, the State is able to monitor its citizens and to dictate their daily activities. State surveillance permeates the private lives of all citizens to ensure that virtually no expression critical of the political system or of its leadership goes undetected. Citizens are punished for any “anti-State” activities or expressions of dissent. They are rewarded for reporting on fellow citizens suspected of committing such “crimes”.
4. Citizens are denied the right to have access to information from independent sources; State-controlled media are the only permitted source of information in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Access to television and radio broadcasts, as well as to the Internet, is severely restricted, and all media content is heavily censored and must adhere to directives issued by the Workers’ Party of Korea. Telephone calls are monitored and mostly confined to domestic connections for citizens. Citizens are punished for watching and listening to foreign broadcasts, including foreign films and soap operas. ... (more)
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Anonymous
Answered Oct 17, 2014
North Korea under Kim Il Sung was more prosperous because it was a client state of the Soviet Union, receiving huge amounts of goods in trade and subsidies. Even then it was like medieval times; no cars on the showcase boulevards, most houses without electricity or running water, open sewers, all budget going to the military, and worse in the countryside. When the Soviet Union fell apart it was South Korea that bailed the Soviets out with hundreds of millions in loans and the Soviets recognized and started trading with the South, which was a severe shock to the North, who cried foul. When the aid and trade with the Soviets dried up the economy began to show its' true nature and people began to starve by the millions. This had nothing to do with Kim Il Sung's leadership, which was as pig-headed and economically ignorant as all the other Stalinist dictators that sided with the USSR.
The "people" may be friendly to strangers, but that is because strangers were and are so few and far between. The government keeps hundreds of thousand like animals in political camps, tortures and murders them in front of their family members, who are then executed themselves if they protest or even show emotion.
Source: I was an Analyst in Korea and lived there for five years studying the language, politics and political economy.
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Aya Ilan, North Korea watcher
Updated Jan 9, 2016
Originally Answered: What is the living condition of people in North Korea?
That's a difficult question to answer, since there are so many variables.
Those with the lowest standard of living are, naturally, the political prisoners, who are locked up in vast, city-sized camps where they are forced to labor while trying to survive on meager rations and suffering from diseases, torture, and cold. The death rate at these camps can rise to as much as 25%.
Next would come the homeless; kkotchebi (homeless children) in particular. They move around from place to place, beg and steal, get arrested and imprisoned and beaten, and their lives generally revolve around survival. For an account of the life of a kkotchebi, I would recommend Joseph Kim's "Under the Same Sky".
Next would come the rural farmers, who are forced to produce certain quotas by the government, despite most of them not having acces to agricultural machinery (most farmers toil their land using oxen). Most of their produce gets taken by the government; many are robbed by soldiers (soldiers these days are not provided with enough food by the government, so many rob civilians in order to survive). Now, with the rise of the market economy, they often sell whatever not taken by the government to city traders; that's the only way to earn enough of an income to keep going.
They are followed by the common people living in towns and cities throughout the country. Electricity and water supply is intermittent at best, and official jobs pay far, far less than what people require to support themselves. Everything revolves around the semi-legal jangmadang (market grounds). The average North Korean makes 70%-90% of his/her income from trading in the jangmadang. Those who have become rich due to trading, the donju ("money masters") form the nascent middle class.
One step up the ladder are those lucky folks living in Pyongyang. While electricity and running water may still be lacking, Pyongyang gets served first when it comes to financial and material resources. Pyongyang does have its poor neighborhoods, but taken as a whole, its residents enjoy a standard of living higher than that which exists in other areas.
Next would come the Pyongyang elites. They live in certain prestigious neighborhoods, such as Potonggang district, and around Tongil and Changgwang streets. Their electricity and water supply is not that great, but they still get more of it than residents of other, less prestigious neighborhoods. They are entitled to shop at department stores featuring imported products, and their children attend the best schools in the capital.
At the top, of course, would be those closest to the Kim family. They live in a compound called Eundeok (grace) outside Pyongyang. Their compound has its own generator and water sources. The compound's villas - each with floors expansive enough to house an entire family's generation - are paved with pink Italian marbel.
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Raymond Lockey, Former energy-security advisor to the Administation of President Ronald Reagan
Answered Mar 17, 2016
Originally Answered: How is it like living in North Korea?
It depends if you are part of the establishment, or one of the starving peasants, or among the prisoners literally being worked to death in one of the gulags. Those who are among the technological, political or military elite live what could be considered an acceptably "comfortable" life unless you factor in that they are constantly living in fear of what the next day, next hour, next minute might hold. Since there is no legal protections, just being accused can be sufficient to have your entire family eliminated before your eyes. And if you go to trial, it is strictly for propaganda purposes and to create even more fear in the hearts of those for whom such trials are meant to be warnings to cheer louder, clap harder, speak more endearingly of the great leader, and NEVER, EVER mutter even one word of dissent, dissatisfaction or be "guilty" of a lackluster show of insincere approval.
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Paul Hussey, Living in Korea, 12 years and counting
Answered Dec 13, 2014
There is a really interesting novel called "A Corpse in the Koryo" written by a self-described "former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia" who writes under the pseudonym James Church. It's fictional, but the author obviously has a unique understanding of the inner workings of North Korean society which he conveys through the story he tells of 'Inspector O', a North Korean policeman investigating a series of murders and kidnappings.
The reason this book is essential reading for someone who wishes to understand life in North Korea is that the author's portrayal of how Inspector O's decisions and actions are influenced by the reality of his situation - trying to investigate crimes in a totalitarian state in which you can trust no one and the government itself is involved in criminal activity - really gives the reader a sense of how oppression and paranoia would pervade the daily life of all North Koreans.
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Vishal Katariya, in pursuit of higher emotion
Answered Jun 8, 2016
Eric Schmidt took his daughter along on a trip to North Korea. Sophie Schmidt wrote a blog post about it (Sophie In North Korea) titled ‘It might not get weirder than this’. With plenty of pictures, Schmidt talks about how creepy and strange N Korea is.
Our trip was a mixture of highly staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments.
A very interesting post, and although this is only about a diplomatically controlled trip to North Korea and doesn’t reflect the true culture of the country, it is still a good read.
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Cera Ward, Grad School Drop Out / Aspiring Game Designer
Answered Dec 3, 2014
Here is a link to an interactive documentary called "The Defector: Escape From North Korea". It details the struggles of North Koreans through a game-like experience wherein you must make decisions as someone that is trying to escape.
http://experience.thedefectormov...
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Andrew Lawrence
Answered Jan 18, 2015
They live like a real-life version of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984, with some minor differences due to being an Asian culture. If you read 1984, you'll understand more about living in North Korea than even most people living there. The people living there usually don't know any better. Their personal hell is all they have ever known. They don't choose to be ignorant, they are largely prevented from finding out that there are other ways to live. The government enslaves the people not by chains, but through psychological control. Because of this, North Korea is the worst example of humanity that we have in our lifetime.
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Buck Benjamin
Answered Mar 15, 2016
North Koreans tend to live a hard life that we all do nowadays, but it seems that they tend to see it as a normal way of living. In that very country, there is actually a caste system that made different groups of people – each group having their different ways of living, as well as benefits and some disadvantages.
In the capital Pyongyang, you will notice that the place is a very nice one compared to most parts of it. There are decent buildings that are towering the big city, the mode of transportation is very convenient, and there is a normal means of purchasing supplies in this area. Take note that it’s really convenient there because even the water and the electricity in the buildings are decent (despite of the fact that disconnections occur from time to time). People in the capital tend to get water during the morning so that they can gather enough for the whole day. However, food preservation can be a problem due to brownouts.
That’s all about Pyongyang, and mostly, all of the wonders that you can see in all cities in North Korea. Other cities tend to experience a bad lifestyle right away. There is one notable city there where people are struggling for everyday water. Some o them use hoses that lead towards the top floors where other people can collect the water. Most buildings are not functioning well due to lack of overall electricity. Take note that the other cities are way worse because there is no maintenance happening – just a plain game of survival for the residents who live there.
Physical labor is quite brutal here because there is a 2 day shift for people who will go to work, and take note that even farming can be a huge struggle due to the environment and lack of supplies. So all-in-all, North Koreans are just doing their best in order to live their lives in a way where they see as comfortable.
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Caleb Kim, worked at Loading....
Answered Sep 9, 2016
If I summarize the answer, some of the people in Pyongyang live better than others. However, outside Pyongyang, many people starve and suffer.
starving children.ㅠㅠ
PyongYang
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Marthe Ledoux, Very much interested in DPRK. Visited for 3 weeks in 2013
Answered Aug 28, 2015
Originally Answered: How do people live in North Korea?
In Pyongyang for the common folk it is about going to work on a bycicle, and
Coming home to a mostly one child family to a very small apartment in a decrepit building with no running water or electricity after dark and no windows. Women wash roads and monuments on their hands and knees.
Outside Pyongyang it is survival of the fittest. Working in the fields at growing corn, making the kernels dry on the side of the road, using a small handmade broom to clean the streets, and carrying water or corn on the shoulders. Going home to an unlit and no running water little village to little homes all in a row, consisting of one room with a door and a window.
People are very thin and never smile
5.9k Views · 4 Upvotes
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Scott Dahlseid, studied at University of Minnesota
Updated Sep 19
People in north korea live in a closed off from rest of world where all people don,t have acess to foreign movies tv news cartoon and internet for trusted elite however citizen can use a state run intranet state there three songbun core dprk elite wavering South Korean defectors and hostile means christans and landlords
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Anthony Valentin
Answered Apr 18
Originally Answered: What is living in North Korea like?
This could help.
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Sudhir Kale, I came to know some details of North Korea's close cooperation with Pakistan
Answered Apr 27, 2016
Originally Answered: How is the life in North Korea?
Pl read Nuclear Deception by Levy & Scotts-Clark. The chapter on Benazir Bhutto's state visit to Pyongyang can send shivers down your spine!
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