bernard: (via North Korea: What is it like to visit North Korea? - Quora) Part of the custom of visiting the DPRK is bringing a gift for your guides from your home country. I thought it would be really cool to bring my guide an iPod shuffle with music that represented America. I debated what I should put on it What would be the most valuable type of music to a DPRK guide in Pyongyang? and I ended up putting the top 100 Billboard hits. Turns out my guide has never heard any other type of music besides Korean and a little music from some of the American movies she saw. She didn’t know the titles of what she has seen, but one of them was about a “Girl who would sing and dance on top of the bar” Coyote Ugly (2000 movie)? I spent a good part of the three hour drive to the DMZ explaining some of the genres like country, rap, and rock that were included in her mix. We shared earbuds as I blew her mind with the latest Eminem and Lady Gaga hits of 2010. I was pretty sad when she asked me to turn the volume down on multiple occasions. Super rad. These are the stories I want to be fake, not because they involve the suffering of North Koreans but because they seem to fit, too perfectly, the colonial dream: of bringing tidings of a brighter and more beautiful world to a backward, benighted people.  What I am saying is that this story is entirely self-serving.  It is just one long sustained pat on the writer’s back.  It’s gross.  Even if it were true it would be in bad taste to tell it.
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bernard:

(via North Korea: What is it like to visit North Korea? - Quora)

Part of the custom of visiting the DPRK is bringing a gift for your guides from your home country. I thought it would be really cool to bring my guide an iPod shuffle with music that represented America. I debated what I should put on it What would be the most valuable type of music to a DPRK guide in Pyongyang? and I ended up putting the top 100 Billboard hits. Turns out my guide has never heard any other type of music besides Korean and a little music from some of the American movies she saw. She didn’t know the titles of what she has seen, but one of them was about a “Girl who would sing and dance on top of the bar” Coyote Ugly (2000 movie)?

I spent a good part of the three hour drive to the DMZ explaining some of the genres like country, rap, and rock that were included in her mix. We shared earbuds as I blew her mind with the latest Eminem and Lady Gaga hits of 2010. I was pretty sad when she asked me to turn the volume down on multiple occasions.

Super rad.

These are the stories I want to be fake, not because they involve the suffering of North Koreans but because they seem to fit, too perfectly, the colonial dream: of bringing tidings of a brighter and more beautiful world to a backward, benighted people. 

What I am saying is that this story is entirely self-serving.  It is just one long sustained pat on the writer’s back.  It’s gross.  Even if it were true it would be in bad taste to tell it.

Source: quora.com

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    Super rad. These are the stories I want to be fake, not because they involve the suffering of
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