20 Things I Learned While I Was in North Korea

20 Things I Learned While I Was in North Korea | Wait But Why

2) Everyone lies about everything all the time.

The government lies to the outside world. The government lies to the people. The press lies to the people. The people lie to each other. The tour guides lie to tourists. It’s intense.

The lies range from big things—the government hammers away at the message that the US is preparing to attack North Korea, the press depicts South Korea as a suffering and American-occupied country, the leaders’ speeches talk about North Korea being the envy of the world with the highest quality of life—to tiny things—we met a soldier at one point we were told was a colonel, and after he left, a retired army major on my tour told me that he had studied North Korean army uniforms and that the soldier was in fact a captain.

Facts are not a key part of the equation in North Korea.

And it can really mess with your mind as a visitor.
I’d find myself in these perplexing situations trying to figure out if a lie-spouting North Korean was in on it or not. 

Was she thinking, “I know this is false, you know this is false, but I live here so I gotta play the game”? 

Or was she fully brainwashed and thought she was telling me the truth? 

It was impossible to tell. During interactions, I’d find myself thinking, “Are you an actor in The Truman Show and you think I’m Truman? 

Or are you Truman and I’m one of the actors?” 

Are those kids on the street just pretending to be playing for my benefit? 

Is any of this real? 

Am I real?