Did I Just Shut Down North Korea?

Since the making of this video, North Korea has once again completely suspended tourism just 3 weeks after reopening. We're joined now by Mike, who is one of the first tourists to head into North Korea. British travel influencer Mike O.

Kennedy. Yeah, I'm in North Korea. North Korea has stopped letting tourists into the country just weeks after the first Western visitors were allowed back in.

Authorities have not given a reason for the sun's suspension. North Korea, a country ruled by a man who floods the media with propaganda, portraying himself as some kind of god, unstoppable, untouchable, bathed in a golden light. I mean, could you imagine if that level of self- worship came from a leader in the West?

Oh, hang on. Wait, how did that get there? Join me as I have unauthorized conversations with locals.

Drnk snake whiskey. Can't believe I'm about to drink this. And try my best to stay out of trouble.

Do you think it this is this is the suitable writing here in the least visited region of the most secretive country on earth, North Korea? Welcome to another day in the bizarre world of North Korea. I would open the window to show you outside, but the windows are sealed shut to stop me from escaping.

[Music] Razison at North Korea's northeastern tip sits uniquely on the border of China and Russia. This gives it a major strategic edge. It controls a stretch of the Sea of Japan, something that China does not have.

And it hosts the only yearround ice-free port in the entire region, something that Russia does not have. I'm heading to a monument built by Kim Jong- to honor North Korea's bond with Russia. Unaware that I'm about to make a mistake that will cause me some pretty serious anxiety for the rest of the day, welcome your visit.

inside first outside the school. So, more introduction inside. So, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the main room, but it was essentially just a lot of pictures through the years of Kim Jong- and Kim Jong-un in their various meetings with Vladimir Putin.

Now, they had this visitors book in the friendship house, and I was asked to write something, and like a frigin five-year-old on Christmas Day, I wrote, "I wish nothing but peace to the world. " Because that's the kind of thing you write in a visitor's book. But it's safe to say that the North Koreans didn't take it very well.

Thank you, Mr Moon. What do you think? Do you think this is this is the suitable writing here?

Well, I just it's like um it's like I I thought you just It's like because there's peace between Korea and Russia. Mhm. It's like peace.

What do you think? Peace between countries cuz this is a friendship house. If not, we can get rid of it.

So, behind me is the Russian Korean North Korean friendship house built in 2002 after one of Kim Jong-'s um meetings in Russia. He came back and he said, "I order the construction of a house to represent the friendship that we have between Russia. " Now, I just got in trouble because they asked me to write a um thing on a piece on the like a visitor's book.

They said, "Can you write a message on the visitors book? " And I said, "I wish nothing but peace to the world. " And they looked at each other like, "Do we think that's a do you think that's an appropriate thing to write?

" And I was like, "It's a friendship house. It's a friendship house. " In hindsight, writing about world peace in a country that just a day earlier staged a spectacle with children dancing before thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles was probably a bad idea.

My guides likely saw this comment as a veiled critique of North Korea, suggesting that peace doesn't exist here. Was that how they interpreted it? I have no idea.

I hope not. Sorry. I guess there was only one thing that was going to quench my anxious thirst.

A massive North Korean brewery. This is the beer that I've been drinking the past 3 days and it's actually surprisingly really really good. So this beer isn't just consumed here in the DPRK.

Last year they actually exported 200,000 bottles to China and Russia. So if you go to China, you can buy North Korean beer. machine.

Machine is there. They clean the the bottles here. Intruding process fill up the bottles.

This factory is famous for making the uh special liquor made of 100 kinds of flowers. Oh, where are all the workers day off today? Yeah.

Are we going to get I guess I am. You should have said dans. Danu dans.

Are we doing dance? Dan. This is the taekwondo center here in uh in Rason DPRK.

Taekwondo from kindergarten up until end of high school. So quondo is a compulsory uh lesson activity skill that has to be learned. Hi Ba.

I think for me and probably most of the people watching this, the stuff that I'm the most interested in is everything that happens in between and outside of these stops. you know, taekwondo thing and then the beer thing and the whatever else factory. I'm super interested in everything else that happens between that.

What's going on outside in the farms and the outside world and the villages? Not allowed to see it and get a little glimpse of it every now and then. And it's very, very interesting.

And that's the real stuff. You know, I'm not saying that this isn't real. Of course it is.

It's just tailorade. Yeah, Come on. Finish him.

Killing spree. Oh, yes, dude. Yes, dude.

Well done, brother. Well done, brother. Well done, boys.

[Music] The people of the DPRK live under a one party system. Every piece of news they receive about their country and the world comes from a single source. In contrast, we have thousands of sources.

But with so much information, it's hard to get a balanced view. In the past decade, ad-driven algorithms have made news more polarized, tailoring coverage to specific audiences. That's where Ground News comes in.

It's a website and app that pulls in thousands of news articles daily, organizing them by story. Each story comes with a breakdown of political bias, reliability, and ownership. Take this story about North Korea suspending tourism.

Over 30 outlets are covering it. Ground lets you compare headlines to see how different sources frame the same event. Daily Mirror, an outlet that leans left, frames the story as Kim Jong-un mysteriously closing tourism to a specific village.

On the other side, the Daily Express, a bright leaning source, frames the story more broadly as North Korea making a sudden ban. And look, Fox News did a story about me. I'm famous.

Yay. One of my favorite features is their blind spot feed, which covers stories under reportported by one side of the political spectrum, and it really helps me see news I wouldn't normally see on a day-to-day basis. As someone that travels to places with complex histories, I know how important it is to look at stories from different angles.

Ground News helps me cut through the to see the bigger picture. So, I'm not just getting one version of the truth. If you subscribe to my link in the description, you'll get 40% off their unlimited access Vantage plan, giving you access to every feature.

If you want to support my reporting, subscribe to Ground News and take control of how you see the world. Considering I'm the I'm literally the first British tourist in over 5 years to step foot inside uh North Korea. the people that the the Korean guys that were with who are part of the party.

They work for the government. They're being very lenient. They are allowing me to take some videos and take pictures and and stuff like that.

When when there's something that you're not allowed to see, they just say they just say no. And you just go, "Yep, cool. " Um you say, "Yep, cool.

" Thank you to Marshall Kim Jong-un. On that note, by the way, The Kim D Kim dynasty are like gods here. They're like God.

They don't say thank God. They say thank Marshall Kim Jong-un. And you have to say Marshall Kim Jong-un.

You can't just say Kim Jong-un. They're like gods, man. It's interesting.

I was going to say weird. It's Saturday night. It's bitterly cold.

Let's go get drunk on North Korean booze. How are you, sir? Guys, nice to meet you.

So, this is the Sportsman Hotel and it's where I'm going to be drinking tonight. It was the very first international hotel built here in Razon after it became the special economic zone and it was built in 1998. Apparently, it's pretty a pretty cool place.

They got a cool bar and a bill and all that So, let's have a look. Bars here. These are two these are both bars.

They got double bars. One beer in each bar. What do you think?

Good. One beer here. One beer here.

One beer. Exactly. Sorry.

My camera's making all the lights bug out, which is really annoying, but this is a pretty cool bar. Hey, here we have karaoke. Karaoke.

Hello, sir. Hello. So, I'm going to have dinner, but then after dinner, I'm going to sit at this bar and I'm going to try a wide range of North Korean alcohol and we'll give our opinions on it.

Thank you. How are you? Right.

I don't know what that was about. Okay, I'm going to talk about food for like 30 seconds because I'm not good at talking about food. I'm only good at eating it.

Overall, the food in North Korea was good, I guess. Nothing really to write home about. This was famous North Korean cold noodles.

And this was like salmon with kind of like custard on it, which was pretty weird. Uh, and this was a flaming snail, which I guess is a thing. I don't know.

I feel a bit weird talking about all this really, really lavish food in a country so notorious for its history of famine. Uh, yeah. All the Chinese.

Thank you so much. Can I have this one? Thank you.

All right. Yeah, they don't have that um rattlesnake. They have the rattlesnake brandy.

The brandy with a snake inside. I bought in the bookshop in the bookshop. This one and soju.

[Music] Yes. Thank you. Grape soju.

Grape soju. That sounds good. Yeah.

Well, doesn't sound good for tomorrow morning. So, the lighting is really bad in here, but this song that's playing at the moment is the absolute number one most recent chart topper to come out of to come in of number one chart topper at the moment in North Korea. And it's called Friendly Father Marshall Kim Jong-un.

Marshall Kim and it's about Marshall Kim Jong-un. Hi. How are you?

Hey. You know what this mean? No, I don't.

In Korean. And what does that mean? Dear father.

Dear father. Friendly father. Dear father.

Dear father. Okay. Ah.

And our great leader general you know. Yes. Of course.

Of course. Of course. Dear father.

Of course. Ah. Interesting.

You are from uh Razon. No. No.

No. No. You live in You're from You live in Pyongyang.

You live in Pyongyang. From Pyongyang. Oh, cool.

You're here on business or tourism? We are tourist. Nice to meet you.

Thank you for translating for me. Have a great night. What's your name, sir?

Last name is Mr Gim. Mr Gim, nice to meet you. Your English is excellent.

My name is Michael. Michael. Michael.

Nice to meet you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, brother.

Korean beer. Yes. Okay.

The famous is two. Okay, I'll have a look. Okay.

I've heard of [Music] Okay. Check it out. Thank you, Mr Thank you, brother.

So nice to meet you, brother. So nice to meet you. We just had an actual genuine interaction with someone from the DPRK.

How cool is that? This is North Korean soju. This is the stuff that I got absolutely shitfaced on two nights ago.

Oh, hell. Dansume. I got a grape in mine.

The funny thing about this bar is actually impossible to uh pour your own drink. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, the same.

You reckon we just want a small one? Yeah. Yes.

[Music] Last thing for a piece. Peace. To peace.

Peace. Yes. [Music] Past.

Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Applause] I [Music] might that was a fun night.

Long before North Korea became what it is today, it was a fierce defender of its people's freedom. In 1910, after just 13 years of full independence from China, Korea was annexed by Japan and turned into a colony. This sparked a wave of resistance movements across the country with guerilla fighters taking up arms against Japanese rule.

Among them was Kim Sunung, the grandfather of Kim Jong-un and the founding leader of North Korea. Oh, hell. This is a cave that was used by guerilla fighters when fighting against the Japanese uh imperialists in 1945.

Be careful. Okay. I can hear the sound of sleeping sound of I'm the only hairy thing in here.

Thank you, sir. Is it deep? Yeah.

This is a big climb, but it's an important one. Mr to move. My guide says this path is has its ups and downs as it struggles much like the road to revolution.

You see here the harbor the bay beautiful. After 35 years of Japanese rule, Korea was suddenly left without a government when Japan surrendered in 1945. To keep things in order, the Soviet Union took control of the North while the US took the South, splitting the country along the 38th parallel.

What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement quickly turned into a Cold War standoff, leading to the Korean War in 1950. After 3 years of brutal fighting, the war ended in a stalemate, locking North and South Korea into the permanent divide that still exists today. It's sad that this deep divide between North and South Korea and the total isolation of North Koreans from the rest of the world is a direct result of US and Soviet involvement after World War [Music] II.

Behind me is some classic DPRK propaganda posters and they'll say they don't have ads here, right? There's no ads for Coca-Cola and things uh because they don't have that here. Instead, they have propaganda posters that will say something to inspire the people.

Um, for example, we must unite uh to help build the farmlands or build build the cities. And this is a main square here. These big circles are used for uh if it's a Marshall Kim Jong-un's birthday or or something along those lines, there'll be big choreographed dances in big circles here.

This is a big um DPRK cinema house where they show the latest the latest blockbusters. Welcome to a totally empty souvenir shop with about 25 people working here and no customers. Ah, this is the rattlesnake brandy.

I've got two bottles of this already and I've got some North Korean home brand Coca-Cola. So, uh, we're going to do a little mixer later on. They got the Tiger Bones [Music] liquor.

This is alcohol made from Tiger Bones. It's uh Yeah. So, I've heard about this in China.

Um, it might even be from China. Um, totally banned in in the West, of course, because it's made from the bones of a tiger. So, this tiger bone liquor is actually used as a medicine.

Um, I've seen it in China before. They hunt and kill endangered tigers and then take the bones and use it for a medicine, which is about the most mental thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Here, another big selection of North Korean cigies.

The 727s that I bought that I'm a couple of cartons of are the cigarettes that uh General Marshall Kimyong smokes and these are the the working-class versions. These are a bit more affordable. They've also got the Air Coro cigarettes.

Where are they? Um I can't see them. But Air Korea, which is the national airline of the DPRK, North Korea, have their own brand of cigarettes.

The next stop on the big North Korean propaganda tour, a pharmacy. Uh, I'm super hung over and this is a pharmacy, so it's not that much fun. Um, but if you are interested in in a pharmacy in the DPRK, vitamin B injections, carbocchrome injections, one thing that they definitely do not have is contraception.

Apparently, condoms, birth control do not exist in in uh in North Korea. There is there like contraception in DPRK like [Music] This is a bottle of rattlesnake. A bottle of North Korean rattlesnake whiskey.

God. And I'm going to do a shot of it. I can't drink that.

There's stuff. There's like mud in the lid. Oh my god.

It's It's tongue is stuck to the end. I know. It's a piece of string.

Oh my god. That is a rattlesnake. Oh god.

I can't believe I'm going about to drink this. Oh god. Oh.

Oh, no. Oh, there's little bits in it. What are they?

If you've made it to the end of this video in the end of this series, you deserve to see me suffer. [Music] That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever drank in my entire life. [Music] [Music] [Music] As I made my way back to China, a place so many people see as strict and oppressive, but now felt like the freest place on Earth, I couldn't help but reflect on the past 4 days.

I only caught a small glimpse of North Korea and that glimpse was controlled, carefully curated to show me the best of what the country has to offer. So I cannot claim to speak for the entire country. But before coming here, I had a preconception that this was a dark place, an evil place, an oppressive place.

And politics aside, what I actually saw was something different. I saw a developing country. I saw a country decades behind the rest of the world where people don't share the same freedoms that we take for granted.

But I also saw people simply trying to live their lives. It's easy to paint a country with a broad brush, to define it by its government, its policies, or its place in history. But behind all of that are individuals, people with hopes, struggles, and families just like anywhere else.

And if there's one thing I'm taking away from this experience, it's that the people of North Korea are not their government. They are not the system they live under. They are just people living in a country that is so incomprehensibly different from anything you and I can imagine.