Looks like a spiral bound notepad.
NK fag here.
This photo is a comparison between apples and oranges. One should compare DPRK at night with Congo or Cameroon at night, countries with similar economies, not ROK.
DPRK is extremely poor, yet also extremely organized and well-educated. I'm unaware of this combination elsewhere. Usually, poverty is associated with chaos and lack of education. Because of this, it is easy to think of DPRK's poverty as being the result of a choice. Yet we do not think of other poor countries as having made the choice to be poor.
It is difficult for Americans (and others) to understand this: the DPRK regime has genuine popular support. Unlike eastern Europe during the Soviet days, the there are no foreign soldiers in DPRK imposing that system at bayonet point. Many otherwise skeptical people turn off their skepticism when it comes to media "reports" about DPRK, almost all of which are datelined Seoul, the capital of a rival country. In my multiple visits to the country (an not as a tourist), I have not seen any evidence of any movement or group of people being repressed. For example, there is very little to no security (beyond a token uniformed guard at the entrance) at the diplomatic residential compound; there is no security whatsoever at hotels where foreigners stay, something one can hardly say about hotels in areas that are unstable or where there is conflict of any kind. There is far more security in Beijing– to say nothing of Washington, DC– than anywhere in DPRK.
When I point this out, the reply is often something along the lines of "well, it's so repressive there that no opposition could arise." That's simply not testable and seems to me to be the result of projecting our own cultural starting points onto the DPRK.
The American ethos is to do things one's own way, to build a better mousetrap, John Wayne riding off alone. The North Korean ethos is the opposite; it is the most conformist country within the most conformist part of the world. North Koreans think in terms of the group (it is an ethnically pure society where one can say "we" without caveats). When North Koreans behave differently from Americans, Americans say that they are either being forced to behave that way or they are being prevented from behaving like Americans; the American way naturally being assumed to be the default way of thinking about anything. That's simply not an accurate way of understanding how NorKors think.
My two cents worth is that there isn't anything sinister going on in DPRK. Flying into the country, one can see a great deal of it from the air. It occurred to me once that it seemed implausible that they could extract enough resources from that small area of land to pay for the airplane I was riding on.
Finally, I don't think they have a nuclear weapon. For decades, state television has showed the same clips of the same Mig-21s, the same flame-throwing tanks, the same fast patrol boats, and the same soldiers marching in the same streets. If they had a bomb, I think they'd show it along with the rest of their weapons. Fortunes are made off defending against the "North Korean threat." DPRK has no territorial ambitions. No one refers to Mexicans in the U.S. as "defectors," only North Koreans in South Korea (many of whom eventually return home).
Korea (and other regional nations) has existed for 5,000 years. The US will be 242 years old this July. This isn't their first rodeo; I think we would be well-advised to avoid being drawn into their rivalries.
I said NK fag, not North Korean fag. I'm an American.
Not an argument, but not unexpected either.
North Koreans tend to Photoshop everything, rather naively in my opinion. Photoshop is viewed as digital "development" or a photo. Hell, they photoshopped a passport photo of me for a visa extension once. Not photoshopped as in replaced or added someone who wasn't there, but lightening, darkening, messing with contrast, etc.
KJI had a growth on the side of his head, so they no doubt shopped that part of his photo. Probably messed with the people in the photo too.