Featured Image Credit: therealistclipper / Tiktok
When it comes to North Korea, the communist state is known as one of the strictest countries in the world. Social media is banned there, meaning logging into your Facebook, Instagram, and X is a no-go, but now, viral footage on TikTok has given us a rare glimpse of Kim Jong-un's world.
There are plenty of places in the world you can't visit, with the likes of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and North Sentinel Island being out of bounds, whereas North Korea enjoys a bustling tourist industry that estimates some 5,000 Western tourists visit annually.
The same pre-pandemic statistics suggest that 120,000 Chinese tourists visit annually, and yet, we know so little about the country.
Over on TikTok, footage from therealestclipper shows us the eerie scene of downtown North Korea with a mass of people dancing.
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We've previously had some rare insight into North Korea thanks to YouTubers running marathons and smuggled smartphones revealing a little of what goes on under Kim Jong-un, but in this viral video, many are simply confused about what's going on.
Not having the right travel permissions or even the right haircut can land you in serious trouble when visiting North Korea, and yet, the video shows a massive crowd seemingly having the time of their life as numerous other people film from the sidelines.
Responding to the clip, one person said: "They are so far removed from the world that they really assume we’ll see this and think everything’s perfectly fine there 🥺."
Another conspiracy theorist added: "It's not filmed secretly, everything is staged for tourists, so that they can film it, post it on the internet, and the world will grow that everything is fine in North Korea, and people are happy, but actually there is nothing happy about North Korea, that's the truth!"
A third chimed in saying: "Why is this so terrifying. So many actors for so few tourists."
Many picked up on the men in suits who were circling the group, with others suggesting the whole thing is nothing more than a performance to imply things are 'normal' there.
There have been similar stories from Ashgabat, with the $14,000,000,000 'city of the dead' being described as a desolate place of splendor. In the video from North Korea, someone else summed up, "Why do I feel that's the entire population."
This isn't the first peek inside North Korea you can find on social media, with British woman Zoe Stephens regularly posting videos from her numerous trips to the country.
As hared by Yahoo!, Stephens explained how North Korea can be a fascinating place: "I want to show people the human side of North Korea - a lot of foreigners think people there are starving and trying to escape.
"But in reality, people just go about their everyday life there. I love going for hikes in rural North Korea - and in Pyongyang, my favourite things to do are literally just grabbing coffee and getting my hair done."
Tourists were only recently allowed back into North Korea after Kim Jong-un placed a five-year ban on visitations due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now that the borders are open, it seems people are flooding to enjoy their own experiences of this unique place.
