What It's REALLY Like To Visit North Korea - Simon Wilson 

Is there a way to watch the whole video of this podcast? in all honesty you lose a lot when its audio only and I know you have a Spotify deal now. Any clarification would be great!

Get Bald and Bankrupt on!

@@VelvetyOnion init I only watch podcasts I can watch and what’s the point in recording the whole thing and only put up clips

@@williamadams7136 1000% agree but he is never in the UK :( so shocked to see Simon on here as I know him only from that!

@@williamadams7136 hahaha he can't come to the UK unfortunately 😂 owes hundreds of thousands in child support

I think every Country has had its own share of tragedy at some point in recent times. Just because North Korea went through a famine doesn't mean the people are living bad lives. I think he was saying that they've grown up with North Korea being ruled how it is and they've not known anything different so they see it as a normal and they're happy with it. Deep down most people do love their own Country and culture even if it's not UN approved.

most north koreans are in favour of their government and are happy. if you want to argue its not true happiness that's fine, and if you want to say its just because they are always lied to that's fine. but north koreans are definitely happy

@@akhan645 I doubt the hundred of thousands who are in, or have died in their 'Reprogramming Camps' are or were happy prior to their deaths. Being worked to death, starved and kept in cages where you can't even straighten out your whole body would not make many people 'Happy'. And that's without the torture used. The reason for being in these camps can be from something as petty as disagreeing with their leader to a member of your family managing to escape from Nth Korea. If someone from your family does manage to get out, the rest of the family is rounded up & pays the price. If that's what you consider 'happy' families, then you maybe need to reconsider your definition of happy. There is nothing 'normal' about having the threat of these camps hanging over a human beings head.

I think actually he might be careful with his criticism of North Korea in case he’s barred from going back

@Amrit Waiba Well there definitely is now in 2020. Not sure when you are talking about.

Ay sills wassup

Does he

Check his channel out, great content. Absolute don.

And he’s good at telling them

Would love to ask him how a person has done so many of these tours with westerners and they have never heard of RU-vid 🤷‍♂️

i was thinking the same. feels insensitive to compare North Korea to London... from the videos i've watched about life in North Korea, the tours are heavily heavily scripted and monitored. the people tourists are allowed to see are actors and are the minority in NK. the tours of NK are propaganda for Westerners to take back to their countries to make NK not look that bad. which is exactly what he's doing

@@ZarahTaylor08 I agree. For all the travelling he's done, he comes across as being extremely naive about Nth Korea & what life is like there for the majority of the people.

Exactly Hahaha

@@ZarahTaylor08 You definitely don't see actors in NK, you absolutely do see the general public. But it's almost exclusively the Pyongyang public. To live in Pyongyang, you must be part of the upper class (and class in NK is determined by your families loyalty to the regime). You see the public outside of the capital, but only very briefly when driving past. That's when you see the poverty. But you're right about being scripted. Everything is planned, you can't even leave the hotel without your guides or you'll be arrested. The tour guides will also receive calls from the Government throughout each day, and will tell them to change the itinerary to something else. They intentionally show certain parts (the nature, for example) and dodge certain things (military parades, for example). And your group is being watched nonstop, by people outside of the group/guides. Someone does something wrong? Your guides will get a call from the Government within minutes.

@@tensemurm5924 yeah, i meant actors as in they are not free to say what they believe/would like to and they are told what to say, where to go etc, not actual actors haha

That's something I can get behind

Great shout that

Think he'll struggle to get him to the UK. Think he pretty much calls prague home now

@Crane phoenix soviet sink🤣🤣

and Harald Baldr!

More like the Matrix. With the Kims as the big phallic robots.

Or the hunger games with the districts and the soldiers.

@@benjaminfreeland1922 agreed it would also make good telly

With a tad more starvation

Have you ever been?

Oh definitely Everything they show is fake and the actual people of North Korea are starving

@@Liam-dd9vx Most of the people are, in Pyongyang they are not. As he said though, only certain people are allowed in Pyongyang. The upper class, as determined by your families loyalty to the regime, are the only people in the capital.

@Dinesh Truth Didn't know Kim had a secret RU-vid account...

He’s niave

How do u guys know? 😅😅😅

@femboy erin true, but my point was that in Asia, let alone North Korea, they have their own stars (such as the ones I listed) which we in the west have never heard of. Of course some artists are world renowned, but to be surprised at North Koreans not knowing who queen or Elton John are is very naive for a guy who has traveled so much.

@@jako9333 I think he was just trying to prove a point, in that North Korea is very cut-off.

You guys don’t even know Mohammed abdo

The thing is queen and elton john aren't popular worldwide,only normally english speaking countrys,try the beatles or Mj ppl will know them worldwide for sure

To be fair, it’s not even comparable as the majority of artists come from the US or UK anyway. So it is expected that people in Asia would know certain people/artists.

You’re the hero I don’t deserve

@Absolute Reactions lol hey bro

@@fatgamer919 i found you comment

The guy could buy several houses I'd assume...

@@Josh1eFC you that guy who was in fatgamer 919 Detroit becomes a human stream

"Well in"? what does this mean?

@@imogeninsufferable good job or well done 👍

@Dinesh Truth I think she’s telling the truth

Exactly . Curiosity makes u really want to see with your own eyes . However there's no way I could go knowing that I'd be supporting the regime providing them with much needed foreign currency .

Are you saying that you do not purchase any products made in China? You don't eat chocolate bars? You don't use a computer or electronics? Guess where these products are made, or where the minerals used to make their components are sourced, etc., The current US president has done more to support and legitimize that regime than all tourists, businesses combined -well, short of other commie countries. See the world with your own eyes, and make informed opinions, man

@@storagebox1793 Big difference between buying the odd imported good Vs actively buying a plane ticket and giving thousands directly to the government lol But nice try

@@Ze-Germanzuk got to completly agree with the other guy a trip there will cost pennies compared to everything else you're comparing billions to a few thousand how many people is it compared to products bought is like comparing selling Pepsi to tesco value coke big difference

Genuinely*

Yeah his North Korea video really gave an insight of what that country is like 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Ignorance is bliss.

I think the point he was trying to make is that their lives are really simplistic and basic, they don't live within our information age, with our level of technology and standard of living they only know what they know.

@@---cf9bj Yeah...because they have no freedom to have a "complicated" life, complicated being...ya know, "free"

@@lukek1192 Well yeah, being free to live your life in anyway you want can make things complicated.

@@---cf9bj ...

I think when you compare to South Korea where suicide rates are insanely high and individuals compete for consumption to fill their souls, the idea of having a much more simple and community oriented lifestyle, however limited, seems somewhat appealing. Aside from the constant fear, of course. That’s not so say North Korea is good, it’s admitting that certain aspects of their lifestyle could teach us something about our own. Perhaps having such a consumerist and hyper-individualised society hasn’t actually helped us live fulfilled and happy lives. Maybe if we stripped back a bit and looked at what really made us happy we’d rethink how we live. I’d recommend watching Michael Palin’s documentary on North Korea. It shows a side not often talked about yet remains very level headed about both the atrocities and be positives of their society.

@Dinesh Truth Yeonmi Park is from North Korea dude ..

Simon has 740,000 subscribers 🤷‍♂️

@@joshfunnell814 what I meant by it was hes smaller than Jack given him a bigger platform was a nice comment, so I thought anyway

@@lolfunny6587 he’s massive on Facebook

@@RB-NZ2 yeah that’s how I first saw him I should of worded this comment better

Spotify

@@measth thank you. 🤙

Haha true

Germany in the 1930s was much better than it is now. Beautfiul cities, no run down ghettos and shady places.

spotify

@@demi-qs5zc i meant to watch on RU-vid

@@jamie1744 he won't. Are you new here? They moved over to Spotify so you can listen to the full thing there. RU-vid is just for little clips

@@profscoff I am new. Sorry didn't know

@@jamie1744 no problem glad I explained then 👍

Yh I agree I think he was taking his time of North Korea quite literally not realising this is what they want you to see. Contextually that not how they really live their lives so in that respect I think he was a bit naive

@@amirakbar6985 Yeah and its so obviously fake aswell if you see the videos you get led around a specific path of travel, you can't venture off at all like you can anywhere else in the world. I think he was just taking his trip at face value but I think thats a little naive really I think its best to be honest about what its like and say its just them leading you around and faking being happy about being there.

He literally stated in the video that he did realize that it was the view of NK they wanted him, and that there was an entire different side he couldnt see, are you dull?

@@RhinoGore38 are you feeling ok. He said that for 10 secs of the vid the rest he was saying how he thinks North Korea is this great country when in fact it’s not. Even jack was trying to him make him say something negative but he wasn’t having it.

Very Naive in my opinion

Otto didnt get set up....he was trying to steal a poster from the hotel lobby Sad though how they dealt with him....truely disgusting treatment

@@dbigdog79 he didn’t try to steal anything tho it’s a conspiracy

so the guy who voluntarily entered an oppressive communist dictatorship, known to use western visitors as political pawns, and who voluntarily entered into a restricted area to steal a poster was set up? Sounds like the actions of an entitled brat. Though, much like the black dudes murdered by the police for crossing the street on a red light, he didn't deserve to die. Anyway, trump pardoned North Korea and the Kim regime for the kid's death, so it's now moot. The official American position is that the commies did nothing to that man.

@@storagebox1793 if he did actually try to steal their stuff then fair enough but apparently he was set up as in he didn’t do any of that, not sure

@K M there’s literally no birds in North Korea. 0.

No he isn’t delusional. It’s his story, his experience we all have different ones and this is his point of view. There is no way it could have been set up as North Korea is a very strict country.

He didnt see even a second of the real DPRK, didnt see children eating maggots out of the ditches or trucks running off wood burning stoves because there’s no gasoline

@@susbaggy7080 It would be set up by the government

I think he’s probably just talking nice so they’ll let him back in if he wants to go again

just a bit thick to be fair

In two different ways

He's already been to quite a few mate

Bollocks

Yeh to compare this to going to nice places in London is very naive, the difference between poorer areas which would be the richest in North Korea btw and abject poverty. To say they could be more unhappy in western world is insanity, litterally startling to death

Load of shite

Caused by whom? The country was and still is entirely blocked off from the rest of the world through sanctions, and was denied loans during it. Where do you think they would've got the food from during a series of floods and droughts while being blocked off from trade? It's easy to call someone ignorant while oneself being blinded by one's own ignorance.

@@SapphFire NK's own fault.

d'ya get wot I'm sayin

We're Spotify exclusive mate! This is a highlights channel now and the full audio is only available on Spotify.

@@HappyHourPodcast thanks for replying dude no worries will be tuning in on both platforms

We went Spotify exclusive a few months ago mate, this is now a highlights channel and the full audio is only available on Spotify!

Incredibly naive what they was all saying

Sound like you just described the US

@@andrewmohan8371 N Korea

This needs to be highlighted

and Harald Baldr!

We've been Spotify exclusive since September!

@@HappyHourPodcast Oh shit! Thanks!