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The Ridiculously Disturbing History of North Korea · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Uh, let's hear it for our
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  Speaker 1: dear leader himself, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any like good North Korean chants?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Actually we'll play one in a second.
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  Speaker 1: I'm bed bully that ish. Noel Brown returned from some journeys. Noel,
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  Speaker 1: to the degree that you're comfortable, can you share with
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  Speaker 1: our our fellow listeners, Uh, your your soujeans abroad?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: I returned to my homeland, the fatherland, deutsch Land. I
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  Speaker 3: wandered the black forests hunting for elk with my later
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  Speaker 3: Hozen and my tiny bow and arrow. No, I don't
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  Speaker 3: know about that. You know, it's crazy, man. I was
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  Speaker 3: around Lake Constance, which is referred to in Germany as Bowden's,
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  Speaker 3: a lovely little seaside kind of town, lakeside town. And
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  Speaker 3: to get there, I went through Munich, and I actually
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  Speaker 3: stayed in Munich the night before I flew out. In
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  Speaker 3: that very day there was a bombing at Octoberfest, and
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  Speaker 3: I just narrowly missed that. It was right down the
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  Speaker 3: street from my hotel. Man, so no one is safe,
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  Speaker 3: even the revelers at Octoberfest. You know, it's just man
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  Speaker 3: not to start off with a bummer.
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  Speaker 2: But that that did.
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  Speaker 3: Kind of make me feel a little bit, you know,
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  Speaker 3: hashtag blest, I guess, but.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, of course, I'm I'm so happy you're safe, bro.
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  Speaker 1: I also, on a positive note, want to thank you
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  Speaker 1: again in person on air for sending me a picture
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  Speaker 1: of a dirigible. You actually inspired a conversation I had
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  Speaker 1: on the Daily Zeitgeist recently, friends of the show all
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  Speaker 1: about airships. It just made by day, so thank you.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't make it, but I didn't really know why.
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  Speaker 3: There were so many zeppelins everywhere, not just advertising, but
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  Speaker 3: it just seemed like it was very much a feature
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  Speaker 3: of the area. And in the little town that I
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  Speaker 3: stayed near the lake called Meersburg, they have a zeppelin museum.
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  Speaker 3: And I know you will give a wag a finger
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  Speaker 3: at me for not making it, Man, but I couldn't
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  Speaker 3: make it work. But next time. It's a lovely area,
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  Speaker 3: by the way, if anyone ever is looking to see
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  Speaker 3: what you know, And the most idyllic of German burghs
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  Speaker 3: looks like I look no further than Meersburg or the
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  Speaker 3: Lake Constance area.
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  Speaker 1: And no wagging the thing. I don't find that constructive,
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  Speaker 1: but I do you know me well, I do love
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  Speaker 1: a specific medium. And one of the weirdest ones I've
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  Speaker 1: ever seen, dude, was on the border of the Korean
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  Speaker 1: Peninsula on the thirty eighth parallel.
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  Speaker 3: If you by.
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  Speaker 1: I always trying to bring you little gifts when when
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  Speaker 1: I'm traveling. Folks, if you ever have the chance to
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  Speaker 1: visit the Korean Peninsula, do so. The food is amazing.
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  Speaker 1: We're huge fans of Korean food on this show. The
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  Speaker 1: people are lovely, the technology is fascinating, and the culture
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  Speaker 1: is rich and astonishing. But one caveat, as we know
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  Speaker 1: you're probably if you're from the United States especially, you
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  Speaker 1: probably want to stick to the south side of the peninsula.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 3: It's not it's not exactly a tourist destination yet, but
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  Speaker 3: you can't hang out in kind of the no.
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  Speaker 2: Man's land, which we're going to get to a little
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  Speaker 2: bit later.
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  Speaker 3: And there's some very interesting, let's just call it lightly
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  Speaker 3: if not heavily propagandistic attractions there.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So for almost the century for
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  Speaker 1: Nyon eighty years. The historical region of Korea, the peninsula
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  Speaker 1: there in East Asia, has been split in twain. The
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  Speaker 1: southern half is the Republic of Korea, which we in
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  Speaker 1: the West just call Korea. The northern half, however, is
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka the Hermit Nation,
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  Speaker 1: or to most folks again in the West, just North Korea.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I've always wondered why they call it the
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  Speaker 3: Hermit Nation, but I guess it's just specifically referring to
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  Speaker 3: like they don't get out much.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, it's it's illegal for them to do so.
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  Speaker 1: Now yeah, now we asked, know you earlier asked at
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  Speaker 1: the top for a sound que maybe a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of ao audio cinema here. So what what about this?
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  Speaker 1: Why don't we play just a brief clip of the
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  Speaker 1: biggest party in town in North Korea over there in
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  Speaker 1: their capital, yeong Yang. It's called the Mass Games. The
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  Speaker 1: are a wrong mass games, And I'd love to play
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  Speaker 1: this for you and hear your reactions. This is yeah, okay, cool,
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  Speaker 1: This is for context. This is a mass exhibition of
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  Speaker 1: children doing gymnastics. So you see that animation in the
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  Speaker 1: back there, So cool. Yeah, that's all human made. By
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  Speaker 1: the way those are. That's literally thousands of people, and
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  Speaker 1: they have these color coded cards that they use to
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  Speaker 1: create that image of a It looks like a kid
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  Speaker 1: dreaming while they're holding a pencil leaning over a textbook.
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  Speaker 2: What do you think he's dreaming of Ben, He's dreaming happy.
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  Speaker 1: He's dreaming of the Eternal Leader.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, he's off screen.
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  Speaker 1: He's off screen for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Always.
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  Speaker 1: So as as as you know, well, noul Lo, these
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  Speaker 1: many years, North Korea, the DPRK has mystified the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the world because it is a very strange place.
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  Speaker 1: We talked about this a little bit on our sister
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  Speaker 1: show Stuff. They don't want you to know. Today's episode,
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  Speaker 1: today's question. How did it come to be? Let I mean,
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  Speaker 1: let's find out, because DPRK is kind of a new
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  Speaker 1: kid on the block.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
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  Speaker 3: It is an ancient land Korea as a whole, But
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  Speaker 3: the history of the DPRK is relatively recent, like you mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: beginning at the close of World War Two. There in
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  Speaker 3: nineteen forty five, when Japan went ahead and surrendered to
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  Speaker 3: the Allies, the Korean Peninsula was split in twain down
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  Speaker 3: the thirty eighth parallel between Earth's biggest modern frenemies, the USSR, China,
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  Speaker 3: and the United States of America. With the Nazis on
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  Speaker 3: the outs, or at least on their way to the outs,
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  Speaker 3: the Soviets and the Americans were looking towards a new
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  Speaker 3: goal of expanding their conflicting ideologies across the world. The
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  Speaker 3: Soviets and communist China on the north side of the
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  Speaker 3: parallel saw the new territory as both a buffer against
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  Speaker 3: the encroaching Americans and an opportunity to demonstrate the massive
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  Speaker 3: advantages of the great Communist Dream. Then that I was
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  Speaker 3: in Germany as I'm working on a series that is
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  Speaker 3: centered around the Cold War and the Berlin Wall and
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  Speaker 3: a lot of trafficking of humans from the east side
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  Speaker 3: of the wall, the Communist side, to the west side
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  Speaker 3: of the wall.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a very similar split here in terms.
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  Speaker 3: Of like, the Communists got all that stuff on that
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  Speaker 3: one side, and the Americans more or less were, you know,
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  Speaker 3: in support of the stuff on the other side, and
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  Speaker 3: never the twain shall meet, And all of these conflicts
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  Speaker 3: that you might not think immediately would be an issue
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  Speaker 3: became a total issue, which led to this shutting down
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  Speaker 3: of the border less people on the Communist side, you know,
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  Speaker 3: feel left out or something or like felt like I
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  Speaker 3: feel as though there was stuff going on the other
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  Speaker 3: side of the wall that did not include them. And
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  Speaker 3: this isolationist mentality really took over to the point where,
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  Speaker 3: very similarly to the divide between North and South Korea,
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  Speaker 3: utterly illegal to travel from one side of the Berlin
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  Speaker 3: Wall to the other on pain of death. And which
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  Speaker 3: is why a lot of very crafty folks got into
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  Speaker 3: the business, some for profit, some for the idea the
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  Speaker 3: right things, ideological reasons of moving people across that divide.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: No, I was thinking of you recently as as I
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  Speaker 1: was revisiting my old state department days with the with
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  Speaker 1: the idea of this division, because history is a palimpsest, folks,
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  Speaker 1: if you go to uh, if you go to Berlin now,
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  Speaker 1: you can still see the legacy of the divide of
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  Speaker 1: the wall. East Germany in particular tends to have lower
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  Speaker 1: economic performance. A lot of the stats you would imagine
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  Speaker 1: about demographics still carry with them the burden, the albatross
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  Speaker 1: of that great divide. And look, when, as you were saying,
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  Speaker 1: when the when the Allied forces and the communist forces
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  Speaker 1: are diving up this peninsula. They know from the jump
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  Speaker 1: this is an unsustainable situation. These two occupying they're not
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  Speaker 1: really countries, these two occupying powers or gangs.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, supporters, I guess I'm sort of like, these
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  Speaker 3: are our guys and these are our guys.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much a vassal state situation, these two places,
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  Speaker 1: these two great powers, cannot agree on the best way
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  Speaker 1: to reunify the peninsula. Korea has historically considered itself one thing,
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  Speaker 1: one people, quite homogeneous, so by nineteen forty eight, as
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  Speaker 1: a result of these disagreements and negotiations, the two great powers,
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  Speaker 1: the communists and the capitalists, set up two separate governments.
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  Speaker 1: And the pickle of it is the badger in the bag,
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  Speaker 1: is that each of these governments on the same peninsula
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  Speaker 1: claimed that they had of renedy over the entire area.
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  Speaker 1: So stuff was real awkward from nineteen forty eight to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty when the conflict went hot and kinetic, what
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  Speaker 1: we call the Korean War broke out, and it was
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  Speaker 1: a beat me here, Max, please. It was a shit show.
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  Speaker 2: It was, and it had some interesting alternate names.
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  Speaker 3: I guess, depending on where you stood some of these
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  Speaker 3: I was not aware of. I would tell us a
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  Speaker 3: little bit about some of these and kind of what
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  Speaker 3: the uh, I don't know a little the stank on
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  Speaker 3: each of them might be.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like.
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  Speaker 1: How in the US you call it the Vietnam War,
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  Speaker 1: but in Vietnam it has a different name. In the
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  Speaker 1: United States, you called this conflict in nineteen fifty to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, you call it the Korean War, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: the Forgotten War, the DPRK. The North Korean government calls
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  Speaker 1: it the Fatherland Liberation War because of their mind, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's the righteous, holy thing to do.
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  Speaker 2: There lies the stank, right.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone's putting their own little spin on it, depending on
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  Speaker 3: which side of the divide you fall.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, in South Korea and the ROK it's called the
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  Speaker 1: six two five after the day it started. And China's
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  Speaker 1: name for it, which I think is our mutual favorite,
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  Speaker 1: is the War to resist US aggression and age Korea.
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  Speaker 2: The stankiest of them all.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they put some spin on it, for sure, But
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  Speaker 1: the issue is we're talking about this war. In the past,
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  Speaker 1: tense conflict raged back and forth. It looked for a
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  Speaker 1: time to be anyone's game. This war has not ended.
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  Speaker 1: As you are hearing this episode, we're recording it on Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: October two, twenty twenty five, while the Korean War continues.
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  Speaker 1: It's there's no official peace treaty. Neither side has surrendered
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  Speaker 1: nor seems likely to. It's a temporary cease fire. So
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  Speaker 1: these folks have been on time, came out for decades
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  Speaker 1: and decades.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a cold war very much. So, yeah, I
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  Speaker 3: mean it's it's there's so many parallels between this situation
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  Speaker 3: and what happened there in Berlin and the idea of
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  Speaker 3: a cold war being that sort of like technically were
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  Speaker 3: on pause. But life goes on and tensions do tend
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  Speaker 3: to simmer.
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember that? You know? I'm in love with
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: eighties and nineties sitcom themes, not the actual strangers, just
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: as the There's One, there.
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  Speaker 3: Was a goal to done were described the plot of
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  Speaker 3: the damn exactly.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Shout out to the nanny, right, uh, mister Belvigere, Yeah,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: mister bell oh Man, first time I skipped Fresh Prince.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, have fresh friends put some respect on the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: name as much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: The the one thing that I'm remembering immediately I rediscovered
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: a sleeper hit called Dear John.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Did you ever hear John?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I will send you the theme.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: The theme has been a massive sleeper hit like.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Ozamandius. It was a big deal in its day. It's
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: all about a guy who has a acrimonious breakup with
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: his partner. She leaves him, and she leaves a letter,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a Dear John letter. And that letter is it's a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: breakup letter. Yeah, okay, and it's a so it's uh.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: The entire show is about this guy named in a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: burst of creativity John and his buddies he meets in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: therapy and the high jinks they get into.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Got it So a bit of a sad sack kind
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: of kind of character.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Sweet Little Ted lasso to it. But do check out
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the theme song for Dear John. I'll send it to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: you guys after this recording you fight on YouTube. The
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Korean Warp is not from taxi. Yeah yeah. The Korean
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  Speaker 1: Warp is also an acrimony stalemate. The thirty eighth Parallel
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  Speaker 1: becomes the Demilitarized Zone. We call it the DMZ for short,
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  Speaker 1: and it remains one of the most dangerous, fascinating areas
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  Speaker 1: on the planet today. China also remains an official ally
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  Speaker 1: of North Korea, so much so that when people try
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  Speaker 1: to escape North Korea and make it to a third
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  Speaker 1: party embassy in China, China will capture them. They don't
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  Speaker 1: consider them political refugees, they consider them illegal economic migrants,
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  Speaker 1: and they turn them back into North Korea.
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  Speaker 2: Yike. Sort of a bit of an understanding, I suppose.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, really terrible one too, because horrific things happen
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  Speaker 1: to defectors and their families if they're caught. So the West,
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  Speaker 1: as you said, has been in a cold war with
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  Speaker 1: North Korea, which ultimately, if you game it out, is
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  Speaker 1: our proxy war with China since pretty much the end
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  Speaker 1: of World War Two. And that's part of the reason
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  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam and other countries don't just enter North Korea
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  Speaker 1: and do some government overthrow, because if they did, the
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  Speaker 1: rulers of China Uncle Ji would get very mad, very quickly.
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  Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean, I know it's not This is
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  Speaker 3: maybe not the venue to fully unpack all of this,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm always confused with that, like steadfast support that
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  Speaker 3: China gives to North Korea, much like some of the
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  Speaker 3: steadfast support that we give to Israel. It's always just
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  Speaker 3: confused me a little bit about what the motivations are
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  Speaker 3: where that comes. I'm not trying to be hot button
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  Speaker 3: here about it, but maybe you can see how I
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  Speaker 3: would connect those relationships a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: I could see I could see the parallels in the
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  Speaker 1: structure the mechanisms of those relationships, because in both cases
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  Speaker 1: there's a mix of ideology, there's a mix of resource extraction.
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  Speaker 1: And in the case of the Korean Peninsula in particular,
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  Speaker 1: China is investing in a bulwark in a buffer zone. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So North Korea, for China is kind of its own
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  Speaker 1: bigger DMZ. It's looking at Uncle Sam and the bases
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  Speaker 1: out there around Seoul and so on, the capital of
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  Speaker 1: South Korea, and it's going give me five feet, give
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  Speaker 1: me a distance.
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  Speaker 3: In the event of some sort of invasion or military assault.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially given that North Korea is now technically a
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  Speaker 1: nuclear power. North Korea was taking cues from the Soviets
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  Speaker 1: when the whole operation began, and they said, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to build a massive centralized economy like you were saying,
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  Speaker 1: showing the power of the communist ideals, you know, they
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  Speaker 1: issue capitalism, and they aimed to build a new paradise
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  Speaker 1: on Earth, and they said it's going to be uniquely Korean,
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  Speaker 1: and it's going to be thoroughly communist on paper, it's
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  Speaker 1: not quite communist, Noel, because they found a leader, the
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  Speaker 1: infamous war heroe Kim Il sung, and Kim Il Sung
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  Speaker 1: quickly becomes more than a political figure. He's the centerpiece
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  Speaker 1: of a new nationwide cult of personality. North Korea began
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  Speaker 1: and continues to worship this man as a god. His
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  Speaker 1: family has ruled the area ever ever since.
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  Speaker 3: And he was taking cues for sure from you know,
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  Speaker 3: the hits Stalin and Mao, and in Kim Ilsong, those
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  Speaker 3: two leaders of the USSR and China found the perfect
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  Speaker 3: candidate to run their new country. Like you said, Ben
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  Speaker 3: as something of a vassal state. This was pretty sharp
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  Speaker 3: and also pretty insidious.
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  Speaker 1: Agreed, because here's what they're doing. They're finding a dictator
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  Speaker 1: to push their values right and they want to hold
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  Speaker 1: their space in the great monopoly game of geopolitics. But
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  Speaker 1: they need him to appear to be homegrown, So they
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  Speaker 1: need a Korean guy so they can say, hey, this
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  Speaker 1: is an independent country that happens to agree with us.
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  Speaker 1: But they were giving the orders, they were running the
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  Speaker 1: place without officially occupying it, and Kim Ilsong is so fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: He had various other titles over the decades. So he's
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  Speaker 1: born in nineteen twelve, right, and he rules North Korea
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  Speaker 1: from nineteen forty eight all the way up until he
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  Speaker 1: passes away in nineteen ninety four. He was It was
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  Speaker 1: similar to Vladimir Putin, where people just kept throwing different
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  Speaker 1: titles and accolades upon them. His current posthumous title is
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  Speaker 1: literally right now, the eternal Leader.
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  Speaker 2: In a burst of humility, as you'd like to say,
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  Speaker 2: Ben in.
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  Speaker 1: A burst of humility, as we like to say. His
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  Speaker 1: totalitarian regime is beyond domestic reproach. There were and are
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  Speaker 1: no opposition parties. That's a thing that doesn't happen. There
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  Speaker 1: are no civic minded independent groups. And for a little while,
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  Speaker 1: this is the thing the Americans forget. For a little while, objectively,
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  Speaker 1: they were doing well despite their extensive, aggressive violations of
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  Speaker 1: anything slightly resembling human rights.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, by the sixties, North Korea had a higher
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  Speaker 3: standard of living than the American aligned South Korea, which
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  Speaker 3: was beset on all sides with economic and political turmoil.
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  Speaker 3: And North Korea never forgave the US for its activities
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  Speaker 3: during the Korean War, and a big part of their
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  Speaker 3: ideology was decrying the Americans as belligerent imperialists. The North
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  Speaker 3: Korean government has consistently demanded, so far without any particular success,
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  Speaker 3: that the United States Uncle Sam remove itself from the
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: peninsula entirely, and they even seized an American vessel, the
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: USS Pueblo in nineteen sixty eight. However, by the seventies,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: things started to take a bit of a turn.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is where South Korea, the ROK recovers from
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the chaos and the corruption. Well they never really recovered
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: from the corruption, but anyway, they start making a lot
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of money. They get very involved in advantageous international trade.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: At the same time, North Korea increasingly hermiting off. It
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: starts to falter and collapse as it is straying from
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the usual Soviet communist ideology. The biggest distinction is that
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Kim Il sung, the eternal leader, has this philosophy that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: gets sold to the domestic population. It's called jeu cha.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Jeu Cha is I'm going to be diplomatic. According to
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the official North Korean sources, jew Cha is the final
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: form of communism and it's focused on Korean nationalism, cultural preservation,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: self reliance, and also I hate the Americans, I hate
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the Japanese, and if you roll with them, screw you too.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: So it's not just the kind of communism that on paper,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you know, some folks are wont to say, Wow, that'd.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Be great if it worked like that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: But this is even its own kind of specialized, hyper
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: nationalized version of that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in everything but name, it's a theocracy.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Really.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: The Soviets were not particularly tickled with this development.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: But no, that's our thing. You can't take our thing
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and just run with it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Well, they said, we gave you the thing, we franchised.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: You, now you're styling on it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: We stopped putting new stuff on the menu, you know,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Like it's as though, for the capitalist version, it's like
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: if McDonald's found out that a store in Oklahoma or
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Florida had just started making eros without permission, Like, what's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: what's up with these eros?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: You guys?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Still everybody shrugged, and they said, what are you going
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to do? And they knew the great game was still afoot,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So they supported North Korea along with China, through funding,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: through subsidies, through all kinds of Shenanigans all the way
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: up until the Soviet Union itself fell in nineteen ninety
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: one and the Berlin Wall started tumbling down, et cetera.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent. This was not a good thing for
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: North Korea. Without the support that they'd been receiving, their
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: economy got worse.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: This led to widespread.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: And absolutely horrific conditions, including famine throughout the land in
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four, when the eternal Leader passed away. It's
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: really important to remember that Kim not only outlived Mao
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and Stalin, his buddies and sort of you know, ideological mentors,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: but over his reign, six different South Korean presidents also
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: came and went, and ten American presidents came and went.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a long time strong man, one
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of the best to do it, actually, if you put
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: aside the ethics for a second. Also, just to clarify here, folks,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the Berlin Wall, the fall of it that we're referencing
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: occurs in November of nineteen eighty nine, So we're being
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: a little figurative, but that's one of the most parallels.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most historically important death throws or
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: red flags of the Red flags. All right, we'll keep
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: it of the Soviet Union. Following in ninety one, scary
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: red flags.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, kidd.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So Kim Il sung passes away in nineteen ninety four,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the nation goes into an intense period of grief. Do
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a no small part to the fact that there is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: such horrific famine that cannibalism does exist. It does happen.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Survival cannibalism occurs. Kim Il Sung's son, Kim Jong Il,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: shout out, whoop. Max is a big fan. That's what
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: we say about when he's not around. Kim za Yil
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: succeeded him, and then Kim jong Il rules with an
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: iron fist. He leads the charge on becoming a nuclear power.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: He passes away. He is succeeded by Kim Il Sung's
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: grand son, the current ruler, Kim Jong un.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because, I mean, you know, even though
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: this is technically a communist regime, as you may have gotten,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: the sense of this is a dynasty.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a family business. It's communism for ninety five
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: percent of the country, right, and it's also a theocracy.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: But if you're at the top, you know there's no
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: short it's no secret that the West has a lot
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of propaganda aimed at North Korea. So your browser search
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: away from hearing all sorts of wild stories. We'll probably
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: get to some of these. It's weird. It's an absolute monarchy,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: it's a theocracy, but it's.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Secular, so that's right.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: It's technically an atheist state, right, And this cult of
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: personality is i mean, probably the best example of a
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: pure cult of personality. I literally just googled North Korean religion,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: and the religion in North Korea is ju see yes, right,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: it is you are meant to worship the leaders.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Which is okay.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get in trouble for this, but you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: pre podcast, this was a thing I had to learn
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a lot about and jeu cha, might itself be kind
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: of a grift. I don't know if I'm going to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: be able to get back in there after I say
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: this on air, but jeu cha, if you look at
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Kim Elsung's actual writing, it basically just translates to the subject.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: And then other people are using the big leaf of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: communism to rationalize this worship of this one particular family,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and anybody who doesn't comply is going to be punished
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with incarceration, losing job opportunities, sent off the forced labor
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: for life, they might be killed, not just them, but
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: their families as well. Unto the third generation, these folks
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: hold grudges.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, persona non grata all down the line.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: So let's talk a little bit about that pure cult
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: of personality. The North Korean cultive personality that surrounds the
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Kim family can be found in a lot of examples.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Ever witnessed been firsthand of North Korean culture. Now this
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: isn't directly acknowledged by the state, by the North Korean government,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: but many defectors and visitors from western regions have witness
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: and report stiff penalties for anyone who would dare to
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: criticize or to not show proper deference or the current
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: or former leaders of the country.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anthropologically put, there is a disconnect between a lot
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of other places in the world, And I mean there's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a there's a cultural chasm between what we would consider
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: proper respect and what the people of North Korea and
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the government in North Korea would consider proper respect.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Have you bowed deep enough?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Did you take a picture at the wrong time, did
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: you say something and Australians get in trouble for this
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: all the time. Did you say something that you thought
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: was a funny joke and it was seen as disrespectful. Look,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the personality cult was definitely in play soon after Kimmelsung
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: took power in forty eight, But when he died in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, amid this famine, this economic collapse, they
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: turned the gas up so high on the personality cult,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: on this Orwellian worship of things. That's partially due to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's due to several factors, but the main
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: factor operationally is that they needed to convince these people
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: who are having horrible time. They needed to convince these
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: people that Kim Il sung is God and that therefore
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: his children are the right rulers. So the North Korean
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: government's official position is, yeah, we don't have a cult
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of personality. We as a people just all agree this
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: is the best family. We just all organically do this,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: not because of consequences, because we're right.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: And that's you know, that's not to say that there
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: aren't folks that live there who don't fully believe this
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: stuff with every you know, fiber of their being. Yeah.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a great point because this is this
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: is descended from Confucianism, right, from the idea of a
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of a hierarchy of family in a hierarchy of society
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that is indisputable and immovable. And so this confusion is
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: has been weaponized. You have to adore the leaders. It
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: reminds me of you remember Stalin, right, yeah, that guy,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: yeah from earlier.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: We sang now I'm really fun at parties.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a blast. Well, so,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned previously, our buddy Kim took a lot
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: accues from the Mao Instalin personality quotes. And I always
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: remember the old story about people being terrified when they
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: watched speeches by Joseph Stalin. Nobody so people would start
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: clapping right, always a standing ovation, no matter what he says,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and people would clap for a very very long time
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: because everyone was afraid to be the first person to
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: stop clapping. You might look disloyal. It's a scary thing.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It's definitely in play in North Korea. Not cheering hard
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: enough it's a bad look. People might start to ask questions,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and asking questions or seeming disloyal pretty much anything can
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: land you in the camps and the camps are heinous.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Their human rights abuses have been widely reported, are well known,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: proven and to your point, ben heinous. In two thousand
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: and nine, there is some satellite imagery that was unearthed
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: showing a lot about the way the Kyms lived, which
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: was pretty high on the hog, as well as the
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: terrifying subjugation of their people, the North Korean people. We
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: were able to see photographs showing details of Hua Soong
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: concentration Camp, which is generally referred to as Camp sixteen.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: It's one of North Korea's most notorious prison camps. In
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal reported that it is roughly three
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: hundred square miles containing around twenty thousand political prisoners, located
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: near a facility for testing nuclear weapons.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, again, this is the gnarly stuff, and we
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: have to talk about it. We know the horrors of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: these prisons, all right, and even knowing that the West
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: has a lot of silly anti North Korean propaganda, there
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: are real, actionable and substantive human rights abuses occurring over
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: there in the north of the Peninsula. We're talking not
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: just starvation and disease, but also infanticide, which is the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: murder of children, especially in cases where you know, if
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you go to the wrong camp, if you do something
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the government finds egregious enough, then you are no longer
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a person. You are not only in some cases you're
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: not even forced into manual labor. You're forced into purpose
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: fleet meaningless manual labor. And pregnant women due to that
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: three generation rule have been incarcerated and they lose the kids,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and they're increasing the use of surveillance and forced labor,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: severe punishments. They're ratcheting it up to maintain total control
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: as things collapse. You can read about this, of course
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and things like Human Rights Watch, but the recent United
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Nations report is from like this year, showing how profoundly
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: this has escalated. You can get the death penalty for
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: anything considered an anti state activity. That includes drug use,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: although meth amphetamines were huge for a while. What could
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: be seen as pornography, human trafficking because so many people
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: try to get out, distribution of unauthorized media thought crime basically, right,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: don't go in there and start showing people, you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: like an episode of Peacemaker, that's treasonous. And then economic
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: crimes like a free market. You grow some extra rice,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you got some wheat, you try to sell it to
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: make a little side hustle. That's also treason US. And
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, this would be the moment where
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: in many other countries someone would pop up on YouTube
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: or a late night talk show and they would say, Hey,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: this is kind of weird and not normal, right, not
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: happening there. All media is controlled by the government.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's easy to be hyperbolic about a
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: lot of stuff that's going on in this country right
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: now and say we're descending into these types of conditions.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: And while there's certainly some troubling indications that free speech
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: is being cracked down on, we have a long way
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: to go to get anywhere approaching what's been going going
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: on in this part of the world for a very
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: long time.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you. The US is far from perfect.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It's always been kind of a hold my beer experiment.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It's a very young country that swings above its weight class.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: But it is a heck of a lot less stressful
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: to know you live in a place where, for now
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you can say what you want without getting black bagged.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: That was a nice one on behalf of the founding fathers,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So good on you, guys.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: It would seem that that is remaining a safeguard of
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: some degree. With the Kimel situation, there's certainly a lot
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: of saber rattling, and you know, this idea of pulling
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: him off the air and Sinclair and all that stuff
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: folding the line. But a lot of that stuff has
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: been reversed. And I'm not saying it's not a mega
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: slippery slope and it's not going to revert and possibly
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: even get worse than it already was. But it was
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: a little bit heartening, and we're being positive here to
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: see that that stuff didn't hold and that there is
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: some sense of the constitution.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Now, folks, with all this information, we know what you're thinking.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Long time ridiculous historians. Surely all of us are saying, guys,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I love it. I can't wait to visit the good
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: ish news. You may be able to depend on where
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: you're from, as you know, Noelan Max. I've been over
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to the border twice, both times, very surreal experience, beyond surreal.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most heavily surveilled and militarized areas
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: of the world, right there on the borders of the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: DMZ because that's the only part that's demilitarized, and it's
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: riddled with minds. The border is heavily patrolled. It's also
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: heavily monetized. There are tons of tourist trapped things, and
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of South Korean propaganda too. You buy merchants, swag,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: historical artifacts. Oh oh wait, let me show you something,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: hey guy, you'd love this. Yeah, you got what you
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: got know? This is wild blueberry wine from backdu Mountain.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Is that in a box like chicken broth?
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it is here, I could open it.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I got it. It's a it's a packet.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: There's a bottle inside of it. Yeah, okay, I'm not
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: a very sypy looking wine, my friend. It looks something
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: like you pour on pekins. I feel like it's sketchy.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: So I got it, and I'm never I mean even
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: in Oh that's a shell piece, my friends. No need
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: to sample it, just put it on a shelf.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It's right up there with my Zamzam water, uh, which
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: is the holy water. So here's the thing. You can
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: get limited amounts of actual North Korean products like this
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: sketchy bottle of blueberry wine. However, depending on your nationality,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: depending on how things are going in the world, entering
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: North Korea can be either impossible or fatally dangerous. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I think it'd be cool for us to This is
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: a long quote, but I think it'd be cool for
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: us to round robin the warning that you see about
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: traveling to North Korea. It's directly from Wiki travel, which
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is another fun website.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, first and foremost, you just yeah, got nobody
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: having your back essentially once there, I mean, yeah, let's
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: let's get let's just get you gotta They sum it
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: up beautifully.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Let's take guys named Dennis Robmin the worm. They got
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: to call in the worm, all right.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Many governments do not recommend to traveling to North Korea
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: due to the uncertain security situation caused by North Korea's
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapons development program and strict rules that are aggressively
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: enforced in the country.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: It continues.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: There are no US and Canadian diplomatic offices in the DPRK.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: The ability of officials to provide consular assistance is extremely limited.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Swedes have an office, but like, good luck
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: getting help from them. They're your only recourse. Sorry to editorial.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: The ability of officials to provide consular assistance is extremely limited. Sweden,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: through its embassy in Pyongyang, is the protecting power for Canadian,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: American and Australian nationals if any emergency consular assistance is required.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: How come Sweden gets one?
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Sweden goes everywhere. Man, they're just so friendly. Yeah, it continues.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Such assistance will likely be very limited due to the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: unpredictability of the actions of the DPRK government and the leader.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: If you engage in activities that insult or disparage the government,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: you will face imprisonment, torture, beating, disappearances, and forced labor
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: for life until death, starvation and execution. Sorry, talk about
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: a list of like side effects. Right.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: So a lot of would be tourists kind of quibble
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: about the ethical implications of going in the first place, right, like,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: if you go, are you not supporting this totalitarian and
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: brutally unethical but pretty much any standard reshime exactly.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. It is true because if you visit,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: no matter where you're from, if you visit, people are
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: usually going to fly in from some Chinese airlines. You
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: have to be pre registered with a state run tour operator.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: They control everything the site visits, the restaurants, photography, conversations,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and these tour guides by the way, just so we know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: these two tour guides, like most North Korean people, are
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: super cool. They're just scared. They don't want to die,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: they don't want their family torture, so they're doing their best.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And your hotel is going to be in Pyeongyang in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the capitol. Your hotel room is going to be bugged.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Don't touch anything that you don't have to touch because
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the government does not who you are. It will arrest
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: you if they want for anything at your home. Government,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: as we said, realistically, will not be able to do
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: much about it. You got to call in the worm,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, there's more to explore, and we
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: have to mention. We're ethically bound to mention the harrowing
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: atrocities occurring in North Korea, but we also you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I'm working on being more positive. It's tough, but.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Same dude, It is tough, but yeah, we do the
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: best we can.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Especially after that stuff film episode.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: That was a rough one.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Do check that out if you want to get real
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: dark and non ridiculous over on stuff.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: They don't want you to know.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: And also I would recommend It's been a while since
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I've seen it, but it was my first exposure to
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff. And this is a director
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: who's been kind of really having a moment lately, Wook
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Chan Park or Chan Wook Park. One of his very
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: first films is called JSA, which stands for a Joint
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: Security Area and it is a political thriller that surrounds all.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: The stuff we're talking about here today.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: And it's not my favorite. It's a little dry and
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: a little procedural, but you can see the fingerprints of
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: someone that would go on to make masterpieces like Old
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Boy and you know, the Sympathy series. And I believe
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: he's got a new one coming out soon that's supposed
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: to be a real contender that I don't know the
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: details about it.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: That's like you know, awards and such.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: That's a nice reference. And I did enjoy enjoys not
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the right word. I was mystified by the little blue
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: building that you can hang out at. It's also where
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: they where they show videos and stuff.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Right, didn't you say there's like constant on all the
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: kind of welcome videos, but there is like eagles and stuff.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: What you have to watch.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: You have to watch a thing about how great the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: DMZ is for birds and natural wildlife on the South
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Korean side. Yeah, North Korea is also home to one
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of the world's most fascinating festivals. What we were playing earlier,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Ara Rang are a wrong as well as the DMZ.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe that that's where we end because beauty can emerge
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: from horror. The DMZ dude similar to Chernobyl. It's a
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: textbook example of how the natural world can flourish when
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the humans are removed from the equation.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is quite the wildlife paradise. Yeah.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Our favorite thing probably well, I don't want to speak
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: for you guys, but one of my favorite things is
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of the more than five thousand animal and plant species
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: identified in the area, including more than one hundred that
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: are endangered in other parts of the world.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: There are rumors.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Even to this day that the Amur leopard and the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Siberian tiger may roam the DMZ. Cool.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: That's cool. I likes cool.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: When you said it like that that I was picturing
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: you were going to like an encryptid direction, It's like, right,
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: uh huh, these are you know that level of rare?
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, one hundred percent. There Again, there's so much
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: other stuff we can get to. We do want to
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: point out again what we're saying about history being a
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: palimpsest within her generational consequences. Not just in East Berlin,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: but if you look at this peninsula, you'll see that,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: on average, due to malnutrition, North Korean citizens are going
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to be one to three inches shorter than South Korean citizens.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Da, I didn't know malnutrition made you shorter. I just
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: thought it made you skinnier.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: If you're not eating during the formatives.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does make it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: It's part of why Audrey Hepburn looks so unique.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Actually didn't know well.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Speaking of Audrey Hepburn and Hollywood Royalty, the next episode
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: that we're going to be doing for y'all is about
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: the mysterious case of the Missing Ruby Slippers, the Golden
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: age Hollywood relic made famous by the Wizard of Oz
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: and who knew well, Our buddy Jordan Runtogg knew that
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: there's a gangsters story involves some moths, some sort of
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: retired would be heisty mafioso's, and quite a few hilarious
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: misunderstandings that went on for quite a long time. We're
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: going to talk about that on the next episode of
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Ridiculous History, but in the meantime, Ben, thanks for doing
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: all the research on this one.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I know this is sort of a pet subject.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: For you, and I learned a whole lot that I
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: did not know about this very very interesting part of
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: the world, the Hermit Kingdom.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. There is a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: panoply of excellent research on here. There are tons of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: strange stories, some more true than others, about the Democratic
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: People's Republic of Korea. Please please please hit us up
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more, and please check out
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: our previous related episodes on stuff they don't want you
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: to know. We'll be back later this week with a
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: shoe centric episode, a little bit of a Ridiculous crime
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: hat we shall doff and you know, thanks to you
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams. Thanks to your brother Alex
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Williams who composed this bang in tract.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: Of course, Chris Frosciotis and Eve Jeff Coates here at Spira,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Jonathan Strickland The quizt Aj Mohammed Jacob's the Puzzler, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: again Ben, our research associate on this episode, you, sir,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: thanks for hanging pleasure.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: And again thanks to Man. I'm still speaking of weirdly
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: specific reference works. I'm still in love with depraved and
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: insulting English. We don't have to do it again, but
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: everybody check out that book and Noel, so glad you're
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: back safe Man. I am excited about the show. I
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: know there are too many details we can divulge just yet,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: but as they emerge, as we get closer, we can't
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: wait to tell you more about the show. So thanks
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to you. Know.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Man, it's a real history mystery and it's got
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of interesting aspects around the Cold War, around
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: the kind of stuff that we're talking about today, and
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: it also has a true crime at the center of it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: But it's not kind of your average total bummer true
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: crime story.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: So thanks Ben.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I will reveal info as it becomes available to share.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: In the meantime, jeez, we'll see you next time.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Folks.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.