{"id":8236,"date":"2013-01-21T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/?p=8236"},"modified":"2013-01-21T07:00:40","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T12:00:40","slug":"google-goes-to-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/8236","title":{"rendered":"Google Goes to North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/NorthKorea.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8238\" alt=\"NorthKorea\" src=\"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/NorthKorea.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a>Not quite. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt&#8217;s daughter Sophie did.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, she went to North Korea with her dad and Bill Richardson, and she made a whole <del>Geocities<\/del> Google <a title=\"Sophie in North Korea\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/sophieinnorthkorea\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a> to discuss her visit:<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I can&#8217;t express how cold it was. Maybe 10-15 degrees F in the sunshine, not including wind chill. \u00a0The cold was compounded by the fact that none of the buildings we visited were heated, which meant hour-long tours in cavernous, 30-degree indoor environments. It is quite extraordinary to have the Honored Guest Experience in such conditions:\u00a0<strong>they&#8217;re proudly showing you their latest technology or best library, and you can see your breath.\u00a0<\/strong>A clue to how much is really in their control.<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Ordinary North Koreans live in a near-total information bubble, without any true frame of reference. \u00a0I can&#8217;t think of any reaction to that except absolute sympathy. \u00a0My understanding is that North Koreans are taught to believe they are lucky to be in North Korea, so why would they ever want to leave? \u00a0They&#8217;re hostages in their own country, without any real consciousness of it. \u00a0And the opacity of the country&#8217;s inner workings&#8211;down to the basics of its economy&#8211;further serves to reinforce the state&#8217;s control.<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The best description we could come up with:\u00a0<strong>it&#8217;s like The Truman Show, at country scale.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The whole thing is fascinating and makes me want to <a title=\"Koryo Group\" href=\"http:\/\/www.koryogroup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">book a trip there for myself<\/a> next summer. Anyone else interested in going?<\/p>\n<p>HT: <a title=\"@franciscome\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/franciscome\" target=\"_blank\">Francisco Mejia<\/a>, via Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not quite. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt&#8217;s daughter Sophie did. In fact, she went to North Korea with her dad and Bill Richardson, and she&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/8236\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Google Goes to North Korea<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gPg8-28Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8236"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8242,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions\/8242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}