They are all taking drone making courses on the work study program apparently. That should be a handy new skill back home going forward. I hear it’s an in demand part of their economy lately.
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/thousand...35139.html
But seriously, if they are working in factories, seeing even a limited slice of the world, interacting with non North Koreans a little, probably (well, possibly…) using better equipment and tools than they have at home, learning about how different systems function in different places, are able to practice their Russian language, trying new, different foods etc…then some of that is good for them.
Just saying, people in the North get so little interaction with the world, I’m glad some do get to go and work abroad. I doubt they are getting worked as hard as they are at home anyway.
I read an article about a woman in some isolated place in the Russian Far East near a mine, a sawmill, or something, that had North Korean workers in a camp nearby. She worked at a store and said on Sundays they were allowed to walk down the road and shop at the store, eat at the restaurant etc. She said they always had some money and were buying small items to take or send home, and they routinely wiped the place out of beer. Their minder was fluent in Russian and seemed more like their foreman than a prison guard with them she said. Not saying they were on a vacation, and they have to be very trusted to go abroad, but it sounded like in that isolated area (with no where to wander off to probably) they had a least a little time off, chatted with the local Russians a bit, weren’t kept in leg irons etc, and just seemed like other foreign workers.
I’m not expecting it become Dubai next year, or to start holding presidential elections, but it is changing. Kim Jong Un was educated in Switzerland, so he knows what life is like elsewhere more than his father probably did. That creepy dad was always scowling around and grumpy looking in his socialist leisure suits. Un seems a lot more outgoing, smiley, less formal. I think over his lifetime NK has the chance to improve a lot materially. Maybe a little freer? We’ll see on that one. Maybe just a little less severe at least.
