[martinced]

Exactly. I "ranted" about it in response to the article.

Basically I'm not sure the author understood she realized the "stock tour" and that it was all fake and propaganda.

Even the one school people get to visit is fake: the students are actors as you're saying. They take the few genius kids they have and force them to perform the exact same music in front of nearly every delegation that gets there.

Once I realized that every single "official" trip there tells the exact same story, my girlfriend and I decided not to go.

The drones and spy cameras tell a whole different story than the communist party's propaganda of course.

It's really scary what communism did to North Korea...