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  • SHANE SMITH: Where are going now?

  • MR. KIM: We are going to military demarcation line.

  • SHANE SMITH: Your political indoctrination continues when

  • the North Koreans take you to their side of the DMZ.

  • And going to the DMZ from the north is a completely

  • different animal than going to the DMZ from the south.

  • From the south, you have to go through checkpoint,

  • checkpoint, checkpoint, checkpoint.

  • On the North Korean side, you go from Pyongyang.

  • It's about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive.

  • But when you go there, actually, it's a

  • lot more laid back.

  • Although you do notice, on the drive in, there's a hell of a

  • lot more troops on the North Korean side.

  • And everywhere there's these massive monuments.

  • And you're like, what are those monuments?

  • And they say, oh, they're filled with dynamite.

  • And if there's ever an invasion, they blow up, and

  • they fall down.

  • And they are tank barriers.

  • And unlike the South Korean side, you can

  • shoot what you want.

  • You can point at people.

  • you can give them the finger.

  • You can do whatever you want.

  • You can drink beer.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • SHANE SMITH: So basically, it's a big

  • "fuck you" to the South.

  • It's a big "fuck you" to the Americans.

  • We're in Panmunjeom, in the demilitarized zone, where the

  • armistice was signed between the DPRK and the UN.

  • SHANE SMITH: All they want to do is tell you about how bad

  • the Americans are, this is where we defeated the American

  • imperialist aggressors, this is where North Korea shut down

  • the biggest military power in the world.

  • And that's what everything is designed to do.

  • We're on night vision because there's no electricity in

  • Panmunjeom.

  • We got in trouble for shooting.

  • They said we might get charged for a criminal offense.

  • So I'm trying to do this as quietly as possible.

  • All you hear at the DMZ is talk of reunification.

  • SHANE SMITH: Is this is a political thing?

  • Like are you trying to reunify?

  • They won't mention--

  • just reunify, reunify.

  • You think one day they will be unified?

  • SHANE SMITH: At that point you go--

  • these guys are serious, serious dudes.

  • And then, on the way back, you stop off and you have a meal.

  • And they're like, oh, you're hungry?

  • Hey, let's just stop at this-- any old restaurant.

  • And they're pretending, like, this is like any restaurant.

  • We just showed up.

  • Hey, McDonald's on the side of the road.

  • But let's say there's seven of you.

  • You get to the restaurant.

  • There's seven places laid out, and the whole of the

  • restaurant is empty.

  • It's been choreographed.

  • They've been waiting for you for two days, all set up-- the

  • whole restaurant waiting to go.

  • We're in Kaesong, in a nice restaurant.

  • We just had a lovely meal.

  • You have lunch, which is like 50 plates of little shit.

  • Again, you can't eat any of it.

  • But it's like-- just look how much food we have.

  • We're so great.

  • Kinda quiet.

  • Kinda quiet.

  • [SIGH]

  • [INAUDIBLE].

  • So your first two days there you're

  • like, crazy food, politics.

  • Crazy food, politics.

  • So you start to get a bit freaked out at this point.

  • Thank you.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes.

  • SHANE SMITH: [LAUGH]

  • Bye-bye.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER: Bye.

  • And then on the way back, you know, thinking, this is the

  • fourth largest army in the world, all along this border.

  • And they've threatened America with nukes--

  • and Japan with nukes.

  • I'm like, how can they have nukes?

  • They don't have electricity.

  • It's like turn-of-the-century industrial Britain.

  • How do they have nukes?

  • SHANE SMITH: So, after driving back from the DMZ and our

  • choreographed lunch, you realize that everything is

  • going to be choreographed.

  • Like, hey, what do you want to do tonight?

  • Want to go for a few beers?

  • And you're like, hey, this isn't so bad.

  • Sure, let's go out for a few beers.

  • And you go out to the sort of state-sanctioned karaoke

  • place, which is only, really, for foreigners and really

  • high-ranking party officials.

  • [SINGING IN KOREAN]

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • SHANE SMITH: Now the guards have been waiting.

  • They've studied their whole life, you know, English, and

  • they've studied political dialectics.

  • So that they're the best and the brightest.

  • And this is like the top position.

  • But they have to wait all year for about 10 days for any

  • tourists to come.

  • So there's kind of this weird-- like they're holding

  • back their excitement because they get to eat, and they get

  • to drink, and smoke cigarettes, and all these

  • great things.

  • And you can see them vibrating--

  • they're so excited.

  • You know, yeah, have some cigarettes.

  • And they're like, "oh god," and drinking, but they are

  • trying not to show it.

  • Check one, two.

  • MR LEE: [LAUGH]

  • Check two, one two, one two.

  • SHANE SMITH: This is for you.

  • [SINGING IN ENGLISH]

  • She doesn't like my song.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • [INAUDIBLE]

  • SHANE SMITH: To the museum?

  • MALE SPEAKER 1: Museum.

  • SHANE SMITH: Museum, yeah.

  • SHANE SMITH: The International Friendship Exhibition Hall.

  • And we're going to buy some ties.

  • SHANE SMITH: Bad for you?

  • It's bad for everybody.

  • MR LEE: [LAUGH]

  • SHANE SMITH: [SINGING IN KOREAN]

  • What does it mean?

  • Hello?

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 1: I'm glad to meet you.

  • SHANE SMITH: I'm glad to meet you.

  • That's why you shake hands.

  • SHANE SMITH: But that's why, when you sing it, you always

  • shake hands.

  • MR LEE: Yeah.

  • Tomorrow we have a big day.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 1: [SPEAKING KOREAN]

  • SHANE SMITH: Goodnight.

  • SHANE SMITH: Oh, OK.

  • MR LEE: This morning.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 1: This morning.

  • [LAUGH]

  • SHANE SMITH: I see you this morning.

  • So we went out on a night on the town in Pyongyang with our

  • guards, which is good, because the guards weren't enjoying us

  • as human beings.

  • Today they threatened Jamie, who's filming this, with--

  • what was it?

  • Gross, insensitive crimes to the republic, or something?

  • JAMIE: Criminal offenses.

  • SHANE SMITH: Criminal offenses.

  • JAMIE: --which would have severe repercussions.

  • SHANE SMITH: All we had to do was buy like six bottles of

  • blueberry wine, and everybody was fine, except for Mr. Lee.

  • He wanted to fight with us after we disrespected

  • [KOREAN], the song that says, "pleased to meet you."

  • So we're drinking soju.

  • And we're going to bed now.

  • He got mad at me.

  • Mr. Lee got mad at me.

  • He goes, it was the first song I taught you!

  • OK--

  • [LAUGH]

  • I don't remember the first song you taught me, Mr. Lee.

  • OK, honeybun.

  • Goodnight.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • SHANE SMITH: So once they get through with the

  • indoctrination--

  • like, the Pueblo and DMZ-- of how bad the Americans are,

  • then begins--

  • how great we are.

  • And that starts with Kim

  • Il-Sung, the Eternal President.

  • And everybody has to go and pay their respects to the

  • great statue of Kim Il-Sung, who, although he's been dead

  • since 1994, is still the president of North Korea.

  • I'm going to lay a wreath at the the

  • statute of Kim Il-Sung.

  • We have to do this as a token of respect.

  • And then they took us two hours south of Pyongyang to

  • the International Friendship Exhibition, which is this

  • 2000-room sort of fortress cut into a mountain--

  • deep into a mountain, like 20 stories down.

  • And what it is, is it's all these presents that were given

  • or sent to Kim Il-Sung by heads of state or foreign

  • dignitaries or notaries.

  • They are so paranoid about anyone finding out about these

  • treasures that they won't let you know where this is.

  • They won't tell you anything.

  • And of course, you can't shoot there.

  • And in fact, they got really mad even when we

  • were shooting outside.

  • He took my camera, and he said, how much memory does

  • your camera have?

  • And I'm like, oh, I don't know, 48 megs or something.

  • And he opened it up.

  • And he took it out.

  • And I had a 5 gig card because I was shooting actual movies

  • with it on the sly.

  • And he goes, you're a liar.

  • You lied to me.

  • You know very well that's not true.

  • This is five gigs.

  • And even if I had taken pictures down there, which I

  • didn't, they just take out your memory card and say,

  • thank you very much.

  • So we're hiding from our guards right now, who don't

  • want us to film anything.

  • We have to keep quiet.

  • We're allowed to be quiet up here.

  • They're relaxing and having tea right now, so we've got a

  • few seconds.

  • We're at the International Friendship Museum, or

  • otherwise known as the international insanity museum,

  • where all the presents from all around the world came.

  • And it's like alligators holding trays and all kinds of

  • dead animals.

  • And ivory, like huge ivory, and all this gold stuff.

  • They have all this crazy business.

  • And there's so many attractions there, so many

  • treasures, that, if you were to stop and look at each one,

  • it would take a year and a half to get through.

  • Everybody goes on this pilgrimage at one time in

  • their lives.

  • And they wear their best clothes.

  • The women get dressed up in native costume.

  • The men wear their uniforms.

  • And what a benevolent god because he's sharing all these

  • amazing treasures, like he would share

  • them with his children.

  • So they think that every leader in the world thinks

  • that Kim Il-Sung is the best.

  • Not that we're mad at them, or North Korea's on it's own.

  • They think Kim Il-Sung is the best.

  • They don't understand that the world is mad at North Korea.

  • SHANE SMITH: Going to the subway, for us, was a really

  • big deal because we never got to

  • interact with North Koreans.

  • And we were like, wow, we get to see

  • real, live North Koreans.

  • We're going down into the metro.

  • We're going down deep.

  • This is amazing because it's a working subway, bomb shelter,

  • and beautiful thing.

  • They either try to ignore you, or they're incredibly

  • fascinated by you.

  • And a lot of them look at you, and they do not like you

  • because they've been told you're the devil since they

  • were two years old.

  • Subways are a big thing in communist countries.

  • I mean, Moscow is famous for its lavish stops on its public

  • transportation system, as is Pyongyang--

  • you know, look at how great our public

  • transport system is.

  • So you get to go from one stop to another stop, both of which

  • are incredibly lavish and over the top.

  • SHANE SMITH: Fireworks, fireworks.

  • Ah.

  • The rest aren't as lavish.

  • And apparently, the rest are just tiny little, five feet

  • tall things that you come out of that are really functional.

  • But they have two, sort of, monumental ones that you're

  • allowed to see.

  • You're not allowed to see the other ones.

  • And as you come out, you realize this is 1950s Russia.

  • This is Soviet Russia.

  • This is Maoist China.

  • I've come back in a time warp.

SHANE SMITH: Where are going now?

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