A Photographer Makes North Korea Actually Seem Like A Nice Place

It's easy to leap to conclusions about North Korea when the only media you've seen about it are videos of somber government officials at parades, Team America and a never-ending cycle of rumors and half-truths. 

Luckily, Australian freelance photographer Adam Baidawi was able to take a trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and brought back some absolutely beautiful photos, which he so gracious posted online last week.

Some of them are what you'd expect: military men saluting giant bronze statues of former presidents, and so on. 

But a lot of Baidawi's photos capture a different side of the Hermit Kingdom we don't normally get to see: people living their lives with smiles on their faces. 

 

Some of these photos do look a little suspiciously rosy, Baidawi addressed that in a Reddit thread, saying: "Most of the smiling faces were from people our government-mandated guides introduced us too. Carefully staged school visits and so on."

But even if that's true, it's heartwarming to see at least one North Korean citizen didn't stick to the script.

To see the rest of Baidawi's incredible images from this trip and others, check out his full album on Imgur and follow him on Instagram. For other cool shots of cool stuff, check out our Photos channel. And for just generally cool stuff from Digg, head over to our originals archive.