North Korean children and women during a tractor ride in North Pyongan Province, DPRK on April 12, 2026. (Hyungwon Kang)
While much of the world focuses on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the Korean War — which began in 1950 — remains quietly unresolved. Held in check only by a fragile 73-year-old armistice, millions on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone continue to live under a perpetual state of war.
As a bilingual, Korean-born North American photojournalist, I have spent decades documenting this divided peninsula. After more than three years of negotiations following the publication of my book, "Visual History of Korea," I finally received word early this year that my entry had been approved for an independent journalism project documenting Korean history and culture on the northern side of the peninsula. My work carried no editorial conditions; access to historical sites and photography documentation of Korean culture depended only on whether those sites were generally available to the country’s own citizens.
Pyongyang — April 2026
When I crossed the border in April for a 14-day reporting trip, I stepped into a historical void. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea had sealed its borders almost completely. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first Western journalist to visit the country since its prolonged closure.
There is a saying in Washington, DC, attributed to former US President Gerald Ford: “Anyone claiming to be an expert on North Korea is a liar.”
A North Korean boy in Pyongyang reads a Korean language version of the Harry Potter book in Pyongyang, DPRK on April 21, 2026. (Hyungwon Kang)
Walking through the capital, I reflected on those words. Global understanding of the DPRK (the North's official name — the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is deeply limited, compounded by the fact that so few Western journalists possess Korean-English fluency, historical context or direct reporting experience inside the country. Because media coverage routinely treats North Korea as a political abstraction, I wanted to bring more balanced firsthand observations of its people.
My immediate impression was clear: Pyongyang was back to business — visibly functioning, and in parts unexpectedly prosperous by outside standards.
A QR code for digital payment is taped to the back of a taxi seat in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15, 2026. (2026 Hyungwon Kang)
Privately owned vehicles caused traffic jams in front of major hotels, while Audis, flagship Lexus SUVs and Toyota Land Cruisers signaled renewed economic activity. On the streets, battery-powered bicycles capable of traveling nearly as fast as cars outnumbered traditional bicycles. Gone were the diesel, smoke-sputtering buses of the past, replaced by battery-powered public transit.
Newly constructed neighborhoods featured North American-style setback layouts, complete with dedicated bike lanes, pedestrian walkways and manicured green lawns. Public gatherings filled Kim Il Sung Square, and many locals told me I was the first foreigner they had met since the pandemic.
Yet beneath this surface normalcy, I observed a striking and historically consequential ideological shift.
College students arrive to participate in the 114th birthday celebration of Kim Il Sung, the founding father of North Korea, on their national holiday on April 15, 2026. (Hyungwon Kang)
For decades, North Korean rhetoric emphasized “one people” and the ultimate goal of reunification. During my visit, however, terminology associated with “reunification” or a shared ethnicity with the Republic of Korea had vanished from the public lexicon. Books, maps and dictionaries containing such language were absent from shelves. Bookstore staff quietly informed me that major digital reference materials were being revised and were temporarily unavailable on the country’s intranet. The erasure of the reunification dream appeared systematic, deliberate and historically profound.
An international train connecting Dandong, China, and Pyongyang, North Korea, is pictured on April 12, 2026. International rail service between China and North Korea resumed in spring 2026 for the first time since North Korea closed its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Hyungwon Kang)
Leaving the capital for the countryside offered a different window into the state’s resilience. The contrast with my reporting visits in 1995 and 1997, when I documented the horrors of the famine for the Los Angeles Times, was stark.
In the 1990s, mountains were stripped bare for cooking fuel by a starving population. Today, those same hillsides are heavily forested under strict conservation laws. In rural fields, modern fuel-delivery trucks operated alongside aging tractors and traditional ox-driven plows.
All hands on deck
Spring planting was in full swing, revealing the “all hands on deck” nature of this society. City residents are required to spend at least one month a year assisting with agricultural labor; under t…
Read the full article at The Korea Herald →
KR