Michael Palin in North Korea was a two-part 2018 documentary on the Monty Python actor’s tightly choreographed tour of North Korea. Palin dances with cheerfully drunk North Koreans on International Workers’ Day and picnics with his guide, a woman called So Hyang.
He plays catch with an inflatable globe with some North Korean children and learns some taekwondo. He sees some beautiful scenery — mountains and rivers, cities comprised of coordinated colorful blocks with monuments dedicated to the Great Leaders (as the past and present dictators are collectively called), and some sinister scenery, including a road lined with huge concrete pillars that can be knocked into the road, should the South Koreans invade. This book is Palin’s journal of the trip. Though evidently very edited, it reads nothing like a diary.
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