Chapter Four - The Wall of Lies

CHAPTER FOUR

The Wall of Lies

IF NORTH KOREA is a theater, then this chapter is backstage.

The lights are off. The audience is gone.
All that’s left are the broken props, the terrified actors, and the locked doors.

Because behind the missile parades and “happy worker” propaganda lies the actual day-to-day of life inside the Hermit Kingdom:

It’s not just control.

It’s fabrication.

And if you're born here, you never see the difference.

North Korea is dotted with “model villages”—empty towns with painted-on windows, fake food in shop displays, and lights that flicker on by timer.

These aren’t accidents.
They’re built for show.

Some are aimed at outsiders—like Kijong-dong, a fake village near the border, designed to tempt defectors back.
Others are aimed at insiders—to convince citizens that somewhere in the country, prosperity exists.

They grow up thinking:

“If I just work harder… I can earn a life like that.”

But that life?
It doesn’t exist.

Footage shown on North Korean TV will often include pristine, western-style supermarkets.
Bright lighting. Shelves full of goods.
Perfectly arranged meat counters and overflowing produce bins.

But these stores are props.
The food is for show.
The workers are actors.
The customers are pre-selected.

Locals aren't allowed to shop there.

And in the average neighborhood?
You’re lucky if your ration card gets you a sack of rice.

The average North Korean has never:

• Used the internet
• Sent a text
• Watched a YouTube video
• Seen an uncensored photo of the Earth

Instead, they’re given an intranet—a closed-loop fake internet filled with regime-approved content.
It’s like being online, but in a fishbowl.
You can click all you want.
You’ll never get out.

Radios and TVs are preset to government stations.
Tampering with the settings? Prison.
Owning a foreign film? Death.

Even the maps are lies.
Try to leave, and you realize there’s no real geography to navigate.
Just wilderness and fences and mines.

Say the wrong thing?
Disappear.

Laugh at the wrong joke?
Disappear.

Cry too little during a funeral?
Disappear.

But when you go, you don’t go alone.

Your entire family line can be punished under the principle of:

“Yŏnjwaje” – Three-Generation Guilt.

The idea?
If your blood is impure, your children are impure.
And their children will be too.

This keeps everyone in check.
You’re not just responsible for yourself.

You’re responsible for your bloodline.

Outside the cities, hidden deep in the mountains, are the kwan-li-so—North Korea’s political prison camps.

These aren’t jails.
They’re death zones.

Torture, starvation, forced labor.
Children born there die there.
No trial. No release. No names.

Satellite photos show sprawling compounds, factories, and guard towers.
But on the ground?
Nothing exists.

The government denies their existence.

And no one inside is allowed to die publicly.

Even inside your home, the script must be followed:

• Daily loyalty pledges
• Weekly “self-criticism” sessions
• Children reporting on parents
• Neighbors graded by surveillance reports

You’re not just forced to lie to others.
You’re forced to lie to yourself.

And when you lie long enough?
You stop noticing.

The truth isn’t erased.

It’s replaced.