Pyongyang Cleaning Stations
“What do you think of Pyongyang?” asked one of our guides. As we carefully considered our responses our guide answered for us, “foreigners think Pyongyang is a clean city!” Well I can’t argue with that. While Pyongyang is a little rough and scruffy around the edges, the proud residents do work hard to keep the streets, parks, and public spaces swept and clean. If you do visit Pyongyang and happen to see some garbage, don’t take pictures, concerned citizens will complain to authorities, and the guides require you to delete the photos off your memory card.
A boy in Pyongyang at his morning cleaning station.
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Craft vendors have been sensitive about photographs of their products. They say that the pictures are used to make cheap Chinese copies that come back to compete. I had to delete images just the other night. The point of street photography, then, is unobtrusively catching the action without being noticed. With today’s auto-focus, this is not too difficult. But I would still respect vendors who don’t want their work copied. In your photo the streets look clean enough to eat on.
November 23, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I totally agree!
November 24, 2011 at 5:45 am
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