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I chose to teach English in Japan after college, which at the time seemed an exotic job experience for a 21-year-old. It turns out I suffer from a serious lack of imagination.
In an oldy-but-a-goodie post, we take you back to a 2012 NK News interview with Paul White, the British voice of Kim Il Sung used in English-language narrations at the DPRK founder's mausoleum. White was one of a small group of foreigners who worked for the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Pyongyang as a "polisher" – basically native speakers that ensure the English translations of books, speeches, state proclamations, etc. aren't a complete mess. He was at one point approached to do voice-over work, and the rest is history. If you visit the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and get an accompanying headset, White himself will talk you through the halls.
Paul White is by no means the only foreigner to take on this kind of job. Briton Michael Harrold lived and worked in Pyongyang as a news polisher in the 80s and early 90s, and has even written a book about the experience. Andrew Holloway took up the same job in the mid-1980s; you can read his manuscript on the experience (with an introduction by Aiden Foster-Carter) here.
Maybe one can bin these individuals in with other foreign regime collaborators fervently disseminating propaganda abroad, chief among them the Korea Friendship Association and other such groups. I wouldn't. The accounts of those who take up these positions – whether doing it from within North Korea or from China – convey, as one would expect, complicated views on the country. But their assessments of life in the DPRK appear honest, at least from their perspectives, with the retrospective humor of the ridiculousness of their situation.
And the main difference between Pyongyang's polishers and the likes of UK's KFA liaison Dermot Hudson: people like Hudson are presumably making up all this drivel themselves.
Courtesy of The Lost Art of Correspondence, from a 2003 "interview" with Dermot Hudson recalling his visits to the country at the height of the famine period (Note: the typos are not mine):
Question: Comrade, with the threat of war against the DPRK, looming of late, comrade it would be a treasurable experiance for you to detail your journies to the DPRK, to talk about Comrade KIM Il-Sung, and Comrade Kim Jong-Il, as well as Your encounters with the masses of the DPRK. Also what is life like in the DPRK? What has the Juche Idea and the Socialist Revolution Brought to the masses? Please add personal encounters and fisrt hand knowldedge, as so much of what we hear is tainted by the Imperialist Press. Also would be sort of detail the day to day life of the DPRK, the way full employment is guarenteed, housing, health care, etc? Any short details on your enounters with the Workers Party of Korea, and its leadership would be valuable as well.
Answer: [Hudson] I have visited the DPRK 5 times-in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2002. The Korean people are happy and united around the leadership. There is no starvation or anything like that. In all my visits to the DPRK I have never seen anyone begging or sleeping rough on the streets but here in London you see it all the time. The quality of life is high the DPRK you do not see streets full of drug dealers or drunks or prostitutes. Children can play safely. Crime is not a problem and Koreans laugh at people locking doors! In 1996 my colleague Shaun Pickford became seriously ill while visiting the DPRK but was taken to hospital and treated free of charge.I also recieved dental treatment on that visit free of charge. Pyongyang has lots of big hospitals.All treatment is free of charge. Here in the UK we pay for prescriptions (£6.30 per item) plus we pay national insurance contributions (11.5% of salary- I pay £106 per month) for the health service. In the DPRK all taxation was abolished in 1974. Before I visited the DPRK in 2002 a dentist in London told me that it would cost £1000 to sort my teeth out but in the DPRK I got free dental treatment and only had to pay $30 for the gold for the gold tooth. Pyongyang is a modern clean city with lots of new housing. Flats are allocated to people free of charge. One of my guides told me that her husband applied for a new flat while she was in the maternity hospital and when she came out their new flat was ready! Education is free and even universities are free and students get a free uniform and living allowance. Nursery and pre school education are also free. Full employment is guranteed by law and by socialist planning. There are no big social differences in the DPRK. Officials live in ordinary blocks of flats and have to work hard. All officials and cadres must do 1 day of manual labour per week. I saw comrade Kim Jong Il stride on to the stage at the national meeting April 2002 to mark the anniversary of president Kim Il Sung, he looked much younger than 60 years old.