Business as usual or a real life Truman Show? We’ll let you decide after watching this video, but either way, color us intrigued, as it’s not every day that we get a glimpse inside a North Korean car dealership.
It was shot by Eric Tseng, who visited North Korea a few months back, in the fall of 2015.
“North Korea appears to have its own auto manufacturer,” wrote Tseng on his YouTube channel. “On a recent visit to the country, we toured the company’s salesroom in Pyongyang. It was hard to discern what was real and what wasn’t.”
It’s been reported that foreign tourists to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) follow tightly controlled and prearranged tours that only go through the best, most modern and developed parts of Pyongyang and other cities, while being accompanied at all times by local guides. Of course, with the exception of always being escorted, you could say the same applies to any tours around the world.
What makes North Korea different are claims that some aspects and parts of the tours are a heavily staged show for tourists – which is what Tseng suspects was happening in this car dealership, and more specifically, the customers interested in the vehicles.
While Tseng was uncertain about the brand, we reported about it back in 2013. It’s called Pyeonghwa Motors and is believed to be one of only two carmakers that ever existed in the country, but it stopped production in 2012 after 12 years. Now, it seems to import cars from China.