north Korea w/ Michael Malice | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Hi guys, we are supported by Nathan and Sons, makers of Underbrush Remineralizing Gum. Underbrush is a chewing gum that helps take care of your teeth in between brushing. Nathan and Sons makes it themselves from scratch. I can't make anything myself except toe cheese, and you can't market that. And they make it in their own facility in Northern California. Most gum is made with plastic, which is great for keeping vegetables fresh. Sure, for your mother's ziti, but that's not what you want in your teeth. Underbrush is made with natural tree saps and a mineral called hydrocypotite, the same mineral that makes up tooth enamel. If you want a simple daily upgrade for your teeth, head over to NathanandSons.com and check out their Underbrush Remineralizing Gum. Right now, you can get 30% off your first order when you subscribe. Visit NathanSons.com today. Hi, everybody. I'm stand-up comedian Ari Shafir. And there's one thing you know about me, it's I love to travel. Salute from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Cheerio. In Greece, I got burt fat off Saganaki and Uzo, and I got attacked by a herd of wild cats. I danced for 14 hours in a warehouse in Berlin on some of the finest lab-made chemicals known to man. I pissed on that. I also like hearing about other people and their adventures. There was a few moments we'd be out at sea and be like, we are in literally the middle of fuck-off nowhere. Wow. What is a quokka, so people don't know? It's basically like a little marsupial. See there, I gave him a chip. You're going 90 miles an hour. I'm doing 90, and he passes you like you're not even moving. Wow. I decided to start a new podcast called You Be Trippin'. It's a travel podcast. Every episode, myself and a guest are going to take you to an exciting new place in the world. It's a new podcast from YMH. Subscribe right now on YouTube to You Be Trippin' Pod, and on all audio podcast platforms at You Be Trippin'. And get ready for a brand new travel podcast. Hold on, that's stale. I'll see you out there. You guys ready? Whoa, bro. That's one of the worst things. I spilled that on. I spilled death on the set. It is like when that's on a computer. That is true. Maybe that's what they meant. Like, be careful of this around electronics. It's seriously bad. Yeah, you fucking sober nerds. All right, you guys ready? Yep. Wait, I can't lower this. You're like a mess, bro. I'm a mess. I'm a mess. Oh, there we go. Okay. Lefty tight. I have people for this. I don't have people for this. Okay, thanks so much. That's great. He's definitely going to break while he's in the middle of it. Don't help him. Oh, my balls. Do not help him. My balls. Where you been and where you going? This is Ari's Travel Show, yeah. We're going to talk about travel today. It's You Be Trippin', yeah. Hello, everybody. Welcome to You Be Trippin'. It's a travel podcast show. We go to a different place every week. I'm your host, Ari Shafiq. It's the only podcast that is fully funded by embezzled Ukrainian aid funds. My guest today is Michael Malice, notable. Oh, all right. Usually people boo when I show up. Oh, yeah. You're a shit starter. But if my comparison is you, I guess they get applause. That's like that woman who's like a five standing next to a four. No, I think it's like with the guy in the tent and the bear's coming and he's like putting on his sneakers and he's like, what, do you think you're going to outrun the bear? He goes, no, I just got to outrun you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Get the fat friend. Where are we going today? This is exciting. We're going to the Democratic Republic of Korea, DPRK, North Korea. That's what it's called? Democratic Republic? Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK. Wow. It's not democratic. So what's even more interesting, and I'm going to insist that you stick to this with the show notes. Okay. They always have N and S lowercase with North and South Korea because their point is Korea is indivisible. It's the only pure country on earth and the South is not a different country, but a region under American imperialist occupation. So it's lowercase S, lowercase N. Interesting. The North just sees it as one. The South does not see it that way. But we're not talking about the South, so fuck them today. Fuck the South. Yeah. Just like in America. That's interesting. It's like Ireland where we want it all back. Some people have the whole thing. It's not like Ireland because you can go from Northern Ireland to Ireland. Oh, right. Good point. And they're marching together now because of the immigrants. Yeah. There's no immigrants in North Korea. By law, yeah. Yeah. They do not have that problem. There were like five. There were five. Really? Like Americans who defected. And then they had to play the Americans in all the movies. I mean, if you're looking for acting work, that's your jam. Go where none of you were there. Yeah. Why'd you go there? When'd you go? I went in 2012. Yeah. Wait, when was Hurricane Sandy? It was 2012. 2012, yeah. Yeah. I went there. Because- Why'd your home go flooded? My home didn't. I came back. So let's back up a little bit. Okay. That picture I sent your producer, put him up on the screen. This is someone I went to college with, my friend Ed, who has severe mental handicaps. Special Ed. Special Ed. Oh, not a great- And he put up the picture. So he looks like you, I think. He does. Does he not? Yeah. And I'm looking at his- But I mean, that also could be downs and could just be happy. That's a tough- That's an in-between. That's an in-between. So Ed, who may- They may have spread a rumor about me at college that I had AIDS. How'd you get rid of it? Magic Johnson. Fuck a virgin. Yeah. So- Yeah. This photo's on a space club. What a good rumor. And if you look at the background, you could see that's the North Korean flag, right? Yeah. With the album, the party album. And I'm like, wait a minute. You went to North Korea? He goes, yeah, I met a guy in Burning Man, and his job is to have tours. So at the time, it was still legal. So as soon as I had a little- I had a little coins in my pocket, I'm like, this is the place I gotta go. Yeah, you're never gonna be able to go back. I mean, it's not an easy place to go. It's not an easy place to go. That's for sure. Wow. That's so cool. It's illegal now. You can't go now. It's illegal. Now it's illegal for Americans. But it was legal at the time. What do they do if you go? Will they not let you in? Or like, who's gonna stop you? That's why I always thought about Cuba. They can't go. I'm like, they don't give a shit. So to go there, they don't stamp your passport in North Korea. You have to go to China. Then they give you this little booklet, a two-pager, that's slid into your passport. And then when you leave North Korea, they take it out. I don't know how they would know. That's a fair point. But the tour guide, the tour company, there's a couple of them, they would know. So I think that would be the issue. That's what you do in Israel when you go into, if you want to go to Jordan to go to Petra or something, they don't stamp your Israeli passport. You won't be able to go anywhere with this. So they take it out. We know. Yeah, we know. We know. It's like that. They're like, that's smart. I'm like, yeah, story tracks. That's actually how we got to America from the Soviet Union, is you lie and you're saying you're going to Israel, and then you just don't go to Israel, go to America. Wow. And everyone knew that was, you bribed the government. In America, you have to have a sponsor family, at the time at least. Now it's just open borders. But back then, you had to have someone responsible for you. At least that was my understanding. This is so cool. So what was the visa process like on arrival to get to North Korea? Or do you have to go ahead of time to an embassy and get it? Oh, no, no. So you basically, this tour company takes care of everything for you. You got to fill out a form. They Google two of the people who are on the tour group, and you just hope you kind of get that. They just want the money. They don't care. What are you going to do? Yeah. You got to be worried, too, because you're in the type of industry where they'd be like, no, he can't walk around. He might be doing a story on us. Well, they are taught since birth that every foreigner is. That's a spy. Wow. And in fact, sometimes kids, like in winter, have to guard their schools for American spies. They have to go through the school, look under desks, because at any moment. Because their mythology, which is not entirely incorrect, is. To give people a bit of history, during the Korean War, you had the great leader Kim Il-sung in the North, and you had American forces in the UN, and Syngman Rhee in the South later became their dictator, and you had Mao and Stalin helping the North, and what ended up happening is. It went back and forth, but all the Korean people were destroyed. It was just completely devastating for the whole country, North and South, right? So this is very much a national trauma to this day, and their point is, at any moment, the U.S. Imperials are going to come back and finish the job, but for the leader. So it's not completely. If someone in Hiroshima is like, yeah, I'm not feeling so hot, no pun intended, it's like you kind of wrap your head around it, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting, too, because when you go to China, Mao is still kind of present. Oh, yeah. But this guy's in power now. Well, at the same. Or was, yeah. Yeah, his grandson, yeah. That's why he has that haircut. To look like his dad? His granddad, yeah, the founder of North Korea, the great leader Kim Il-sung. Okay, so what'd you get into? What's. You're worried going in? I was worried the whole time, because it's impossible to. It's so cool to go there. It's impossible to describe this. There's no contact with the outside world, right? There's no internet, there's no newspapers. There's no internet. Right. So you have. And Ari, it feels kind of like being in a dream, because every day is the same. Like, you wake up, and you don't know if it's Monday. I was there for like a week. You don't know if it's Monday or Thursday, because nothing changes, right? So it's almost like a Groundhog Day kind of vibe, which, again, is impossible to describe. You don't know. The rest of the world. Like on maps, the maps are maps of Korea. They're not maps of the world, because they're the most nationalist country. So you're not having this sense of the rest of the Earth. It's like, you know, I always described like going to another planet back in time. so it's just two factors that it's just really i mean that sure helps you get lost in a place when they don't even like mention any other place well well you're on you're you're you're not lost they know where you are 24 7 there's no moment you're running around yeah you know they're watching you well you're there at a tour tour so you have to stay with that you have to stay with your group yeah which is not a chaperone which isn't as ominous like if you go to london and someone has a tour company that's not that crazy and they take you on like see some sites and some like yeah yeah i got all the pictures we'll go through those yeah okay it's so fucking cool to go to this place it's it's very very cool yeah um and it's also um it's just it's just i i don't even know where to start because here's the thing when you're looking around every single thing you look at is like crazy yeah and has a purpose ostensibly like someone chose to make this building like this and the streets like this and you don't know why and then you're off to the next thing and it's just like you your brain's never gonna catch up to normalcy was it did it feel poor or did it feel modern or did it feel like what what so what's interesting is everyone is back in time but from different times so the very first thing that happened i'm at the airport and i'm like i'm scared because all right this is not a drill this is not for you you do not belong in this country and they've they've had a history of detaining people and like right right just destroying their brain right that i'm not i wasn't too worried about because of my you know tricky soviet um you know understanding how that have do the dance but but i'm there and i'm just keeping an eye on everything and in the back of the airport in the parking lot there was this well-dressed woman and this army guy stopped her you could see he's obviously asking for her papers and she's on her cell phone and she's like and you could she was giving him attitude but he was dressed like the 50s the soviet style military and she was dressed like the 80s like an 80s like shoulder paddy business suit and like oh crap like they're not she's not scared and it showed that there are these power dynamics that you and i wouldn't realize but were very very obvious yeah i'd be frightened to shit but she's like this guy's not a threat because yeah i'm up here you're some military guy who the hell you think you're talking to i mean it's like karen almost yeah yeah it's like when they ask you to show your id to go to a hotel like i'm trying to go take a dump right who the fuck are you i'm late no it's more like i'll do it but like like if you're if you're going to some uh podcast and they ask you to sign in it's like who are you it's like you know i'm here to do the show yeah like what are you talking about wow interesting yeah so okay and they take your uh at the time they did they took my they take your phone at the um airport i don't think they do that anymore and they took your phone and said you'll get it when you leave yeah could you bring a camera i did bring a camera i also brought my ipod right and i didn't know how to explain to them what an ipod was and the guy the military guy he's must have been 60 he flips it over he sees ipod he handed back to me so he knew it was really interesting wow so what'd you get into how'd you start what did you do so the first thing what the bathroom's like are they regular pictures of all of them i i i took really the bathrooms are um so the thing about there's this myth that americans have that when you look there you go there it's like this paradise for tourists and everything's great every single thing that you see in the bathroom is a paradise for everything without exception has something wrong with it okay so i'll give you like in in the elevator like one the buttons will be mismatched a wall will have a crack every single place i went even the plane had a fly which is like a biblical symbol of decay um there'll be mildew and every place has a smell to it almost like this basement the smell hey guys i'm breaking into today's episode to let you know a little bit about the guest michael malice he's a wild one he's a wild one uh check him out on michael malice.com or check it out as youtube youtube.com slash michael malice or his instagram instagram.com slash michael malice he's a great follow he's an interesting thinker and uh honestly you guys will love him he's a fucking crazy lunatic one of my favorite clips on youtube on rogan where he goes i mean i can't use it because i'll get sued but uh he goes um he'll uh malah harris was uh um the democratic nominee because she fills all the check boxes she's the gender um minority um um disability um and then rogan's like what's a disability he goes well she's retarded it killed rogan it killed him uh that guy rules um yeah check him out go to michael malice.com right now he's got a podcast called nightshade with michael malice and you're welcome malice um yeah he just had comedian ryan long on in april uh founders can teach arthur herman he's got great ones uh count dankula oh i had that guy on my old podcast skeptic anyway that's it uh for myself i'm asking you to subscribe or listen wherever you're watching um guys i do this every every week i go with a with a somebody to a brand new place this time it's north korea it's rare sometimes we go to regular places it doesn't really matter i'm down no matter what i'm down no matter what so subscribe if you're new to this podcast please subscribe wherever you're watching or listening youtube spotify hit the subscribe button leave a comment for the algorithm and i can get more interesting guests like michael malice who went to crazy places it's a mixture between comics who are fairly adventurous uh but still for themselves pretty adventurous and crazy guys like michael malice who go to a fucking a place where people get uh mentally tortured and then set free back to america you can check me out uh ari shafir on youtube i have no dates by the way i have canceled my live um podcast that i was going to do on june 10th because the knicks are playing in game four and i want to be watching i don't want to be doing it so if you bought tickets don't worry you'll get your money back um that's it check out my other podcast legion of skanks um it's on legion of skanks on gas digital and that i believe is it everybody also don't forget to buy the end my new storytelling show guys i can't begin to thank you for how you have supported that show uh we made our money back on the first day and it's all fucking downhill from there everybody who's seen it has loved it please continue to reach out to all the communities you see it's the end episodes one hour episodes all original comedy start at six dollars if you buy five you get two for free this is outside the box way we are going around the network to bring it straight to you with no fucking middleman nobody's needling us tell us what to do if you've seen any of the backlash for the roast you understand it's like hey they're not gonna like let a low-level person kevin hart could do what he wants they're not and they bother him they're not gonna let me do whatever i want so i gotta do myself i do it through you guys support so go get one episode right now at the end and check out for yourself what everybody's been talking about go to ari shafir.com for that um that's it everybody follow me on instagram at ari shafir or the podcast you'll be chipping pot now let's get back to north korea michael malice i brought a ton of books back to research through my book on the subject dear reader and i was smelling them yesterday and the smell is not maybe not in the uh but you wrote a book on north korea yeah dear reader dear reader yeah put up the picture let's sell a fucking book do you even know who i am you're a new yorker i came to recruit you back to new york i don't read yeah there it is yes yes so i wrote kim jong-il's autobiography you didn't like who'd you talk to like nearby oh no i just read 60 books and and i write books it's the yeah the first i know second unauthorized autobiography cool yeah very cool um okay so you so show me the bathrooms okay or what do you want to show me first oh let's go through okay so i mean i've got an order you're fine we can get back no it's in chronological order okay so i don't know that it's really the best order so this is can we show this newspaper so this is they give you the newspaper in the plane okay right and headline kim il-sung is great like every day it's the same headline like this is the eternal leader of our party and our people that's not a headline that's the headline every day so when i tell you that it's like living in groundhog day yeah you know what the headline is gonna be tomorrow ari can you guess song nails it again he's still nailing it and by the way at this point kim il-sung had been dead for many years wow so he's still legally in charge of the country the korean people and the progressive people over the world celebrated the centenary of the birth of wow people all over the world did huh he died on the day of the titanic aboard on the day of the titanic crash by the way so a great day for communism that's a great day for capitalism okay let's do let me go through oh okay we're good here so this is the food in the plane that's that looks like an asian plane it looks like where they give you that wrapped bread yeah yeah this is this is the that's such an asian plane meal yeah i have oreo i've never even heard of that it's the world's only like two-star airline it's just in inter uh north and new korea and china i think russia that may do a flight now um i have the barf bag and it's framed in my house wow that's a good that's a good souvenir okay so let's see what else we got here um so yes about the toilets yeah this is the toilets okay not bad though you can sit on that you can sit on that there's not enough room to the wall so you're gonna hit your leg against the thing and let me assure you that is not um charming oh yeah it was it was not but i mean i'm not in a position to complain about the toilet paper dude when i got back from asia spent four months in asia and then i got back and the one of the first things i noticed was the softness of our toilet paper here and i'm like oh america is great i bring wipes wherever i go i can't take it um yeah this is the bathrooms in the hotel i'm pretty sure i stayed in the same hotel room that ottawa beer did because he was on whatever i can't get into it but like i think he was in the same room as me whoa um this is you have to share the hotel with room with somebody else which is fine on your tour group really yeah you guys fuck no oh god no um this is the wait i have a question yeah for real though yeah that guy you shared a hotel room you guys fuck no okay there's a funny story about that yeah i tell this story often but you guys fucking sorry i'm sorry go ahead yeah i'm done there's this there's this canadian journalist and he went back to north korea and in the second interview he's talking to his guides at the ostrich ranch outside pyongyang so it's him a man or woman north korean and ostriches and he goes last time i was here we talked about gays and lesbians and the guy who's like 50 guys like yeah yeah yeah and he goes what about bisexuals and this north korean guy goes what and he's like all right i'm trying to get you halfway buddy now you just fuck with me it's a new thing what it's like andrew nice clay you know you're like what do you flip a coin why are you okay just that sigh what what's he got a new one now it's so funny um it's the food that african guy of course you are gay why are you okay you are gay have you been to africa i've been to just north just just um yeah not real africa so this is at a restaurant this is no this is the hotel restaurant in the morning what are you eating it's like like it's like potatoes covered in some kind of coating okay i don't know what it is to be honest um they have a nice little aquarium there is north korean food just korean food no it's different it's different so they're very proud of what's really funny is that the lies that they tell the people and it's just like so they have these buckwheat noodles okay and in cold cold broth and they're like oh everyone in the world's like obsessed with these buckwheat noodles here and it's like i assure you and by the way those buckwheat noodles were the worst so if anyone used to watching this ever had aquariums and you would have these tube effects which are live food to feed your fish yeah it smelled just like that it was really really bad yeah i have a picture of it later but it's it was really bad i couldn't eat it that was the one really yeah and the one thing i was worried about and the other people on tour is like the food didn't get wasted so if you didn't eat it didn't go to the garbage like they ate to people so that's good oh that's cool yeah um let me oh okay so this this is the view let me blow it up this was the view from my hotel room does that not look like a painting it looks like a painting it's a fog over pyongyang that's the tower of the juche idea that's what the tower of the juche idea what is that so the juche idea is the great um uh epiphany of the great leader kim il-sung which guides north korea and it can be summed up in one sentence a man is the master of everything controls everything it's this great amazing epiphany and what's amazing about this tower sounds like tony hinchcliffe all the time this is this is amazing about this tower and i talk about i kind of have this scene in my book when they talk about how great these leaders are the only way they could do it is to make it seem like everyone else in the country is like handicapped so that tower is the world's like biggest like obelisk right for real and the point they're like this was kim this was dear leader kim jong-il's idea and no one ever thought of it before right and it's like wait you're saying all the architects are brainstorming you're brainstorming one's like let's make it the second tallest and kim jong-il comes and goes we should make it a tall stick holy shit oh my god that's changing the game so that is um and there was a jesus statue and it's the second largest and but they built it as the second largest next to brazil i'm like what what just built a small one then number two means we have to try harder oh yeah i guess we don't want to be over on tourism it was crazy i'm like when was it built i looked it up i'm like you started with two oh my god um yeah this is that we looked like a painting that was so cool so foggy a lot like that it's in the morning yeah um so this is so the hotel is called the fun because you're locked on this island in the middle of the taedong river which is in the middle of pyongyang yeah and they were building some i think movie theater um behind us as i was living there staying there that's the other view it's just beautiful it's gorgeous yeah it's really pretty there's this serenity to it which is really hard to describe is um how's the smell like along the river and stuff is it like polluting no no it's fine that that's fine that's for sure fine um okay let me go i'm gonna go back okay guys okay okay we just won't include anything in the final yeah yeah i just want to make sure we don't yeah have a thumbnail try not to get anybody hurt yeah let's go to so we're driving driving driving could you get western food there um no no so okay let's talk about this so um like here's an ex so they took us to this kind of um they took us to this like vest this outpost in the middle of the highway for some reason i don't know why it was never explained on the balcony they were drying corn you can't get so western stuff so the juchi idea and uh the ideology of north korea is everything by us and for us so anything foreign is bad and illegal so their their lie is that like everything they have they invented so they have the art they have like the like the arc of victory this arch yeah and even though it's exactly like the one it's exactly like dark triumph but it was not based on that it was based on like a medieval korean wall so you're just crazy that's an arch of victory ours is an arch right and and the tower duchy idea even though it has a like a torch like the statue of liberty it was actually based on you know so they insist everything is from korea originally it's pretty cool when you don't allow outside like then people have like yeah it sounds right i have no knowledge of otherwise but yeah as soon as you're caught in one lie it all collapses that's the thing so these as soon as one thing falls apart you've built this whole castle in the clouds and then people realize oh it's all a lie so it's actually not a smart idea because it's harder and harder to maintain that ubiquity of information yeah could people be on vpns there to get like outside they don't have electricity mostly right okay so it's so we're in this edifice thing and if you see look at the table the chair excuse me at the at the right you see it's in that gold disc yeah everything's up yeah so everything has something a little bit uh up uh this is the store they took us to um wow cool and then just pictures it's just like there's a pool table in the middle of nowhere shitty felt yeah um do you have any like there's like so much here though like is there anything we should specifically be focusing on the food the people and the things you saw okay let's do that stories stuck out we can like have the pictures just like yeah yeah back up a story okay so they took us these guys so this so this is um uh earth flag the un flag it's um i'm blanking on the panmunjom so this is where the treaty that uh the ceasefire the end of the korean war was signed so they say that the us and the un were so humiliated and we had our asses handled so bad that we left all our behind and they have it on display and that if we ever come back we will destroy the u.s imperialists most thoroughly like so they that's the military guy has this speech and he's really ramping and the guide who's a city girl who she's just calmly translating um so it's this weird kind of dynamic is here like she's like oh and if the u.s come back we will murder them all yeah yeah i'm no bad intense this message is sponsored by raycon if you're still figuring out what to get the dad in your life this father's day i got you covered raycon's everyday earbuds classic and become the my go-to for daily listening and it just makes sense for any dad who loves going getting outside but also if you're just like i'm going to go to the park and i'm just going to go to the park and i'm just going to go to the park and i'm just going to 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interesting and this is um so you stayed with this guide pretty much the whole time they showed you kind of like so the hotel is segregated by nationality so the guides are not allowed on your floor uh you like the westerners have their own floor and what's even crazier is that the guides floor didn't have electricity they're they went you went up the elevator they went into darkness and i'm like i don't know what the hell i don't know if people are bats but it was really crazy like can you imagine stepping up and don't waste electricity on the locals yeah wow yeah yeah yeah so this is the dmz was this is the border between north south korea oh so let me say hold on yeah let me see that one again so that's just across the street and you go to south korea that's where trump and kim jong-il shook hands and that's the okay so i'm going to pause this here because i know the guides are the next pictures okay um what's so i'll tell you a funny story that happened at the dmz okay one of the people on my let me just scroll this down on my tour group so fucking hold on we'll get to that in a second okay sorry one of the people on my tour group uh had one of those accordion cameras like from the 1890s like it's it's modern but it just looked like that yeah and i go to him oh you're such a hipster and then my guide goes what's a hipster and i'm like okay how do i explain to you to north korea what a hipster is and my style but too much that it's annoying but my friend nichelle had a great quote i go a hipster someone who likes things that are old just because they're old i'm like all right like and my guide's like okay i understand that so let me fast forward so inside the hotel there's a sweatshop where they make custom suits and i'm like i gotta get a suit made i gotta get because shane smith from vice who went there he had a suit made i'm like i want this suit made and my god's like yeah yeah like i i need the suit this is the only reason i'm here i'm not gonna come back i'm not coming back they take me to the thing and they're showing me all the potential suits but they're like western style i go no no no no i want a suit like the great leader camel sung and the guy goes oh hipster i was like oh and what i got you what i didn't realize is they live in the hotel they're slaves but at the same time like you have housing you have electricity you have food they're like wealthy it's this weird thing and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna come back and i'm gonna come back and i'm gonna weird thing where it's like should i feel guilty do you see what i mean they can't leave but they're doing better than everybody right it's a weird like okay like does everybody get a salary there can you keep your own money is it like government salary i mean it's it's totalitarian communism so everyone has like ration cards i don't know it's it's very weird how uh the currency works you can't use some of the stamps because the leader's pictures on the stamp so they're not actually for use so if you have like newspaper or something with their photo you have to dispose of it very specifically or else you could be killed so everyone in their house has a portrait wall and the portrait wall before you had to have pictures of they gave you the pictures in the frame the great lady came a song and dearly kim jong-il it's your job to keep those pictures lint-free and you have a special uh cloth just for that and you get inspected every so often if you leave your house everyone you have to have a lapel pin of that of on the leaders yeah this is a replica from the movie the interview okay um so everyone in the country has the pin at all times wherever they go sometimes though in the pyongyang capital city where they're bougie women started wearing jackets over the pin and they're getting away with it so it's this weird kind of liberalism where wealthy and powerful people have rights in some unspoken that other people wear the pin but cover it yeah god there's so much different there's so much going on yeah so this is kaesong which is like medievally kind of city that's close to dmz i've heard of kaesong yeah it's it's lovely it's so cool looking even though like the shitty side there is still like this pagoda right architecture and then there was this you can see the people there everyone on bikes all the time everyone's on bikes yes do you get on one i did i don't know how to ride a bike but no you can see the fountains not running that you can see the fountains not running that you can see the fountains not running that you know what i mean yeah oh wow and this is kind of food they we had us in the floor and they gave us this kind of food and how was that it was fine the food is fine that looks cool the food for tourists but you don't you're not you're not really having menus they just bring you food yeah yeah joe list would hate that who's who would joe list why he's a particular homo well i mean i mean he's like no i want a chicken parm they'd be like i i i mean you're not going north korea to have like the vip experience but joe list would do that okay well yeah bad news for joe yeah um i think there's a fly over here yeah in the middle i took photos all the flies um let me go back to the main page so it's all these like tapas kind of things well only that place okay um okay we got we're the people aware of the of the of the like lack of freedoms like you said like in the bougie big city it's like okay they're always more forward so my job was to try to break my guide's facade as much as possible i wanted to get in her head and know the truth yeah so i said to her at one point i go you know i'm from new york like people in cities here because so they always talk about the workers the workers the farmers how great they are and at one point she was talking about how one time during the year everyone the cities goes into the countryside and helps with the harvest and she's in her high heels she's got her outfit on i and i'm trying to be like whatever i go you know that sounds like really nice and she's like yeah and you could tell she's like are you kidding me i gotta be in the with these low lives and later i asked her i go where i'm from people in cities look down on people in the countryside a lot give her the out and and i go she she goes is it like that here she goes what do you think so they were so the thing is okay let me break down something else they have something called sungbun in north korea in the 50s and later they they interviewed every single person in the country and they it was called the understanding people project and other names which sounds nice but they figured out your rank in terms of your social caste so what were your grandparents doing were they born in the south were they clergymen were they capitalists that's bad did they fight with the great leader kimball sung were they communists were they born in the north that's good based on this you're slotted into three cast broadcasts and subcasts uh favorable cast wavering and hostile oh this determines everything about your life including where you live based on your grandparents your whole family oh fox so it's a lot easier for your cast to go down if someone your family up it's bad for everybody but it's really hard to pull up okay so to even step foot in pyongyang the capital city you have to have a very high sungbun and then pyongyang is a concentric circles so the people in the center are the highest sungbun so if you're talking to foreigners at all your sungbun must be through the roof because they trust you to be around people yes and you've got a lot of skin in the game because you up you're you go from park avenue and now you're in appalachia so there's no benefit other than just like fun to talk to you about anything real well there's benefit in that she gets to get information and be herself but the thing is at the top they know that what's going on people in the countryside are true belief like the people in the countryside who are starving send food to pyongyang so that kim jong-un has enough food like because they're really taught that he's like as hungry as them yeah it's really wow yeah give some to the fat guy because he's so hungry right because he's working for us wow they really sold that they've sold it it's like you want to be like how dare they but part of it's like they have something else called um criticism self-criticism sessions which is once a week this reminds me so much of was it 1984 oh yeah there's a lot of that i in fact i asked my guide if she had a big brother and she loved him and she said yes and she didn't get the joke but i'm like um so everyone in the country once a week you have to get together with your group whether it's your school colleagues whatever and you have to say what you did wrong and then you have to say what you saw other people do wrong so a lot of times like you and i are pals like i'll be like ari i'll say you came late to work and you say you saw me give me some light yeah yeah so that way we each have something to say but oh my god they all watch each other by law and publicly so this is like a school auditorium and you'd be like i saw ari and he stole a pencil from teacher's desk and all the kids just yell at you that was like us during covid yes it was like that yeah so that so this is the bookstore i saw ari dude oh my god yeah i'm sure people would lie too of course it's like we're enemies i'll be like of course i heard michael talk shit about kim and if you have a higher sung bun you're going to be more believed because i'm so this is the bookstore books are treasures house of knowledge and this is a brilliant quote by great dearly kim jong-il books are treasure house of knowledge and the textbooks for a person's life not exactly pithy but all the books are by or about the leaders um there's another one that has the english ones i'll show the next one they're all cool bookstore it's a great book i took a ton of books home wow yeah were there any in english So their propaganda tells them that everyone on earth is really into North Korea. So the books are translated into English, Chinese, like Arabic, French, Spanish, there's a ton of languages that translate. And they're sitting there for decades. What a career to write like propaganda books for Kim Jong Un. Do you know, but the, I did one, I mean mine, but here's how the propaganda reads. This is what's fascinating. So it'll be like this. There's a, the glass factory and the factory has come to a standstill and the dealer Kim Jong Il shows up and he goes, Hey, why don't you try doing this with the device? And they're like, Holy crap, it worked. And he's like, okay. And now there's a problem with the box factory. And that like, these are literally the stories are all this. It's literally, it's like, it's when I say mind numbing, yeah, but it's, but Jesus at least turned water into wine. This is like, he fixed like a, like a PDF, do you know what I mean? And he's like tech support. But in a country where no one knows how to detect support somehow it only works where it's like, there's no one of any, right. Cause someone's running the factory the day before he gets there for decades and no one knows how to figure it out. He just points to this one thing and they're like, Oh crap. Sure. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Hey guys, we are supported by Nathan and sons, makers of underbrush, remineralizing gum underbrushes a chewing gum that helps take care of your teeth in between brushing and Nathan and son makes it themselves from scratch. I can't make anything myself except toe cheese. Yeah. They make it in their own facility in Northern California. Sure. Or your mother's ZD, but that's not what you want in your teeth. If you want a simple daily upgrade for your teeth, head over to Nathan and sons.com and check out their underbrush remineralizing gum right now. You can get 30% off your first order when you subscribe, visit Nathan's son.com today. Hey everybody. Today's episode of you've been tripping is brought to you by cigars international. Do you like a good cigar on a nice day? Or even if you have an overhang on a cloudy day or a rainy day, that's my dream actually to get an awning that I can like pull forward that can smoke cigars on a warm day while it's raining. I did one of those in, they send you a handmade cigars, uh, from all over Cohibas. I got a five pack Cohibas in there and it was really, really good. Um, it offers a larger selection unbeatable prices. This is an customer service experience, second to none. So if you're new to cigars or if you're like, no, what you're talking about either way, they got you. So one of my favorites was in Ecuador, in the Amazon, I'm staying at this like hotel first week, probably in Ecuador pouring rain. And there was this little like balcony and I could just watch this rain smoking. I really legitimately shitty cigar, really shitty cigar that I think I got in Quito. It's an Ecuadorian brand. It's called a La Libertador. No, there was another one about the fighter. I think it was the same company. The point is love a good cigar. Plus bring a bunch to a barbecue, anything, um, man, anyway, get yours to cigars international. Um, use my code Trippin at checkout for 20% off your order of $50 or more, or visit www.cigarsinternational.com/trippin and the discount will automatically apply. Some exclusions apply. Um, that's it. Let's get back to it. Let's get back to the episode. Wow. It's really, in fact, there's really one and it's, it gets in why I have a lot of these anecdotes in my book because they're so I, I toned it down because when you play it straight, it's so crazy that you don't need to tone it up. Like one example is this is from their propaganda. They built a fun fair and amusement park and Kim Jong Il, their leader was really scared that the rides would be unsafe for like children or the elderly. So he went on all the rides like himself. It's like, and it started, it started drizzling and everyone's like, can I ride these? Like, no, I want to put myself in harm's way and everyone's like crying and applauding and it's like, he's just riding the thing, not out of the room because he's so brave. God damn. What a baller. Yeah. Wow. Let's see what else we got here. These are this like, can people seem happy? So I did. So here's something that you know. You and I know very well. People are very bad at being put on the spot. You know, not a lot of people can do what we do. Just get in a mic for like three hours and like run our mouths. So what I did knowing I'm an obnoxious American, I got in every single person's face because when I waved at them and got in their face, I knew the reaction would be sincere. And the thing that really is heartbreaking is they're insanely normal. So the grandmothers with the grandkids are like, oh, she hugs a grandkid and the teenage boys in their Adidas tracksuits are like chewing their gum and roll their eyes and the girls giggle and it's just the most normal reaction. And it makes it even more screwed up because if this was a country of robots like Lex, like you could even wrap your head around it, but they're really surprisingly normal. And by the way, here's my little travel tip for you. If you go to North Korea and you want them to love you, take every racist joke, you know, and make the punchline Japanese. I did this. I did this. I have receipts. Really? Give me one. Yeah. So what do you call 500 Japanese at the bottom of the ocean? What? A good start. A good start. And they're just like, what? Crying, laughing. How do you stop a Japanese man from drowning? Oh. Take your foot off his neck. They hate Japanese. So Korea. Okay. So they hate the American government. They don't really hate Americans. Right. They respect our strength. They realize we're not. The Japanese had Korea as a colony. Before World War II, right? And they used them as slave labor. They tried to make Korea illegal, Korean illegal, gave them Japanese names. They hate the Japanese, like on an ethnic, personal level. So it's really easy to ingratiate yourself with them. Just make all these. And in fact, they don't say Japanese. So according to their culture, you can't say Japanese, you have to say like wicked Jap devil or US imperialist. And that's how they teach math. Like if I kill six wicked Jap devils every day of the week, how many will I have killed? That's their math. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. God damn. That's so fucking different. Yeah. Oh yeah. To be all in like that. Yeah. It's really funny. It is weird though. You see like a mom and her daughter or like a brother and sister playing or whatever. And you're like, oh, that's, that's just like us. Then they're like everything phage and like, that's just a human interaction. Yeah. And it's just like the thing that I was actually getting a little emotional looking through these pictures again, because every single person in these pictures is still there or dead. Not one person has gotten out. And it really is a mind fuck to realize every single person I'm there is still in that prison and a lot of them know they're in that prison. So it's, it's, it's, you know, how wealthy you are. Like I'll, I'll tell you, I'll give you a, we'll get to the kind of something happened in the end. Okay. I was talking to my guide. I go, okay, this is, they also have, they're really funny. So they have something called Chalima, which is their Pegasus, which is a symbol of speed. And I asked my guide, I go last night, I go the last night I go, if I, Chalima, we could pull it up. They have a big monument to the Chalima movement, which is, we're going to do everything much faster. And even though things break apart, that's the matter we're doing faster. I say to her, if I could send you anything from the, there you go. Yeah. Oh, cool. That's Chalima. I go, if I could send you anything from the West, what would you want me to send you? She goes a Porsche. I go, lady, I'm not sending you, I go, she said like that immediately. I go, lady, I'm not sending you a Porsche and don't ask me to send you Chalima. Either. She goes, we have the original one here. What do I need you to send to me for? And she was quick. And I go, is there anything else you want? She goes perfume. All right. That's possible. Cause they don't make it. So you can't have it. So she's rich. She can't just smell nice. And I go, what kind of perfume? And she's struggling for the language. And then the word she came up with, she wants a feminine. So I got her the perfume. I got it smuggled in. Don't ask me how. But the point is this country, even if you're like very, very high up like her, it's not in the stores. Right. Still can't. But they still want it. She wants to smell like a pretty woman, like more power. She wants to be normal. And she knows she's in jail for no reason because she was born on the other side of the DMZ. It's insane. Do they still have like family on the other side and stuff like that? Or is that all destroyed? Is it anything like Germany? If you want to lose your mind. If you want to lose your mind, no, no. If you have contact with the outside world, that's a death penalty for you. And also the dear leader said, the great leader said, class enemies must be exterminated three generations. So the family's punished. Just three generations are punished. You don't always know who did something wrong. So three generation will be punished. They had negotiations with, this is really kind of emotional, with South Korea. And at several points of the years, they had these reunifications and you can watch them on YouTube. So it's people like brothers who hadn't seen each other for like 30 years and they're given like an hour and the guides, they're watching the North Korean. And then they just go and they're never going to talk again. And you watch this. You don't have any kind of human emotion. You're just going to start bawling. So it's like, how's mom? Like mom died 18 years ago. Whoa. And then it's like, bye. It's real. And also like, don't say anything about what's going on there. You know not to say anything. They both know. Just like I have two kids now. Oh, cool. We're thriving. North Korea is awesome. Everything's awesome. They tell them don't ask. They're just getting in trouble if you're like, oh my God. And you watch them just crying as they hug. It's so unnerving. beautiful too. I can't watch it. After 70 years look at that what it's it's it's and the only reason they can't talk to other people is because of this evil north korean government like let's just be clear um let me go down here okay were there any cool like sites that you saw or like um is there good nature nature we didn't really see okay let's talk about nature okay so i was talking to my guide i told her the parable of the fox and the scorpion for people who know um fox and the scorpion it's either one okay so frog we'll use frog and scorpion okay so frog and a scorpion went across the river scorpion goes let me get on your back frog goes how will i know you won't sting me scorpion goes if i sting you will drown frog goes okay make frog goes makes sense scorpion gets on his back halfway through the scorpion stings the frog and the frog goes why'd you do that and the scorpion goes that's my nature and it's kind of a parable about like some people are just irredeemable and my guide didn't know what a scorpion was and i'm like okay i drew it she's nothing i go it's like a lobster lives in the desert nothing and if you think about how many ways you know what a scorpion horoscope spider-man matrix but because there's none in north korea they don't need to know about it god damn right so then i'm like okay did you guys like a james bond movie or something but it's like a billion things doesn't exist if it doesn't exist there they don't need to know about it whoa i also she knew about it wow wow yeah you don't even learn the animals of the of the earth you because you learn the animals of korea the earth doesn't matter korea is what matters do you get it god oh my god it's so different it's so insane not insane it's actually very sane it makes sense from their perspective yeah did it feel like that industrial communist vibe or does it more just like did it feel more i wouldn't say industrial because it just it felt um grimy okay but it also felt um like like a pocket dimension i i can't describe it it's it's there's nothing like analogous to it at all like even if like we you and i went some trip to like aruba and threw our cell phones away and went offline it's not like that because we know at any moment i could go look up my my twitter yeah or my bank account or go to an atm it was funny there's a bougie girl on a trip with me and she's wanting to go to the atm and they're like we don't we don't have those we don't have those they tell you ahead of time like no they don't but they tell you to bring as much money yeah it's so fucking cool it's it's it's it's it's did you have any time you just go off by yourself on a walk god no nothing nothing never never was there a crime issue at all no no way right no okay solid no way that's that is solved yeah um yeah you'd be nuts so this is not interesting this is a stupid museum they took us to um went to this restaurant whatever okay uh i don't want to show this but um okay there was a moment on we're not sure yeah there was this moment on there's this moment on so they love to sing right because singing doesn't take electricity and it's it's free right so there's this amazing um song called arirang which is an anthem of the korean people okay and if anyone listens are we wrong ari is wrong okay are you wrong a-r-i-r-a-n-g and if you watch anyone watching this just look for like a choir performing it it is heartbreakingly beautiful and even if you don't understand the lyrics it's you could see this sense of longing and mourning just through the words and the tone and just how it's saying and my guide our guide stood at the front of the bus and sang it and it's it means like missing your lover but also about the horrors of national division and it's just like just the the pain just really comes through as a very kind of intense uh moment because the thing is what's different from them than from like us in america everything is like earnestness like they don't really have irony or sarcasm like everything is on its face value so when they're talking about like a lot of this dark stuff it's not like beetlejuice it's really dark and you do you want i felt this when i went to japan because i was just in japan in april and i was talking my friend she's japanese about like korean and and i mean the hiroshima and nagasaki and what it clicked for me walking around tokyo like this war affected every single person like there's not one person in this country where they could ignore it do you know what i mean yeah and when you think about that ignore that one right with korea it's in this north korea like this affected every single family i'm not saying good bad forget that like on an individual level it's just it's it's traumatic you know yeah they said that's why um hello kitty the origins of that oh you ever hear about it no okay so world war ii happens right two main powers um germany which got divided and then realized some really horrific stuff and they went to industrial music and like warehouse stuff even on both sides of it it was very like how does it feel you know and they're just like dance this out the lyric there's no more like love songs that's all fucking done new order well no but they're playing that kind of music yeah that kind of music is playing there and starting there and then in japan because of this really horrific thing like extra horrific they're like we just went to childlike state we can't be adults that this this world is so rough let's let's devolve into childlike so that's why hello kitty all the girls are dressed like little girls all the women are just like little girls and it's generationally down from there because i i what what else if a million can disappear in a second what is all right that makes no sense because one thing that disturbed me about tokyo is that their vision of male beauty was like a boy band and they have all these billboards with teenage boys like lipstick and nail polish like what but they're like there to attract women i'm like what is this shit yeah and that's if because they're there's no like testosterone and this is a warrior country i mean this is the home of the samurai right but they were like beat so bad like all right we're done we're definitely not as big i thought we were big that makes so much sense because i was like what is happening here yeah it's it's like a place where justin timberlake's looked at as like arnold schwarzenegger it's like oh wow um let me see what i'm barely through this we i got a lot to get through all right um okay so here this is another example so this is like their central park let me pull it up so um let me pull it up so this is their central park so again people in the west often think you go there and everything's beautiful and clean and and i'm like i should go through these photos you'll see this again this is their like best park in pyongyang but you could see like it's not amazing yeah and you could see on the fountain look at all this mildew yeah the lights aren't on the fountain's not on it's not they can't hide it so they don't have the money to be clean and this again and i've met i've met um refugees and they're like what's pyongyang like because they still think it's amazing i'm like i'm telling you it's not like gorgeous let me get to a very that's the communist vibe that dirt on stone you know yeah let me get to a very specific story because i want to make sure we get to it hold on a second yeah and this is was very revelatory the school that they okay let me talk about this so this are these two gigantic statues of the great leader kim il-sung and the great leader kim il-sung and the great leader kim il-sung and the left the dear leader kim jong-il on the right everyone who comes to the country has to go there and bow down before this statue and when you look at these statues you're not allowed to crop them like you have to have a i don't know why they don't explain why you have to have a photo of the whole thing um and you i sent you i texted you the photo of me with the other two statues and it's this and people get married in front of the statues it's like this big huge uh production what's funny about this is when kim jong-il who was not at all necessarily going to be the successor to his father kim il-sung on the left like he was a big part of building up this personality cult so when they put up the statue of the great leader kim il-sung on the left it was like all colored in gold and the chinese were like guys were communists like do we really want to have statues of us in gold and kim jong-il's like you're right so he changed it to bronze and that's him on the right is uh kim jong-il and by the way it looks them apart it looks well you can't tell anyone apart in those countries that must be hard too like the guy i talked to before it also he looks it's like a ripoff of the walt disney statue on the left yeah oh my god no he invented that pose no no walt disney stole from us wow yeah uh it must be great to have nobody there's all these french comedians they're just like once they started comedy they're like oh let's go take all of seinfeld chris rock all these people we'll split up their material though no one here knows them imagine having the whole world as your inspiration no one knows anything you've ever seen yes so much of this stuff they just took from now and they pretend that they made it up you know and then yeah so that's a big thing let me get to the school hold on this is the big one okay the hospital hold on but the school's the important one this is the one that really gets to you hold on let me see that food too okay well you don't see the food i'll show you the food here is this like typical stuff so this is like this like it's like a like a pound cake almost they gave us for breakfast um and then yeah the pound cake muffin and it was it was like chicken in this like um starchy thing like a like a i don't know what that is okay so this let's talk about let's talk about this okay let's tell this story this is very important okay look how young you look yeah so your side hair this is um they took us to a store yeah okay and they said we're gonna go to school we're gonna get candy for all the kids now my russian brain knew exactly what that meant in same way that like if i ask you what's this you're like a mic and what's it for it's for talking like why are you even asking me this i knew exactly what happened which is you buy the candy you give it to the teacher the candy goes back to the store the story i like i know like i it's just a mics for talking like that's how it works in these countries because they said specifically we're not giving the the candy the kids were giving to the teacher i'm like okay i know exactly teach not giving it out this is just a con like no question so when we run to the school all the kids run up to us each one grabs us by the hand and i told one of my friends on one of my um fellow tour members i go because i took one of those coins and put in my pocket because i'm like i'm giving this kid candy and i said to the girl i go when i give this kid candy take a picture and she goes we're not allowed to give them candy i go when i give this kid candy take a picture so i palmed it he grabs my hand this little kid i give him the chocolate he looks at his hand looks up at me and i go and he just puts in his pocket real quick so i got him his chocolate so i was really wow happy with that yeah he know enough to be like he knows they know how to do this yeah why you guys are wearing suits is that just your style i just wanted no because we came from visiting the statues so we had to show our respect to the statues god it's so fucking weird yeah um how much this trip cost you i don't it was like a couple of grand it was not because you have to fly to china then fly to north korea the flight was the stuff the flights it adds up um but the thing that's awful about the school let me get a mickey first of all the school's fake and the reason you know the school's fake is schools are noisy right so when we're walking through like one classroom and the kids are in the hallway it's doing a song for us yeah everything else is dead silent it's not a real school so that's like so they're not really good at at being dishonest yeah so the thing that was most screwed up you'll see these kids hold on see they're all like they're so cute um the thing that really struck me was i can't handle like when fucked up things happen to kids like i i know like it's a dark moment of comedy get hard on it it's like it's not what's on my ass for like i'll do john bonnet jokes but when it's like real like in terms of like in front of you like i can't do it no you can't do any joke when you let it in you're like oh i'm not funny anymore and the thing with this school is you could hear a lot of these kids are super elite they're like i'm not funny anymore and they're like i'm not funny anymore and they're these are the kids of the military they're in pyongyang yeah but when you hear their chest colds and them coughing and knowing they're not really ever going to be warm they're not going to be able to have medicine it does a fucking number on you like hearing kids coughing like that with that chest congestion it's it's i'll never forget that and what's even funnier is i almost i haven't told this story before i almost got in a fight on the bus which was really scary with one of my tour mates because he's this very like um wealthy like you know white person you know these like waspy like uh banker types and we go to one of the classrooms hold on a second it was this no hold on sorry i'll get it one second guys look at their fake mickey mouse it's so funny it's a real mickey mouse what do you mean oh you mean like it's just a bootleg yeah so we go to this class okay right with this model of of the city yeah of the city and the teacher goes to the guy in my tour guide tour group and he goes to the guy in my tour guide tour group and he she goes what's the most beautiful place in the world and he's like oh the mountains and everyone laughs and the kids pyongyang and i'm on the bus i'm clowning him like i'm like what if i mean and he turns around he was about to hit me he goes you're just a fucking troll you don't ever stop because i've been i was going after the whole tour and everyone got really uncomfortable now i am not a tough guy but i'm also not going to back down because i know people aren't going to do shit yeah but i was in what's he going to do get into a physical altercation south in north korea but at the same time i'm like i'm not rolling these dice because this is north korea and if i'm causing a problem like you're part of the problem so i i'm dave smith dave smith so i was like i kept my mouth shut wow but that that happened what were the other people on tour like were they having a good time were there were there was it like yeah it was like rich people was just like young travelers it was young travelers and you know these kind of extreme travelers like people go to like places you're not supposed to go but can't just go to the beach it has to be a fucking namibian beach right right so um it's a lot of a bunch of canadians a bunch of europeans i think i was maybe the only american um but it was really kind of a it was a good group i enjoyed it a lot no there were a couple of the guy was an american sorry the one who got my face who threatened violence it was really great it sounds right um violence so it's illegal to go now after they killed ottawan beer um i don't remember that so ottawan beer was an american tourist he went to north korea they he very stupidly left his hotel room at night and went to one of the other floors and was like supposedly trying to steal a poster at the very least he was trespassing right yeah they held him i seized him at the airport um they held him hostage eventually they let him go but he was like in a coma yeah um remember that now uh and he ended up dying and this was a they're trying to get him back for so long yeah it wasn't that long here we'll give you a shell of a body yeah and they i think his parents launched i know his parents launched a lawsuit against north korea it was a whole thing good luck um but after that it became illegal again yeah it's just totally not safe it is safe i i'm sorry like it like don't like you know better than that in myanmar i was there was some dutch guy that was like they called a prayer for the for the hindu for the buddhist there and it was outside his hotel room and he just like couldn't sleep and he went out and unplugged it and they're like you're in jail he goes oh i didn't know as a person you knew what it was right you knew what it was you knew this is not your house yeah like that's the whole thing like while i'm there i did not feel unsafe but i'm like this is not your house yeah it's like being in a lesbian bar this is not for you respect the space yeah and it's like and these people don't mess around with their own people why would they mess around with me what do they care there's this thing of like american like i'm untouchable kind of stuff and it doesn't exist in like if you're like in nature like oh it's a moose i can go up to it like no there's no safety precautions here yeah they think this yeah yeah you just don't feel danger or they think it's not safe yeah so how'd you feel coming back i cried on the plane because like you know that the guide had the same haircut my mom had like 1983 and the last day i wrote about this for reason magazine when i came back i said to her yeah i got her i did because i said um uh you know that she reminds me of my mom like her haircut and her vibe she goes well your mom must hate her russia so like that was like her way of telling me you know and she doesn't enjoy this stuff she's feeling forced well she she enjoys her job but you know i one of the guys from the tour group stayed for another week uh you had that option and they were like running out of things to show him and he got to know her more and she they're the both the guys were like like i'd love to travel the world you know i have the money i can't plus they must meet people from all over so you get that's the only way you can get any sort of notification about there's people coming to that job specifically yes saying like i had a cheeseburger like a what yeah you put cheese on a burger i mean you're like it's what a fun job it is on the one hand where you're meeting people all over the world and showing them your country and getting to know them but that's it you're not you're this is it for you you're you're this is your ceiling and at any moment you could be in again the countryside if you cross the wrong person it's rough dude and when i see her picture on instagram it's just like it does a number on me i'm not gonna lie oh it's like when chris hansen hears about these kids fucking fucking kids you know and he's like oh i just hear about it but i never get to like do you know the funniest one of the funniest moments i've ever seen this is totally a sidebar on was on chris hansen when he was on arty and anthony when it was the first week yeah no arty and anthony when arty lang became kumia's co-host and chris hansen was on and he's talking about 9-11 and what he was doing that day and arty turns and goes were you the let's roll guy and chris hansen did not find it funny i was oh you're the let's roll guy is he still alive he's already alive does anyone know he's he's this stays at home a lot okay is that true he's alive but he's not coming out yeah i think he's sober okay good yeah his nose is reconstituting okay yeah yeah nature heals all is that have you what's the what's the most like intense place you've been to myanmar is pretty intense myanmar i got like taken like we're just like in one of the cities you're not supposed to stay in and they're like we'll make an exception for you we got a local minister to write you a letter and then we're like walking around it's like oh and then a bunch of army guys come out like what's with that what are you taking pictures of like just a statue and like let me see delete them delete them let's go where's your passports i'm like in our hotel like let's go and just being led by gunpoint back to show were you scared or you think yeah i was scared at that point i was scared because i was like i don't know there's all these juntas we're like yeah yeah oh yeah okay army and i'm like yeah guys we're not i'm not i don't immediately go i'm so sorry whatever you need i'm sorry yeah yeah that was yeah a few years ago when i was in the army i was like oh my god i don't want to go to eritrea and i was like oh my god i don't want to go to eritrea and i was like oh my god i don't want to go to eritrea right in north korea you know the rules yeah did you ever go back uh i possibly but i think next i would want to go to eritrea have you ever been there no but my people were from a lot of black jews is that right from ethiopia i guess eritrea why there so i asked everybody he's like what's calling you but i've never gotten that one because i was reading some articles like eight years ago i was reading some articles like eight years ago and i was like oh my and north korea got bumped off the list of like least free and i'm like what the fuck's eritrea really and eritrea is uh part of it was formerly part of ethiopia right they uh took all the reporters and put them in metal boxes and left them in the desert oh but there's never gonna get a good story like that but the capital city asmara was built by mussolini when he had captured it in whatever the 20s so it's a perfectly preserved 1920s like mussolini fashion city in the middle of africa it's a cafe culture mediterranean so it's really this bizarre dichotomy between this like complete dystopia and this like art deco yeah masterpiece i love seeing those i've never been to um like laos but like the the french what they left you know or even the in in vietnam pull up um eritrea fiat fact because it's just this like the pub fiat f-i-a-t yeah there's this like fiat building in the middle of wow it's like in africa wow well that's not break that's okay we're gonna figure out that that's cool yeah i would like to do something like that i want to go to morocco why morocco i don't know just calling me that's so that's so you play you play love where else to watch i want to go i want to go to laos i've never been there and just like have you thought about going on a trip and bringing uh okay here's i i just thought of this okay i'm tossing it your way okay i was born in ukraine in lviv oh i left there when i was two have never been back okay i would would you why don't we get a videographer and go and that would be to ukraine yeah i mean and then also in st petersburg right russia yeah or do you want to just do ukraine i like uk i've never been called by russia but i'm not like mad at them or anything i just like nothing there it's like oh i'd love to go to ukraine okay i we could this would be an episode though okay film it oh 100 okay i'm so serious about this okay i've been meaning to do this my buddy chris williamson then covet hit then the war hit yeah but i think you'll be a lot funnier because oh yeah let's get wild in ukraine dude you're gonna have to do the drugs i find what kind of i don't know well i see ari i think that's the case buddy i don't know what it's all right i think that's the case with you and everybody that they have to you're gonna have to do the drugs i think that's kind of your thing yeah that crocodile where your like skin falls off yeah all right i have to wrap it up okay um but yeah i'm in um this would be a great special episode for the podcast yeah i will i don't think it'd be that much money all right guys michael malice i'll do all your promos and stuff i'll put it in later okay um but uh you got a pod you don't do any research yeah it's called legion of skanks no shut up that'd be so fun just to rename it that we go bigger than them what do you got you have a podcast right yeah again i'll put it in earlier yeah what is it though there he is thanks guys thanks guys for eventually helping me out of that you're welcome with michael malice all right nice yeah oh 4.7 stars i didn't realize that okay 4.7 stars i didn't realize that okay 4.7 stars i didn't realize that okay 4.7 stars haven't stars 1900 reviews that's real is that a lot i mean it's not like 30 reviews or like five where it's your mom going he's the best son i have she would never say that um buddy thank you this is really interesting no one's going to be doing like people like i've already got a bunch of amsterdams no one's doing that's true that's true yeah all right this is gonna be way different than bobby lee south korea it's just gonna be all hookers awesome all right thanks man my pleasure yeah okay okay that's the episode everybody by the way my shirt is sponsored by misha look at this how fucking cool this design is so some guy in bodega today some dominican he was like what's that supposed to mean what do you think it means he goes it's all a scam like yeah bro it's all a scam can you see that it's all a scam dude they're all the same they're all the same why are you playing fucking party games they're all fucking mass murderers michael malice thank you very much for coming in that was cool i did not think i would get a north korea episode anytime soon um you rule dude come back again that was adventurous as hell i'm maybe most most adventurous hi guys that's a trippy award nominee let's do it right now that's a trippy award nominee for most adventurous um michael mouse sorry north korea uh it's not on my list of places to go to be honest even after this podcast doesn't look beautiful venezuela would like to go actually would like to go maybe i will soon north korea actually i don't even want to go to south korea um anyway guys have you got the end yet by the way wherever you're watching listening please subscribe you know uh leave a comment on youtube subscribe right now do it hit subscribe every week i got a new fucking guest that comes in next week for him on where it talks about his college so if you're new to this podcast it goes from anywhere from people who went last week people went decades ago for him on where it comes on to talk about his first trip to europe as a gap year kid uh and just how amazed he was at being overseas that that everybody relates in this podcast to one thing the joy and the newness of travel and for him we'll do that next week um for myself i've got the tv show the end that's all i've got to promote right now the end watch legion of skanks um and uh then that's it that's it i got nothing else right no i got nothing else the end is available at ari shafir.com right now um episodes start at five dollars 99 cents for a one hour episode including guests comedians telling true stories on stage in front of an audience massive guys me i'm mid-level column tyrell maybe had the set of fucking set of the whole show tom segura arena comic uh nate bargazzi arena comic jim brewer crushed maybe the set of the show just to read maybe the set of the show nope she wasn't on that steve simone oh one of the best storytellers of all time then we got uh chris de stefano miss pat um jordan jensen joe list guys this is a crazy lineup and you should get it you should support independent productions like this it's for like it's like four cups of coffee um yeah make coffee at home every day this week instead of going out and buying on the way and then you got it um uh uh yeah seven for the price of five one hour episodes plus a crazy prologue by uh by um william child it's crazy claymation artist um and art by kevin christie who made all the stuff from the original it's just it's just like honestly couldn't be happy with it the fucking what's it called experiment paid off doing this independently has paid off instantly i love it i love that you guys are loving it um to stefano who else sam tallent robert kelly mark normand joe list shane gillis dan soder big jay okerson from the roast that's two guys in the roast oh no it's three tony hinchcliffe we got three guys from that crazy roast on this show the end um sarah tolamash ali sadiq one of the greatest storytellers of all time i'm missing somebody yeah whatever there's other people the point is go to arishafair.com right now and support me i will ask you to support much but it's less than the price of a ticket to a show and you get seven hours that's like four full movies right in your pocket uh one and a half three it's more well let's say hour and 45 minute movies all right guys that's it next week for himan war please subscribe wherever you're watching listening thank you very much to alan caffey for editing today's episode and thank you very much for ymh for producing um also they got a new show called with duncan trussell and and uh kurt metzger called something i don't know but check that out and also check out uh um violent vile vile horrendous with the number one pig in the world joe de rosa also my buddy matt edgar you know him from um um skeptic tank episodes multiple and this is not happening um edgar podcast uh i'm on the inaugural episode of his show bomb shelter with matt edgar i'm on the first episode it's all about the craziest bomb stories worst bomb stories it's gonna be really depressing but it's funny too um all right that's it for me everybody i hope you enjoyed um today's episode and if you did like it if you're new like i said subscribe and uh come back again uh we've also got like a hundred episodes so if you're looking to go to a place not everyone is a good travel it's not like lonely planet where i'll tell you where to go it's more just experiential we've got somebody that's spent like the entire time in laos in a hospital so you don't get any travel tips or what to eat from them all you get is like what was it like for him it's fun i like that better tell me about your trip that's what this podcast you be tripping it's all about i'm ari shafir and i'll see you next week to the leader labor day savings are happening now at the home depot with select appliances starting at 399 plus save up to an extra thousand dollars and get free delivery on appliance purchases of 998 or more get a whirlpool laundry tower featuring industry-first uv clean technology designed to reduce bacteria in the wash without fading fabrics plus with great prices at the home depot you can save on select appliances designed to make laundry day easier shop labor day savings at the home depot today offer valid august 27th through september 16th us only see store online for details