1. Looking for a new hair cut? North Koreans may only choose from 28 pre-approved haircuts.
2. Marijuana is legal and is not even classified as a drug in North Korea.
3. While he was ruling, Kim Jong II released his own biography which stated some very bizarre facts about his life. It claimed that he was born under a double rainbow and his birth caused a new star to appear in the sky. Through that biography, he also wanted people to think of him as a God. He claimed that he had the power to control the weather.
4. An American soldier ran across the border to North Korea in 1962, and has been living there ever since.
5. It’s not 2016 in North Korea. The year is 105 counted after the birth of Kim Il-sung.
6. North Korea is the world’s only necrocracy: a government that still operates under the rules of a former, dead leader.
7. North Korea has such a food shortage that not even the citizens of capital city Pyongyang can afford 3 meals per day.
8. In the 50s, North Korea built Kijong-dong: a “nice” city, visible from the border, to encourage South Koreans in. It’s actually a ghost town.
9. North Korea has 51 “social categories.” Ranked by their loyalty to the regime.
10. Hate your company for making you work on Saturdays too? Well, guess what, North Koreans have to not just work 6 days a week, but they have one day of enforced ‘volunteer’ work too. Yes, that makes it 7 working days a week.
11. All North Koreans are required to wear the badge, featuring the face of Kim II-sung, as a mark of their loyalty to the founder of the nation.
12. North Korea uses human feces as fertilizers due to lack of resources and shipments were stopped from South Korea due to worsening of relations and human manure shops are opened to keep up the demand.
13. North Koreans watched the 2014 World Cup on a 24-hour delay.
14. Possessing Bibles, watching South Korean movies and distributing pornography may be punished with death in North Korea.
15. North Korea is officially not a communist country anymore. Since 2009, their ideology is referred to as “juche”.
16. In North Korea, only military and government officials can own motor vehicles.
17. Wearing jeans is illegal in North Korea.
18. Elections take place for every five years. In which the ballots are handed out with only one option in them, so you can guess easily who the undisputed leader is.
19. If one person violates a law or is sent to prison camp, it affects their whole family. Grandparents, parents, and children of the violator are sent to work with them.
20. North Korea uses a fax machine to send threats to South Korea.
21. There’s an organization that parachutes copies of the Bible into North Korea.
22. In the 1990s all teachers were required to learn how to play accordions. Today, many citizens continue to specialize in the instrument.
23. Pyongyang, one of North Korea’s only cities, is home to three million people, but only the elite. Only trustworthy, healthy, and loyal citizens can live there.
24. According to a textbook in North Korea, Kim Jong Un learned to drive at age 3.
25. Despite secrecy about much of its country – North Korea’s constitution is freely available for anyone to read. Ironically, the document refers to things like freedom of religion, democracy, and freedom of expression.
