Last year, photos of the military parade to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea traveled the world. Alleged nuclear missiles filed past the podium; Kim Jong-un, a plump young dictator in a black Mao suit, gave his first public speech in two years; thousands of spectators waved colorful bouquets of plastic flowers in perfect synchronization.

And a few Western tourists were in the crowd.

I know this because I too was in Pyongyang last spring. I’m no world traveler and certainly not a Koreanist.