North Korean Labor Camps - VICE NEWS - Part 1 of 7

[MODEM NOISE] [CEREMONIAL MUSIC] SHANE SMITH: I've been to the most *** up place on Earth-- twice. The Hermit Kingdom of North Korea. (WHISPERING) It's totally insane. The thing is, when you go to North Korea, you're not a tourist. You're on a government-sanctioned tour. And you can't go anywhere outside your hotel without your guide, your translator, and your secret police. You're also not allowed cellphones, radios, or computers of any kind, and are taken on a tightly scheduled, highly orchestrated tour-- only of the sites and monuments that they want you to see. So you end up travelling for hours and hours on empty roads only to see the Palace of the People, or the Library of the People, or the Soccer Team of the People. The only thing you never get to actually meet is the people of the people. In fact, you're not allowed to talk to anyone unless they're officially sanctioned as part of the tour. [VOCAL MUSIC] So when I heard that North Korea was actually exporting its own people as a way to generate much-needed hard currency, I wanted to go and see if I could actually talk to them and maybe find out what it's actually like to live inside the Hermit Kingdom. We found out from one of our correspondents in Russia that there were actually secret North Korean labor camps hidden in the depths of Siberia. So we flew to the far eastern region of Russia and hopped on the Trans-Siberian railway, which is essentially the only lifeline for Siberia and the Far East region. Her bum was hanging out of her shorts. We're here in Khabarovsk in Siberia, we're about to get on this train for about 28 hours to go to the middle of nowhere. And we're going to go check out the secret North Korean labor camps in Siberia. It's hot as ***. [MUSIC PLAYING] SHANE SMITH: Simon, hi. SIMON OSTROVSKY: Hi. SHANE SMITH: My name is Shane. I'm from America. We're here with our friend Simon. We've been on the train for a long time. We're going a bit goofy. Where are we going? SIMON OSTROVSKY: We're going to Tynda, in the Amur region of Russia, in the Far East to look for the North Koreans. SHANE SMITH: The thing about this is, it's mind boggling that North Korea, the most hermetic state in the world, the Hermit Kingdom it's actually called, is outsourcing its labor. But they outsource their labor into miniature North Korean villages so that you don't ever lose the North Korean experience. So it's like North Korean-type buildings, North Korean propaganda, North Korean pictures, North Korean songs. They wake up and sing the North Korean anthem. SIMON OSTROVSKY: They bring North Koreans in for three-year contracts. After they're done working here, they get sent back to North Korea. They spend a month in a reintegration camp to get all of the propaganda that they've missed. Most of the workers are over 40 years old, so they all have families back home. So they know that if they try to run away, then their family back home gets in trouble. SHANE SMITH: The North Koreans are making money to support the regime. And these poor dudes are out there in the middle of nowhere singing "God save Kim Jong-Il" and working in near-slave conditions. SIMON OSTROVSKY: This is kind of the only place where you can actually have an entre into how they actually live day-to-day. SHANE SMITH: Question-- are we going to get assassinated for going to talk to the North Koreans? SIMON OSTROVSKY: Quite possibly. People aren't going to be happy to see us. That's for sure. SHANE SMITH: Why is it that the best stories always take so long to get to? SIMON OSTROVSKY: Because all of the easy-to-get-to ones have been done by programs better than yours. SHANE SMITH: [LAUGH] He's a prickly pear, this guy. He's a prickly pear. You should be British because you're a ***. [LAUGH] Now, you have to remember that everything in Siberia, almost without exception, is very, very *** far away from everything else. And even though it was the height of summer and 100 degrees outside, because it's Russia, the heat gauge on the train had been turned on full and then broken off-- probably circa 1971. So the experience is essentially like being trapped on a boiling-hot, reeking, drunken sauna 24 hours a day. Oh ***, hello. Now we've got crazy dude here. MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN] [LAUGHS] SHANE SMITH: It's a very good thing I've taken a Xanax. [MUSIC PLAYING]