Tonight's link theme is North Korea.

Yesterday Kevin alerted me to the fact that North Korea's official website can be read in Esperanto. Now, I know Kim Jong Il is famously out of touch with the outside world, but really; Can't one of the guys in his propaganda machine pull him aside and tell him "Listen. About Esperanto..."?

The English version is somewhat interesting, and is far better designed than most other Third World dictatorship websites such as Myanmar's or, worse yet, Zimbabwe's.

Anyway, the site I'm really trying to promote is this one. The guy who made it was able to visit Pyongyang as a soccer player for the first ever amateur international sports match in the country. He came back with a hundreds of photos, and I strongly suggest you check them out. North Korea is so shrouded in secrecy, with hardly any pictures getting out, that we in the West really don't know what goes on in there at all. Virtually everything in these pictures - the architecture, the landscape, the culture - is really alien. It's only when you see someone in the pictures doing something culturally universal, like smoking, that you realize things aren't all that different between us. So go ahead, peruse the site. For the lazy, here are the highlights:

• Some imposing constructivist architecture here and here. These buildings just look very, well, Communist.

• Some cityscapes here and here. Am I the only one who is reminded of Machine City?

• Compare and contrast.

Finally, all this talk about North Korea reminded me of a book that came out last year written by a Japanese sushi chef who was employed by Kim Jong Il for over a decade. As I'm sure you all know, Kim is one crazy motherfucker, as the chef can attest. Earlier this year The Atlantic Monthly printed some excerpts from the book... it's a good read.