We’d been told that North Koreans had been told that all foreigners were enemies—prisoners of capitalism living in inferior, miserable countries—who wanted nothing more than the destruction of the real Korea. Whereas we’d been told that they were all just brainwashed lemmings. Whether or not either of these things were true, as we undressed together, saw each other naked and failing at the same basic human things like not falling over while taking off our socks, we seemed pretty similar to me.

