My Little Dive into Pyongyang’s Famous Guides
Okay, so the other day, I was just kicking back, you know? Flipping through channels, scrolling online, not really looking for anything specific. It’s what I do sometimes when the brain feels a bit fried after work. Ended up on one of those travel documentary sites, the kind that shows weird and wonderful places you probably won’t ever actually visit.
Started off looking at some places in South America, then somehow jumped over to Asia. Clicked on a video labelled something like ‘A Day in Pyongyang’. Curiosity got the better of me, I guess. Watched the usual stuff – big monuments, wide empty streets, people walking. Standard fare for these kinds of videos.
But then, I saw them. Standing in the middle of these huge intersections. These women in crisp uniforms. Snapping these really sharp, precise movements. Directing cars, but there weren’t always that many cars, which was weird too. They stood out, you know? Different from the usual traffic cops you see anywhere else.
So, I got hooked. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole. Typed stuff like ‘Pyongyang intersection ladies’ into the search bar. Found loads of pictures. Different uniforms for summer and winter, apparently. Blue ones, white ones. Fur hats sometimes. They all looked incredibly focused.
- I watched a few more clips. Just them doing their thing.
- Tried to figure out the hand signals. Looked complicated.
- Read some comments sections (usually a bad idea, I know) where people talked about them.
It wasn’t like I was doing some deep research project, you know. More like just satisfying a sudden curiosity. It was just… different. Made me think about jobs. Like, that’s a whole specific job, requires training, discipline. Standing out there all day, rain or shine, doing these almost robotic movements. You don’t see that kind of thing just anywhere.
Never really thought much about traffic control before, to be honest. But seeing these women, the ‘traffic ladies’ as everyone calls them, it was memorable. Stuck in my head more than the big statues or buildings from that video. Just a little observation from an afternoon of idle browsing, but interesting nonetheless. Made me appreciate the sheer variety of ways people spend their working days around the world.
