Photo credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / Wikimedia Commons
In 2015, NK News, a Seoul-based website providing news about North Korea, carried a story on what residents of the isolated nation do for “fun.” As there are no karaoke rooms or clubs there, it said, some students hold club nights in empty houses, using generators to produce electricity to power amps and stereos. If sounds of K-pop (South Korean pop music) are heard in the street outside the house, those inside could be arrested, so most decide to forgo playing illicit CDs and play live music instead. Playing K-pop on the guitar “doesn’t leave hard evidence which could be used against us,” the NK News writer said.
