This article originally appeared on VICE UK.
In 2015, I found myself on Tinder in Shanghai, swiping through guys I already knew, guys I had previously dated, and the occasional pilot visiting town for "one night only." Expat dating in Shanghai is a minefield—a transient scene with a limited pool of potential matches and much debauchery, as no one really plans to stay in the city forever.
I was pleasantly surprised when I matched with Robert*, a fellow expat from the UK who had just moved to Shanghai. After chatting for a while, we arranged to meet up at a cocktail bar. We found that we had a lot in common, the most important being that we both wanted to compete in the upcoming Pyongyang Half Marathon. I decided that it would be better to go with somebody else, not only for the Instagram photos but also because it would work out a lot cheaper.
So, after our first date, we booked a three-day tour of North Korea and entry to the Pyongyang Half Marathon. In for a penny, in for a pound—we were going on a North Korean baecation.
Last year, the fallout between the US administration and North Korean leadership reached fever pitch, and people around the world feared the consequences of two men comparing rocket sizes like prepubescent boys. This month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a surprise visit to Beijing, in what some analysts perceived as a move to provoke President Trump by flaunting strong bilateral relations with China in the midst of the ongoing US-China trade war. North Korea is on a knife edge, and many in the country are completely clueless about how close their realities could be from coming crashing down. It has been reported that next month Vietnam might play host to a second Trump-Kim summit—and who could possibly predict what might transpire between the two unpredictable leaders then?
Very little accurate information about day-to-day living conditions in the country exists, and I'm under no illusion that what we were shown had any real bearing on reality. At one point during the half marathon, I saw a man in an official-looking fluorescent jacket say something to a lackluster local crowd lining the street before they burst into enthusiastic applause and cheers.
Our North Korea Tinder date was punctuated with propaganda photographs of Kim Jong-un looking at things, musty 1970s hotel rooms, and lists of questions we wanted to google. Looking back, perhaps our choice of date spots was the death knell for romance—that, or the fact people kept assuming we were siblings. Regardless, Robert and I remain close friends.
*Name has been changed.
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