Last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Japanese government announced that the 2020 Tokyo Games would be听postponed听until听July 23, 2021, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It鈥檚 clearly the right call. But maybe you, like me, are still in shock, confronting the loss of an event we鈥檝e been looking forward to for years.

Four recent books, however, remind us of other times when the Olympics overcame global crises and persevered through dark periods听during听its 124-year history. There were the World Wars, of course, which resulted in听the cancellation of three Games. But it carried on through the Great Depression, terrorist attacks, and, most recently, a rogue regime threatening the use of a nuclear bomb. So while you鈥檙e sheltering in place without sports for the foreseeable future, try one of these reads to put this moment in historical perspective.

The Time an Olympic Hockey Team Helped De-Escalate a Nuclear Threat

The Olympics are often as much about politics as they are about sports. That was certainly true for the听2018 Pyeongchang Games, which helped ease tensions between South Korea and North Korea, even though听organizers feared the latter might test a nuclear weapon during competition. In the middle of this geopolitical chess match was Korea鈥檚 first-ever unified women鈥檚 ice-hockey team. South Korea originally proposed the idea as a symbolic gesture to mitigate the tension on the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un听eventually bought in, and a squad听of 23 South Koreans and 12 North Koreans was created. In , Seth Berkman, a sports contributor at The New York Times, unspools听the fascinating backstory. 鈥淓veryone on the team has a story worth sharing,鈥� he told 国产吃瓜黑料.

The ups and downs that led to the unified team are especially engrossing. In 2013, South Korean officials sent mysterious emails听to recruit Canadian and American collegiate players who looked Korean in their yearbooks. As a result, five North Americans of Korean descent joined the roster, which at that point was comprised solely of South Koreans. And the players didn鈥檛 just hail听from different countries but听all walks of life鈥攖hey were college students, actresses, convenience-store workers. They became close as they prepared for the Olympics听but then, four weeks before their first game in Pyeongchang, found out that 12 North Koreans would be joining the squad. In the end, everyone听developed a special connection through training sessions, K-pop songs, Big Macs, and ice cream.

While the group didn鈥檛 win a single match, it wasn鈥檛 all a loss. Their teamwork overcame cultural, societal, and political challenges to make history. And the Olympics helped get Donald Trump and Kim Jong听Un to the negotiating table, which, at least for a while, provided hope for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

The Time an Ex-Cop Saved Thousands from a Bomb at the Olympics

The Atlanta bombing at the 1996 Summer Games was the worst Olympic terrorist attack since the Munich Massacre of听1972. Still, until , at least, most people forgot about Richard Jewell, the heroic security guard who spotted the bomb and prevented听greater calamity. In , Kent Alexander, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia at the time of the 1996 Olympics, and Kevin Salwen, a seasoned journalist, bring us back to the eighth night of those听Atlanta Games.

At Centennial Park, Jewell, a hapless former cop turned hypervigilant guard, spotted a discarded bag near thousands of spectators watching a concert. It turned out to be a bomb. He helped evacuate the crowd, but it was too late to save everyone. It exploded. Two people died, and 111 were injured. In the following days, newspapers and TV networks from all over the world hailed Jewell as a hero. Everything went south, though, once an FBI agent leaked to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Jewell was a suspect in the attack. Law enforcement finally cleared him after three months of investigations, but during that time, TV crews in vans and helicopters shadowed Jewell and his family, speculating that he was the bomber. In 2003, the actual perpetrator, an American named Eric Rudolph, was captured and confessed听not only to the Olympic bombing听but three other antiabortion and antigay terrorist attacks in the South as well. Yet even today, some people continue to think Jewell is guilty.

Alexander and Salwen conducted 187 interviews and sifted through 90,000 pages of documents over five years while researching the story. They concluded that the Jewell episode was, as they write in The Suspect, 鈥渃onvenient for law enforcement that got its suspect. Convenient for the media that got its story. Convenient for Olympics organizers who could move the Games forward with fans and athletes believing the bomber had been safely cornered.鈥� It was convenient for everyone but Richard Jewell himself. False information spread widely, shaped public opinion, and dragged law enforcement in the wrong direction. After that听it was hard for the suspect to recover his life听and his reputation. In an interview with , Salwen says the tale is 鈥渁 social-media story from a time when social media didn鈥檛 exist.鈥�

The Time the Olympics Arrived in America听During the Great听Depression

Los Angeles has Billy Garland to thank for putting it on the map: the real estate tycoon brought听the Olympic Games to that city in 1932, helping establish it as the global cultural capital it is today. Yet most people in Southern California have probably never heard of him. Pulitzer Prize鈥搘inning journalist Barry Siegel revives his incredible story听in .

At the turn of the century, automobiles were a rare sight in the underdeveloped city, and fig orchards covered what would become the Hollywood Hills. The movie industry only started to take root the following decade, and by 1920, three-quarters of the world鈥檚 films were shot around Los Angeles. But when the IOC鈥檚 European establishment began searching for the host of the 1932 Games, Los Angeles was still not on its听radar. Garland decided to change that. Dreamers and Schemers uses extensive archival material, including letters exchanged between Garland听and Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, to recount Garland鈥檚 improbable effort to bring the world鈥檚 largest sporting event to the City of Angels.

Some document-heavy sections move slowly, but the book conveys the amazing amount of ambition and confidence it required to convince both European representatives in the IOC and Californians themselves that the Olympics should come to Los Angeles. Garland pushed the state government to issue a million-dollar bond听and then corralled Hollywood and local newspapers to drum up morale for hosting, even as the Great Depression rocked the country. He endured听police corruption and political scandals to produce a successful Olympics, introducing听Los Angeles to the world. 鈥淭he story of Billy Garland is the story of Los Angeles,鈥� Siegel writes. And that鈥檚 not an exaggeration.

The Time a Group of African American Athletes Defied Racism and Fascism to Compete in the Olympics

Typically, the world only remembers one black athlete from the notorious 1936 Berlin Olympics鈥擩esse Owens. But in , based on , director Deborah Riley Draper and author Travis Thrasher tell the story of the other 17 African American athletes who competed in those Games.

Their presence and victories in Berlin were听a blow to racial prejudice on both sides of the Atlantic, and the book, though sometimes scattered, explores their fascinating backstories. The athletes pushed听through unfair and rigorous trials to represent a country that considered them second-class citizens at an Olympics听hosted by a fascist country. In some ways, Nazi Germany actually treated them better than the Jim Crow South. Owens and his fellow African American听athletes were welcomed with applause and respect from competitors and spectators, and they all stayed in an integrated Olympic Village. Then听they defied the Nazi regime鈥檚 ideas of Aryan superiority by scooping up 14 medals, including seven golds, in track and field and boxing.

鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 just Jesse. It was other African-American athletes in the middle of Nazi Germany under the gaze of Adolf Hitler that put a lie to notions of racial superiority,鈥� write听Draper and Thrasher. The athletic excellence demonstrated by the group foreshadowed Hitler鈥檚 defeat in Germany听and, back home, was a precursor to the civil rights movement.

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When her Kenya Airways flight touched down on Mah茅 Island in the Seychelles on October 6, Jessica Nabongo said it finally hit her.

鈥淚鈥檓 done,鈥� said the 35-year-old. 鈥淚鈥檝e been to every country in the world.鈥�

Surrounded by her family and closest friends, Nabongo was ebullient and humble. She began livestreaming to her 130,000 .听People from six continents tuned in to watch, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Finland.

Nabongo, who grew up in Detroit, Michigan,听and is the daughter of Ugandan immigrants,听estimates that she had already been to 105 countries when she publicly set her goal in April 2018. A dual Ugandan-American citizen, she spent time in East Africa as a child and teen, visiting her parents鈥� families. She moved abroad to teach English in Japan in her early twenties听and then got a master鈥檚 degree in international development from the London School of Economics at the age of 26. She moved to Benin, in West Africa, to work for an NGO, then landed a job in Italy as a resource-mobilization consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

There are 193 UN听member countries, in addition to the Vatican and Palestine, which are nonmember states. That left 90听places for Nabongo to visit when she set her goal.听Over the past two years, she was on the road about three weeks a month, departing from Detroit. She supported herself through her travel business鈥攁 tour operator called Jet Black鈥攁s well as funding from听a Kickstarter campaign and help from select tourism boards for on-the-ground expenses and hotels that comped stays.

I first met Nabongo at a coffee shop in New York City鈥檚 East Village in August. She arrived wearing a turquoise and blue shirt from Studio 189, a Ghanian brand. Adorned with rings from Kenya and bracelets from Botswana, she called herself a 鈥渨alking passport.鈥� Fresh off a weekend at the听Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn, she had a few days in New York before heading back to Detroit for a week of rest.

In the previous听three weeks, she had been to Palau, South Korea, Mongolia, India, Bhutan, Oman, and Pakistan. She had four countries left: Venezuela, Algeria, Syria, and the Seychelles. Nabongo听kept听track of the countries she听visited on an app called听,听which notes each place on a list and a map. She鈥檇听filled up听three passports in the past two and a half years听with stamps from each country. Additionally, she听posted photographic evidence of every country on her .

Even as a young child, Nabongo wanted to visit every country in the world. But it wasn鈥檛 until she read about Cassie De Pecol鈥檚 for the Guinness World Records鈥� fastest visit to all sovereign nations that she learned about country counters and came up with her own goal. A small but avid group of worldwide travelers, the country-counting community is tight-knit and shares information. Nabongo estimates that there are about 150 people who have been to every country. They connect in the Facebook group .

鈥淚 am trying to change the narrative about black people in the travel space,鈥� said Nabongo. 鈥淲hen I am traveling in Delta One or domestically flying first class, people are like, 鈥極h, are you an employee?鈥� I am like, 鈥楴o, but I am Diamond,鈥欌�� referring to Delta Airlines鈥� top tier of frequent fliers.

鈥淪ome people have been critical and saying, 鈥極h you鈥檙e doing it too fast,鈥欌�� said Nabongo. 鈥淚鈥檝e been traveling my whole life. I almost look at this as taste testing.鈥�

Nabongo听averaged around four days in each of the last 50 countries she visited. While that might sound like breakneck speed, compared to other country counters who tag some countries in a day, it is downright slow. While Nabongo isn鈥檛 averse to solo travel, she journeyed with many longtime friends throughout.

In the country-counting community, is the de facto gold standard for verification. The organization听has 5,000 members and verifies country visits by asking for proof of a听random 20 places.听Nabongo鈥檚 efforts have been confirmed by it. (Other groups, like the Travelers鈥� Century Club, mainly rely on the honor system.)

鈥淎 lot of people ask me which countries are safe for black people to travel,鈥� Nabongo recently wrote on an Instagram post from the Seychelles. 鈥淭his question typically comes from black Americans. The U.S. has perfected racism in a way that I鈥檝e not seen in other countries, so I would urge you to travel WHEREVER you want to, no matter who you are and what you look like. I did it! And just because you hear one or two negative stories from someone doesn鈥檛 mean you should write a country off of your bucket list. We all will have different experiences and you shouldn鈥檛 allow your race to hinder you.鈥�

As the celebrations in the Seychelles continued, Nabongo shared some of what she learned along the way to our reporter.

Getting in to North Korea and Syria

North Korea and Syria are tough countries for Americans to enter. While North Korea welcomes Americans, the U.S. government bans its citizens from visiting. This is when Nabongo鈥檚 Ugandan passport came in handy.

鈥淣orth Korea doesn鈥檛 care if an American comes,鈥� said Nabongo. 鈥淭hey knew I was an American, because my Ugandan passport shows that I was born in the United States, and because when I was exiting and going to China, I entered China with my U.S. passport, so they had to have both of my passports.鈥�

While in North Korea, Nabongo was astounded by some of the messages she received from her American fan base. She attended the Mass Games, an annual synchronized-gymnastics and dance festival featuring 100,000 performers. After posting some photos of the event on Instagram, some of her followers commented听that she shouldn鈥檛 have visited the country at all. While Nabongo tries to remain apolitical about her journey, which at times causes issues with her followers, she was shocked by how many Americans were upset. After her trip, Nabongo told Nomad Mania: 鈥淚 spent six days in North Korea, and aside from some quirky things, I thought it was surprisingly normal. We saw couples sitting in the park, we chatted with some college students, saw people drinking in a local bar, kids on school field trips, and people going to work on the subway. We never really see pictures or 鈥榥ormal鈥� life in North Korea, so this was very surprising.鈥�

Meanwhile, Syria was a holy grail for Nabongo. Although now relatively safe in certain government-controlled areas, the country has restricted access for Americans. (One was recently released from detainment听after entering.)

Nabongo applied for a visa using her Ugandan passport and was denied. She tried again in Pakistan using her Ugandan passport, but her contact at the Syrian embassy in Pakistan wrote down that she was a journalist. She was told that her visa request would take a long time.

In the end, in September, Nabongo visited the occupied Golan Heights鈥攚hich is recognized as Syria by the Guinness Book of World Records鈥攙ia Israel.

How to Stay听Organized

Calling herself the visa whisperer, Nabongo admits that without her hyperorganizational skills, her accomplishment wouldn鈥檛 have been possible. She used Google Docs and Google Sheets to list her remaining countries by continent, so that she could organize flights based on regions.

One tool that Nabongo recommends for travelers is . It lists all nonstop flights into every airport in the world. 鈥淵ou can get to Paris from anywhere,鈥� said Nabongo. 鈥淏ut when you鈥檙e going to Tuvalu?鈥�

To acquire visa information, Nabongo recommends . The website offers an overview of visa requirements for every country based on nationality. As a dual citizen, Nabongo found it particularly beneficial, because it allowed her to compare access to a country for both her passports, noting that knowing geopolitical situations also helps when it comes to getting access to countries.

鈥淚 closed the tab today for Passport Index, and I got a little bit sad,鈥� Nabongo told me in August. 鈥淭hat tab has been open on my browser for two years.鈥�

She tried to travel on her Ugandan passport whenever possible to save money on visas鈥攆or example, for an American going to Nigeria, the visa is $160, but for Ugandans it鈥檚 just $2鈥攁nd to bring awareness to the idea of Africans as tourists. 鈥淚 want people to see a Ugandan passport literally just coming for tourism and leaving,鈥� she said. Nabongo visited 42 countries on her Ugandan passport, saving an estimated $1,200.

The Top 国产吃瓜黑料 Countries

Nabongo found two unexpected adventure destinations: Jordan and Namibia. Nabongo was impressed with Jordan鈥檚 efforts to ramp up its听outdoor tourism, from camping in the beautiful desert escape of Wadi Rum听to exploring Aqaba, a port city on the Red Sea.

Describing Namibia as 鈥減henomenal,鈥� Nabongo saw the Milky Way for the first time while staying in the Namib Desert at Sossusvlei, thanks to the miniscule amount of light pollution. She also climbed the huge nearby sand dunes.

Some of her other favorite nature experiences included swimming with humpback whales in Tonga, the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park in Grenada, whale-watching in the Arctic Circle, surfing in Peru, and hanging out in the Devil鈥檚 Pool at Victoria Falls in Zambia.

Getting Around

Nabongo tried听to maximize her experiences by how she physically traversed听countries, from train rides in Uzbekistan and Austria to helicopter rides in Senegal and South Africa.

One of Nabongo鈥檚 favorite ways to explore is with a hired driver and guide. Although she鈥檚 a proponent of local group tours鈥攕he estimates she鈥檚 been on about 40 in her time as a globe-trotter鈥攕he says that having a private driver allows for independence. On a recent trip to the country of Georgia, the tourism board provided her with a driver and a guide. After a wine tasting, they decided on a whim to stop and buy locally made bread at a local Georgian鈥檚 home.

鈥淭he way they make the bread was similar to how I saw it made in Yemen,鈥� recounted Nabongo.听She showed the Georgian woman a video of a man making bread in Yemen.

The Most Challenging Experience

Most of the trouble Nabongo听ran into happened with immigration officers, like in Pakistan in September, where she was searched for drugs as she was trying to leave the country. Although she鈥檚 careful to note that she loved her visit to Pakistan, describing it as 鈥減leasant and fun,鈥� the immigration experience at the end left her traumatized. 鈥淚 have more racist issues occur with immigration than with people [in the countries] themselves,鈥� she says.

The Easiest Place to Be a Woman Traveler

Throughout her travels, Nabongo said that she found Muslim countries the easiest to be a woman tourist. 鈥淚 felt very comfortable as a woman in Pakistan as compared to India,鈥� Nabongo said.

鈥淎mericans don鈥檛 realize how conservative Americans are compared to the rest of the world,鈥� she added. 鈥淓verybody wants to talk about how Muslim women are oppressed because they have to cover their heads, and I鈥檓 like, Look at the gender pay gap in America.鈥�

The Thing She Never Leaves Home Without

Compression socks. Describing them as essential to her self-care,听she rarely flies without them.听She also loves Allbirds walking shoes and Flight 001听packing cubes.

The Merits of Learning听a Few Local Phrases

In Japan, Nabongo prided herself on her basic language skills. She also speaks French, which has proven useful in her travels.

Everywhere she went, she tried to learn at least how to say hello, goodbye, please, and thank you.

But she wasn鈥檛 always able to communicate, especially in places with different alphabets. Still, Nabongo said,听鈥淚 feel comfortable communicating with people, even if we can鈥檛 speak the same language. In Uzbekistan, we had a great time听even though we couldn鈥檛 speak [the language]. This one woman, we had a conversation. We were not using words either of us understood, but I still understood the meaning of what she was trying to tell me:听that I need to get married very soon, because when I get old I will be very ugly, and that I should have children soon. I was like, OK, thank you.鈥�

Her Favorite Airline听

After years on the road, Nabongo鈥檚听favorite airline is Delta, because she says it has听the best frequent-flier program and consistently good customer service.听Now that she usually flies out of Detroit, a Delta hub, her allegiance to the airline is even stronger. She has Diamond Medallion status.

How to Extend a Layover

Nabongo has always been a layover hacker. The key, she says, is to plan.

鈥淟ong layovers are really great鈥� to get a taste of what a country has to offer, she says. 鈥淲hat if you fly somewhere, you鈥檝e spent all this money, and you don鈥檛 love it?鈥�

National airlines often offer free extended layovers. Specifically, she recommends airlines like Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar, as well as Iceland Air.

鈥淒uring the booking process, call the airline and just ask them for a free stopover,鈥� said Nabongo, explaining that a stopover is usually one to two days. 鈥淎 lot of airlines allow for it.鈥�

Read the Reviews

鈥淚 read reviews, reviews, reviews before I pick anything,鈥� Nabongo said. 鈥淵ou can cross-reference Google Reviews and TripAdvisor.鈥�

Find a Good Meal

鈥淭he problem with guides is sometimes they want to take you to 鈥榯he best restaurant鈥� that tourists love,鈥� Nabongo said. 鈥淎nd I鈥檓 like 鈥楴o, I don鈥檛 want to eat where other tourists eat. I want to eat where you 别补迟.鈥欌赌�

The Most Difficult Place to Travel

鈥淥h my God. The South Pacific is a logistical nightmare,鈥� she said. 鈥淣o one island-hops in the South Pacific, and it is therefore incredibly expensive to fly, and flights are super infrequent. But there are definitely some gems there. Like, Tonga is phenomenal, swimming with the whales. It was a humpback whale and me. It was just right there.鈥�

What鈥檚 Next

After seeing so many local marketers around the world flooded with made-in-China听goods (a notable exception was in Vanuatu, where the government mandates that all goods sold in the main market must be produced on the island), Nabongo wants to create an online store for select, locally produced goods from around the globe.

Calling it the Catch, she plans on launching it this fall. She also wants to sell sustainable goods, like collapsible cups for airport travel.

Nabongo is also galvanized to tackle the world鈥檚 plastic problem, after seeing its effects during her travels. Pointing out that the travel industry is one of the worst culprits, she wants to consult with hotels and airlines to help create solutions to the environmental nightmare.

鈥淭his is a single planet. Forget about national borders,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f you drop a plastic bottle in the water, it can end up anywhere in the world.鈥�

The post Jessica Nabongo’s Lessons from Visiting Every Country appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

On April 12, 2019, about听50,000 people dressed in dark jackets packed Kim Il-sung Stadium in North Korea鈥檚 capital for . The sea of spectators clapped with short wooden planks in a well-rehearsed rhythm, and conductors at the front of the bleachers guided the crowd to raise gold cones distributed beforehand. Down on the field, coaches ordered the North Korean听marathon athletes to 鈥渟tand up straight鈥� during the flag-raising ceremony and听not 鈥渟tare at foreigners.鈥� The race听is the only event in the country that鈥檚 open to foreign contestants, and it attracts some 1,000 runners from 58 countries in addition to its 600 North Korean participants.

Among the outside听entrants听were听, the听British snowboarder and two-time Olympian, and , a retired Olympic freestyle skier and X Games听medalist from Switzerland.听鈥淎rriving in the stadium, it almost felt as if I was at the Olympic opening ceremony,鈥� Fuller says. She and Jaeger are subjects of , which premieres听on September 24 on the Olympic Channel and 听and听follows the two athletes over the course of the week they spent in听Pyongyang in the lead-up to听the race.

The film鈥檚 director, , has worked on everything from a National Geographic television series about to听Bear Grylls鈥檚 survival show Man vs. Wild.听But he had never encountered anything quite like filming in a country like this one. Before arriving, he researched other documentaries made in North Korea and talked to friends who had been there, but it was difficult to find much information about what to expect other than having听no cell service, being听chaperoned everywhere, and getting your hotel phone wiretapped.

Things went better than expected. As the film chronicles, the crew was granted unparalleled access to explore sports facilities and chat with the nation鈥檚听most decorated athletes. Fuller and Jaeger met Olympic medalists and world champions in weight lifting, table tennis, gymnastics, and the marathon; all of them were handpicked at a very early age, after which they ate, lived, and breathed sports. Their coaches听instilled in them听the faith that their athletic prowess would one day bring praise and glory to the country. After winning global competitions, some North Korean athletes were gifted听luxury apartments and limousines, while听others earned high political status,听becoming delegates of the Supreme People鈥檚 Assembly, the country鈥檚 rubber-stamp legislative body. The Kim family praises听medal winners, and听North Koreans treat those athletes like rock stars.

Fuller and Jaeger鈥檚听time in North Korea is predictably strange. During a warm-up run on the streets of Pyongyang, Fuller tries to interact with curious pedestrians, but a car is following her the whole time. Since Jaeger isn鈥檛 allowed to go anywhere on her own, she completes her training in a labyrinth of corridors in the hotel where听she is staying. A day before the marathon, while the crew is gobbling spicy tofu in the hotel鈥檚 restaurant, the power听suddenly cuts out; apparently,听too many foreigners (mostly Pyongyang Marathon participants)听were using their digital devices, which听overloaded the hotel鈥檚 electrical system.

After being shepherded from place to place for six days, Fuller is finally set free听by the race鈥檚听starting gun. The marathon鈥檚 course follows the Taedong River and passes everything from Kim Il-sung Square to residential neighborhoods. During the four and a half hours she takes to complete the race, Fuller at last听can interact with the locals cheering them on. And so does Jaeger, who competed in the 10K race. 鈥淭here are two parts in my head: one is telling me, 鈥楬ey, the things you鈥檝e read about this country are not true,鈥欌�� Jaeger says in the film. 鈥淥n the other hand, I鈥檓 seeing a lot of [miserable] things.鈥�

Ultimately, though, the film听shows that even in the most isolated and secretive places, sports can be a unifying language that humanizes and brings people together.

The post ‘Running in North Korea’ Enters the Pyongyang Marathon appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

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On a warm summer day in the Democratic People鈥檚 Republic of Korea, the totalitarian dictatorship better known as North Korea, turquoise water rolls lazily toward a pristine beach, where surfers are suiting up. A mix of locals and foreigners, they splash into the empty sets and laugh as they carve waves that may never have been surfed before.

They鈥檙e here with , a New Jersey鈥揵ased company with more than 15 years of experience running trips to the DPRK. For the past three years, the company has been taking foreigners beneath North Korea鈥檚 iron curtain to explore the country鈥檚 untouched coastline and share the stoke with locals. But while the company鈥檚 guests have traveled from around the world for this one-of-a-kind surf trip, there are no Americans among them. After the of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster while on a tour, travel to the hermit kingdom stopped last September. That could change, however, thanks to an from President Trump during his historic summit in Singapore earlier this summer with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, suggesting that North Korea鈥檚 beaches could be ripe for condos full of tourists.

Even with presidential approval, visiting this potential surfer鈥檚 paradise in search of unsurfed waves comes with a caveat. Beyond the risk of , a vacation there could mean funding the government鈥檚 prison camps and nuclear weapons research. Or it could sow seeds of dissent among North Koreans while bringing much-needed economic development. It all depends on who you ask.

Tourism in North Korea is a state-run enterprise, meaning the government has complete control over the money it brings in. According to one , that was as much as $43.6 million in 2014 alone. This stream of foreign cash is something the country is actively cultivating as it deals with economic sanctions. It鈥檚 been reported that state officials want to attract 2 million tourists by 2020, and Kim Jong Un has the country scrambling to build a special $7.8 billion around the coastal city of Wonsan. Where those tourist dollars will go is unknown, but odds are they won鈥檛 make their way to the average North Korean, who, with an estimated annual income of just $1,300, makes less in a year than the cost of with Uri. (Uri Tours did not respond to our requests for comment.)

鈥淭echnically speaking, the government provides free health care, but they have no medicine,鈥� says Jean Lee, a former Associated Press bureau chief in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and the current director of the Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 鈥�They provide free housing, but these houses have no electricity. The money is not going back to the people.鈥�

Despite its infamy, North Korea is hardly the world鈥檚 only controversial destination. Communist-run Cuba reportedly after it couldn鈥檛 keep up with the increased demand caused by the record number of tourists who visited the Caribbean nation after civilian travel was restored with the United States in 2015. Myanmar, accused by the UN of , has also seen a flood of tourists following its transition from military junta to tenuous democracy. FIFA caught flak for choosing Russia to host this year鈥檚 World Cup, and Qatar has allegedly used slave labor to prepare for the organization鈥檚 next tournament.

Like it or not, the second a tourist enters a country, they become a statistic, and, some critics say, by choosing to spend their dollars there, they are giving tacit approval of how that country conducts itself鈥攚hether it鈥檚 stifling free speech or creating wildlife sanctuaries.

Many tour companies, however, argue that statistics don鈥檛 tell the full story. Uri鈥檚 website describes its DPRK surf tours as diplomatic missions that provide North Koreans a rare opportunity to connect with people from the outside world while giving foreigners a peek inside one of the world鈥檚 most mysterious countries.

Some argue that this kind of cultural exchange can have broad geopolitical impact. At least that鈥檚 the idea behind Hawaii-based , a nonprofit that seeks to introduce surfing to some of the 鈥渄arkest places on the planet,鈥� according to founder Tom Bauer. In 2014, the organization jumped at a chance to expand into North Korea after a body boarder who was in the reclusive nation for work alerted them to its surf potential. 鈥淪urfing can bring peace between America and North Korea,鈥� Bauer says. When he visited the country, Bauer found the locals he interacted with out on the water were happy to talk and often brought up ostensibly taboo topics. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e just as curious about us as we are about them.鈥�

What Bauer experienced, however, was likely carefully curated, at least in part. No independent travel is permitted in North Korea. Anyone looking to visit must go through an approved tour, and visitors are under the constant eye of minders. While they can interact with North Koreans, they can do so only with a guide present. The government-approved itineraries are crafted to leave visitors with positive impressions, legitimizing the regime in the eyes of the world.

鈥淚t鈥檚 as though you鈥檙e taken to Times Square or Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, shown a three-block radius, and told, 鈥楾his is America,鈥欌�� says Lee, who has visited the DPRK as a journalist, tourist, and academic. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not wrong, but it鈥檚 not the whole picture.鈥�

Still, like foreign films, music, and literature, travel can be another way to break the government-imposed information barrier. Simon Hudson, a professor of tourism at the University of South Carolina, visited Myanmar in 2006 and later wrote an ethics paper about travel in the authoritarian country. He believes interactions with tourists may have played a role in opening Myanmar to the outside world by motivating its citizens to pressure the military junta for a better quality of life.

While the two countries are ripe for comparison, experts say the DPRK is unlikely to follow Myanmar鈥檚 lead. North Korea is far more isolated and exerts more control over its people than Myanmar, even when that country was at its worst under the military junta. Thanks to the DPRK鈥檚 determination to limit foreign investment to special economic zones, where foreign influence can be more easily contained, the massive change seen in Myanmar could be unlikely in North Korea.

Sokeel Park, head of the Seoul office for refugee-support organization , doubts tourism鈥檚 ability to catalyze听reform. While he notes that tourism can help pull back the veil of oppressive regimes, Park doesn鈥檛 think it will cause widespread change, in part because tourists interact with only a tiny percentage of the population.

Still, Park sees the value in tourism to North Korea, adding that increasingly more defectors are leaving, not because of a lack of food, but a lack of freedom. 鈥淣orth Korean people inside the country are isolated from the rest of humanity and the rest of the world by their own government,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 in our or their best interest to further that isolation.鈥�

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China announced an indefinite closure of the country鈥檚 only cat-access ski resort due to earthquakes that were caused by a series of underground nuclear tests conducted by North Korea.

Changbaishan Ski Resort is part of China鈥檚 Changbaishan National Nature Reserve, a nearly 800-square-mile preserve along North Korea鈥檚 northern border that sits within 70 miles of the nation鈥檚 nuclear test site at Punggye-ri. The underground nuclear detonations in late September registered a seismic magnitude of 6.3, and eight seconds later produced a burst of seismic energy measuring 4.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The events triggered a landslide on a mountain within Changbaishan, prompting China to close a large section of the reserve鈥攖he only section with ski access.

鈥淔or the safety and convenience of travelers, we have temporarily closed the zone of Changbai Mountain. Officials are thoroughly investigating the safety of the tourist area,鈥� reads a from Chinese authorities, adding that the area will remain closed until 鈥渢he potential risks disappear.鈥�

The backcountry ski resort is situated on an open flank of the Changbai Mountains, within the southern border of the reserve. For about $200 a day, skiers and boarders are shuttled to the top of the 6,000-plus-foot Changbai Mountains via snowmobile or snowcat. There, they can ski 1,500 vertical feet of open bowls with sweeping views of North Korea and China鈥檚 ginseng country.

China鈥檚 ski industry continues to grow ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, with the number of ski areas jumping from six to 568 from 1996 to 2016. Changbaishan Ski Resort is a departure from the artificial-snow ski areas popping up around Beijing. Directly in the path of Siberian fronts that drop truckloads of snow on Japan every year, Changbaishan receives a bounty of cold, dry snow every winter, making it China鈥檚 .

This orographic blessing, coupled with its proximity to the capital city (just a two-hour flight from Beijing), has made Changbaishan the country鈥檚 best winter adventure destination. The Freeride World Tour had been considering making its Chinese debut there, and听last year Xavier de la Rue skied into the crater of the听area鈥檚 volcano,听.听In recent years, China has revamped the county airport and added luxury hotels to nearby towns in Jilin Province to accommodate an influx of domestic and international tourists.

But the mountain range along the border of North Korea and China is sacred to more than just powder hounds. According to North Korean legend, its highest peak, Paektu Mountain, is the birthplace of the country鈥檚 former dictator Kim Jong-il. According to geological history, the range is also the skeleton of a violent volcanic eruption, an event that turned an ancient peak into the ring of mountains that appear today.

Aside from earthquakes and the subsequent landslides and avalanches, researchers worry that continued nuclear tests could recreate that explosive scenario, reactivating magma chambers and kicking off what would be a catastrophic modern-day volcanic eruption. A said that for a nuclear detonation to cause serious damage to a volcano, a preceding underground blast would need to measure at least 100 kilotons. The explosion in September was estimated to be around two and a half times that size.

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David Sneddon was a 24-year-old college student at Brigham Young University studying Mandarin in China 12 years ago when he vanished in the mountains of Yunnan Province during a solo hike. At the time, the circumstances of his disappearance were unclear, and many thought he had died. But doubts about his death emerged when, in 2011, a former U.S. official called Sneddon鈥檚 parents in Utah and told them that their son may have been kidnapped by North Koreans. This week's report raises new questions about what's become of Sneddon.

“These latest developments should be investigated and hopefully our state department will exhaust all of its capabilities to determine whether a U.S. citizen is being held captive by North Korea,鈥� says writer Chris Vogel, who reported a feature on Sneddon鈥檚 mysterious disappearance for 国产吃瓜黑料 in 2014.听鈥淢y best wishes are with the Sneddon family.”

According to the Japanese news report published this week, Sneddon is believed to have a wife and two children in North Korea. Sneddon鈥檚 family in Utah has reached out to the news agency for confirmation, .

“We have no proof that it's reliable, to be honest,” David Sneddon鈥檚 mother, Kathleen Sneddon, told the Tribune. “We in our hearts think he's alive. We think he's probably teaching English. That's the most likely thing to use him for.”

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Pro surfer Nik Zanella has spent much of his life charting little-surfed coastlines in places like Tunisia, Greece, Kenya, and his native Italy. Over the past seven years he鈥檚 mapped China鈥檚 entire surf coast, from the islands off Shanghai to tropical Hainan Island. But his next mapping expedition is bound to be the most surreal: the empty breaks and frigid waters of North Korea.

Starting Sunday, Zanella and New Jersey-based will lead ten foreigners鈥攎ostly beginners from the U.S. and Germany鈥攐n the first-ever surf tour of the reclusive Democratic People鈥檚 Republic of Korea (DPRK). The trip, which will last seven nights and costs $3,200 per traveler, will be a true expedition: The east coast of the Korean Peninsula is blocked from heavy Pacific swells by Japan and parts of Russia, so there鈥檚 no real surf culture鈥攏ot even much beach culture, Zanella says. South Korea hosts an annual international surf competition on the holiday island of Jeju, off the peninsula鈥檚 southern point, but that鈥檚 about it. The northern coast is entirely unexplored for surfing opportunities.

But after a year of studying North Korea鈥檚 beaches and bays from satellite imagery, Zanella is optimistic. There are indicators that a 90-degree easterly wind could drum up some swell. There are some rocky outcroppings that might be the makings for some sweet point breaks. Majong beach, on the northern east coast, will have the best chance of good surf, Zanella says. Then there are the bays south of Wonsan, a popular high-end vacation destination in the southeast with sheltered, sandy beaches. 鈥淭hose will hide some jewels on the right swells,鈥� he says. Zanella is hoping to catch a typhoon positioned off the coast of Japan, which would create the best surf quality.

鈥淲ave quality is pretty much the same as in South Korea and in continental China: favorable conditions for beginners and intermediate surfers, with plenty of safe easy beach breaks,鈥� Zanella says. 鈥淚鈥檓 also sure that there are听great point break waves along the east coast, the kind of waves that professionals like to ride.鈥澨�

Pros haven鈥檛 had much chance to scour North Korea鈥檚 5,260-mile coastline because the government reguarly closes its borders, occasionally incarcerates Westerners for alleged wrongdoings, and is, generally speaking, unaccessable for most travelers.听Despite its hostility towards the West, the DPRK has warmed to tourism in the last 15 years. No one is certain of the reasons, but it鈥檚 safe to say the country welcomes foreign currency. It now receives some 5,000 Western visitors each year, according to estimates from Beijing travel company听.

Uri Tours鈥� surf trip is one of a growing number of sport-focused journeys to the country. An annual international marathon in the capital city of Pyongyang, founded in 1981, began accepting foreigners in 2000. North Korea鈥檚 first ski resort, at Maski Pass, opened in December 2013 (foreigners are welcome). Uri recently started offering an eight-day, 150-kilometer cycling trip through the country鈥檚 northern reaches. Foreigners are also invited to the DPRK Amateur Golf Open, a 36-hole annual tournament at the country鈥檚 lone golf course at Taicheng Lake, 16 miles from Pyongyang. (This year鈥檚 tournament took place last weekend.)

But why surfing? And why now?

Last year, Zanella, who coaches China鈥檚 national surf team, approached Andrea Lee, Uri鈥檚 founder and CEO, and pitched the DPRK surf trip. Lee took the proposal to North Korean officials, who must approve every new tour to the country. 鈥淭he proposal for the surf trip was really well received by the DPRK authorities,鈥� says Lee, a Korean-American who has completed close to 100 trips to the DPRK in 12 years. 鈥淭hey want to develop surf tourism as much as we do.鈥� Demand was high: The surf trip sold out quickly and there is already a full list for next year鈥檚 dates.听

During this year鈥檚 tour travelers will听stop听at Pyongyang鈥檚 Juche Tower,听the Mansudae Grand Monument, famous for its massive bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and the Korean Demilitarized Zone. But the focus will be on scoping the surf and sketching the rough edges of the country鈥檚 surf bounty鈥攈unting for prime surfing locations, doing risk assessment, and developing evacuation and safety plans. Each morning, tour guests will听perform dawn patrol and check surf conditions before determining the day鈥檚 surf spot. They鈥檒l learn the methods of bathymetry鈥攖he study of underwater depth of lake or ocean floors鈥攆rom a professional surfer. They鈥檒l also participate in a surf camp which will be open to local North Koreans. Just how much contact visitors will have with locals is unclear鈥攖he country typically doesn鈥檛 allow those kinds of casual interactions. But on听the last night, the group is scheduled to have a beach bonfire with North Koreans听over听soju (a popular Korean liquor), and local Taedonggang beer.

Locals will be invited to take part in the seminars and surfing lessons, but the learning curve will be steep. 鈥淭here have been a handful of surfers who have exposed some locals to surfing, but it鈥檚 safe to say that there are no regular surfers,鈥� Lee says. 鈥淲e hope that changes.鈥�

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In the Northern reaches of China鈥檚 Yunnan province, just before the rolling hills and deep, river-carved ravines of the Yungui Plateau give way to cascading sheets of limestone and spectacular karst, two mountains鈥擩ade Dragon and Haba Snow鈥攋ut three and a half vertical miles into the sky. Separated only by the Jinsha River, a 100-foot-wide whitewater tributary of the Yangtze, these scabrous peaks form one of the world鈥檚 deepest river canyons: .

Etched into the steep terrain above the wild rapids, the 16-mile High Trail climbs more than 3,700 feet through the canyon鈥檚 thick mountain brush and sheer cliffs. The trail, which usually takes two days to complete, is considered a must for trekkers searching for remote panoramic vistas in China, with Tibet looming to the west and Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam to the south. The route is littered with commercial guesthouses, where tens of thousands of tourists鈥攁lmost exclusively from China or South Korea鈥攃an buy a hot meal and sleep in a real bed.

On August 11, 2004, He Shuchang, a local guide, had been trekking for hours with his two clients, a married couple from Hong Kong, when he spotted a pale Westerner marching up the mountain path in the twilight. The stranger wore a blue T-shirt and gray shorts, with a fanny pack tied to his waist and a floppy brimmed rain hat covering his prematurely balding head. He Shuchang was used to seeing the occasional Westerner. Still, when the man emerged over the rise, then politely asked in flawless Mandarin if he could join the group, He Shuchang was stunned. What was this stranger doing here?

[quote]What most Americans don鈥檛 know is that North Korea has been systematically kidnapping foreigners for the past 60 years.[/quote]

The man introduced himself as David Sneddon, an American college student who was taking summer language classes in Beijing. He seemed charming and curious, peppering the Hong Kong couple with questions about themselves and alternating between Mandarin and English. The couple seemed to enjoy him, so He Shuchang let him stay. They hiked together for several hours, eventually reaching the far end of the gorge, where they all spent the night at Tina鈥檚 Guesthouse. The next morning, David continued alone up the route away from the High Trail, vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared.

In Logan, Utah, David鈥檚 parents, Roy and Kathleen, were thinking about their son. They had last seen him three and a half months earlier, when David, 24, stopped by their home to pack his clothes and say goodbye. He had just completed his junior year at Brigham Young University and told them that his summer plan was to go to Beijing to study Mandarin, renting an apartment with fellow BYU student George Bailey. He would then spend a couple of weeks hiking around western China.

Some parents might be leery of such a plan, but not Roy and Kathleen, both devout Mormons. Their 11 children had completed lengthy missions around the world; David served in South Korea. David was not as academically gifted as his siblings but he was a hard worker, and his parents admired his yearning for a life of adventure and travel. Besides, he planned to return in the fall to finish his bachelor鈥檚 degree in Asian languages and apply to law school.

From Beijing, David e-mailed his parents two or three times a week. When classes ended in early August, he wrote with details of his plan to travel until the 26th, the day he was scheduled to fly to Seoul, where his older brother, Michael, ran a corporate translation business. 鈥淚鈥檓 in Lijiang now, in western Yunnan province,鈥� he wrote on August 11. 鈥淚 will take a bus to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge in about half an hour. I am having a great time here but nonetheless am excited to come home.鈥�

A week went by without another e-mail. Roy and Kathleen began to worry, but told themselves that their son was probably in a remote area without Internet access. They felt comforted knowing that David would soon meet up with his brother.

On August 26, Kathleen was visiting grandchildren in Provo, Utah, when her cell phone rang. It was Michael, calling from Seoul.

鈥淒avid isn鈥檛 here,鈥� he said. 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 make it.鈥�

That call would mark the beginning of the Sneddons鈥� agonizing quest, now nearly ten years old, to find their missing son. The search has taken family members to Yunnan province and back three times to look for clues, but with little assistance from Chinese or American officials, David鈥檚 disappearance has remained an infuriating and elusive case to solve. It wasn鈥檛 until April 2011 that the Sneddons finally received an explanation that seemed plausible, when a former high-level U.S. official called with a startling theory: 鈥淚 believe David may have been kidnapped by the North Koreans.鈥�

At night, of the Korean Peninsula show South Korea crackling with activity and light. By contrast, its neighbor and longtime adversary, North Korea, remains virtually dark.

Surprisingly little is known about the so-called Democratic People鈥檚 Republic of Korea. Even today information trickles across its borders only in small doses. It is considered the most repressive and corrupt nation on the planet, ruled by the Kim family, a gangster dynasty whose patriarch, Kim Il Sung, took power at the end of World War II. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il and, more recently, his grandson 鈥攁ll three of them maintaining power by brainwashing citizens with relentless propaganda and enslaving detractors in brutal prison camps. Americans have come to know North Korea as a reliable source of headlines that are both bizarre (鈥溾��) and frightening (鈥溾��).

What most Americans don鈥檛 know is that North Korea has been systematically kidnapping foreigners for the past 60 years. Since the Korean War Armistice in 1953, North Korea is suspected to have abducted 3,824 South Koreans (in addition to more than 100,000 taken during the war) and as many as 100 Japanese and 200 Chinese. According to the , there have been at least 25 additional abductees from countries including France, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Romania, and Thailand.

The regime鈥檚 motives are not always clear, but over the years a few patterns have emerged. In 1976, after Kim Jong Il began efforts to strengthen his intelligence operations, the nation started targeting linguists who could teach foreign languages to North Korean spies selected to carry out operations abroad. In 1987, for example, North Korean agent , who spent three years taking Japanese lessons from an abductee, boarded Korean Air Flight 858 with a fake Japanese passport and planted a bomb that killed 115 people.

More recently, North Korea has kidnapped people in China to deter dissidents from trying to escape鈥攁s well as dissuade others from assisting them. That鈥檚 where Yunnan province comes in. Despite its heavenly mountain setting, the region has long been a thoroughfare for an , a network of safe houses and secret routes that shuttles North Korean refugees through China and into Southeast Asia. Aided mostly by Christian activists from the West鈥攎any of whom speak Korean鈥攔efugees must escape North Korea and then elude Chinese authorities, who have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to harboring them. North Korean security agents also operate along the route, searching for fugitives with the tacit permission of the Chinese government.

While the subject of North Korean abductions is not widely publicized in America, in Japan it is considered a top international human-rights issue. The government and various nonprofit groups spend more time and effort gathering intelligence on the phenomenon than in any other country in the world. In 2002, North Korea鈥檚 鈥渟upreme leader鈥� Kim Jong Il even admitted to the kidnapping of 13 Japanese citizens in the late seventies and early eighties. The regime returned five but claimed that the other eight had died while in detention. (Several of the death certificates provided by North Korea turned out to be phony, and DNA testing of the supposed remains was inconclusive.)

In many of the Japanese abduction cases, highly trained North Korean agents snatched the victims inside Japan without leaving a trace. In fact, many of the victims鈥� parents spent decades with no inkling that North Korea was involved. Another common trait: nearly all of the abductions occurred in the summer months leading up to August 15, . Additionally, a good number of these victims fell prey inside Korean-run caf茅s and restaurants. In 1977, North Korean agents lured Japanese citizen into one such restaurant and abducted him. Three years later, was kidnapped from a Korean noodle shop in Osaka. In 2000, , a permanent U.S. resident from the Chicago area, was in China helping North Korean refugees when he was reportedly abducted from a Korean caf茅. He was later executed.

And in 2004, David Sneddon was last seen leaving a Korean restaurant in Shangri-La, a small tourist city not far from Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was August 14, the day before Liberation Day.

I first met Roy and Kathleen Sneddon at their house outside Logan. Logan is home to Utah State University, where the two met as undergrads nearly 60 years ago. Hand-built by Roy and David in 2001, their bright blue house stands out in an otherwise drab neighborhood overlooking the Wasatch Mountains. Roy and Kathleen, both 78, are short and trim with graying hair.

In the weeks that followed David鈥檚 disappearance, information trickled in from the U.S. embassy. The Chinese had conducted an initial investigation and . David was not in any hospital, mental ward, or jail. No body had surfaced. His passport had not been used, and the $700 in his bank account remained untouched. Local police had ruled out murder and violent crime, which were practically nonexistent in the region. With seemingly little evidence to go on, Chinese officials concluded that David had simply fallen into the Jinsha River and died.

Back in Utah, Roy and Kathleen were skeptical. David was an experienced hiker and an Eagle Scout who spent his childhood backpacking in Wyoming鈥檚 Wind River Range. It was hard to believe that their son had slipped on such a heavily trafficked trail and fallen into the river. But if David had fallen and drowned, it seemed even less likely that his body hadn鈥檛 turned up. While mudslides and falling rocks during the rainy season have claimed a handful of hikers in Tiger Leaping Gorge over the past two decades, in every instance the body was recovered.

Roy and his two sons, Michael and James, decided to go to Yunnan and retrace David鈥檚 path for themselves. On September 13, 2004, the men reached the small village of Qiaotou just outside the trailhead at the gorge. Accompanied by a translator and a hiking guide, the Sneddon family started down the trail. Right away they saw missing-person posters with David鈥檚 photo. They also saw police officers wandering aimlessly with bloodhounds, ostensibly searching for David despite a month passing since his disappearance. 鈥淚t was ridiculous,鈥� says Michael, who decided the effort was all for show. 鈥淲e just laughed and said thanks.鈥�

The three Sneddon men carried on, marveling at the scenery and feeling guilty that they were almost enjoying themselves. The group had been hiking less than two hours when they ran into a trekker headed the other way. His name was He Shuchang.

He Shuchang knew the Sneddons鈥� guide and described his encounter with a Westerner a month earlier, hiking with him to Tina鈥檚 Guesthouse at the far end of the gorge. When He Shuchang recognized a photo of David, Roy couldn鈥檛 believe his luck. He didn鈥檛 want to get his hopes up, but it seemed to be clear evidence that David had made it through the gorge.

When Roy and his sons arrived at Tina鈥檚 the next afternoon, however, the police were already there. A worker told them that the owner was out shopping and that no one could remember whether David had stayed there. Chinese law requires hotels and guesthouses to keep a written log of foreign visitors, complete with names and passport numbers. When Michael asked to see the log, the man at the check-in desk told him that every month for the past year was available but August had been confiscated by the police. That was the case at every lodge they visited along the trail. 鈥淚t was highly suspicious,鈥� says Michael, 鈥渁nd it certainly felt like a cover-up.鈥�

From Tina鈥檚 the road splits in two. One route loops back to the trailhead and then south to Lijiang. The other heads north to the city of , so named by the Chinese in 2001 to promote tourism. David鈥檚 final e-mail mentioned that he was excited to be 鈥渞eally, really close to Tibet.鈥� Following a hunch, the Sneddons took the road to Shangri-La.

In the city, the Sneddons spent a fruitless afternoon asking shop owners about David. Discouraged and somewhat daunted by the size of the city, the three men gathered together at their guesthouse that evening and prayed. Afterward they agreed to give Shangri-La one more day.

The next morning, James stumbled upon the Yak Bar, a cozy, one-room Korean restaurant with wooden floors and pink walls adorned with Korean flags, located 100 yards from a police station and a massive jail. Given David鈥檚 love of all things Korean, the Sneddons went to check it out and met one of the owners, a round-faced woman in her mid-twenties named Zhang Xiao Fen. Looking into her dark brown eyes, Roy could tell that Zhang understood exactly what was going on. When Roy showed Zhang a photo of David, her eyes lit up and she smiled. 鈥淪he definitely remembered David fondly,鈥� Roy says. 鈥淚t was tremendously exciting.鈥�

She accurately described his clothing and recalled that he spoke Mandarin and Korean. He had come into the restaurant three times over two days and had eaten cheaply, like a student on a tight budget. Zhang told the Sneddons that David stopped by for the last time around noon on August 14 to say goodbye; she assumed he was leaving Shangri-La. That would have made sense, given David鈥檚 original plan. To make his scheduled flight to Seoul, he would have had to get to Lijiang that evening and hop on an early-morning bus on the 15th.

In all, the Sneddons found 12 people in the gorge and in Shangri-La who remembered David and could identify his picture. All signs pointed to David making it out of the gorge and disappearing in Shangri-La, not doubling back and tumbling into the Jinsha River. 鈥淎t this point,鈥� Roy says, 鈥渨e were 100 percent certain that what the Chinese government told us was not true and that David did not fall into the gorge.鈥�

When the Sneddons returned to Utah, they set up a website, , and wrote a , which they sent to the U.S. State Department. Surely the government would recognize their discoveries and act.

The first response came by e-mail. Gavin Sundwall, a diplomat stationed at the embassy in Beijing, wrote that a special-investigation unit had looked into the Sneddons鈥� report and had not 鈥減roduced any tangible leads.鈥� It took another eight months of relentless correspondence to convince the Chinese to launch their own follow-up investigation and to interview the people who claimed to have seen David.

The results were crushing. All 12 sources changed their stories. He Shuchang now said he couldn鈥檛 be certain that the man he met on the trail was David. At the Yak Bar, Zhang told police that the photos of David looked like a customer she met in August but she wasn鈥檛 sure. The same routine played out over and over. David鈥檚 parents wondered if the witnesses were intimidated into recanting. In the end, the Americans and the Chinese deemed the evidence 鈥渋nconclusive,鈥� determining again that David most likely died in Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Last fall I spent a few days hiking the High Trail through Leaping Tiger Gorge and visiting Shangri-La, hoping to track down some of the same people the Sneddons had talked with on their first visit. Getting information wasn鈥檛 any easier. Many of the shops and guesthouses had changed names and owners. But the Yak Bar was still there, though it had undergone several renovations. A woman sitting outside the kitchen told me, through my interpreter, that she opened the business in 2002. When I asked about an American who went missing in 2004, she didn鈥檛 reply. When I asked using the name 鈥淪neddon,鈥� her eyes grew wide and she shook her head. 鈥淚 have no memory,鈥� she said. She asked to us to leave.

In 2011, seven years after David鈥檚 disappearance, Nicholas Craft, a Mormon attorney who served his mission in South Korea after David and had read about him on the Sneddons鈥� website, was interviewing for a job at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea with its executive director, , a longtime deputy director of the Pentagon鈥檚 East Asia office. At the end of his interview, Craft was getting up to leave when he asked, 鈥淗ave you ever heard of David Sneddon? I always thought that North Korea might have been involved in his disappearance.鈥�

Downs was an expert on North Korean abductions. He on the topic and had testified before Congress. But he had never heard of David. He leaned forward in his chair. 鈥淪it back down,鈥� he told Craft, 鈥渁nd tell me everything you know.鈥�

As he listened to the saga of David鈥檚 disappearance and his parents鈥� investigation, Downs was amazed at how many of the details fit so well with the familiar patterns of North Korean abductions. For starters, the lack of any evidence pointed to trained professionals. And Downs knew that, as a talented linguist, David would have been a prized catch. Not only did he speak Korean, but he also spoke English without any trace of a regional American accent鈥攁 coveted asset in training agents. By midsummer 2004, North Korea had lost one of its few remaining American English teachers, Charles Jenkins, who on July 9, one month before David disappeared.

Downs also remembered that the summer of 2004 was particularly tense for U.S.鈥揘orth Korea relations. That year, on July 21, the House of Representatives had passed the , which condemned the dictatorship鈥檚 human-rights record, promoted assistance to refugees, and established a presidential envoy at the State Department to address those issues. 鈥淭he U.S. is well advised to stop its rash acts,鈥� the regime warned in response, 鈥渁nd to ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its extremely hostile moves to isolate鈥� North Korea.

North Korea was again outraged a week later when Vietnam allowed a record to enter South Korea. In the largest mass defection since the end of the Korean War, these North Koreans had all crossed China through Yunnan province to reach Vietnam. As a result, North Korea withdrew its ambassador from Vietnam and canceled scheduled talks with South Korea.

And there was one more event, Downs recalled, one that seemed too eerie to be mere coincidence. A few months before Sneddon disappeared, Chinese authorities arrested a high-profile North Korean defector named near the Yunnan-Laos border. Kang, a chemical engineer, was supposedly carrying documents revealing that North Korea was testing chemical weapons on prisoners. In Downs鈥檚 mind, Kang鈥檚 arrest was clear evidence of cooperation between Chinese and North Korean agents.

Finally, Sneddon was last seen at a Korean restaurant in Shangri-La, which fit North Korea鈥檚 pattern of using caf茅s as part of a global network that uses state-run businesses as . These secret hubs, located in 30 to 40 countries but concentrated in China, employ roughly 30,000 workers who send more than $100 million in cash per year to the regime and provide cover for spies. Perhaps the two women operating the Yak Bar in the wild west of China were part of the network or had helped supply information about suspicious visitors in exchange for local protection. Surely, at the very least they knew the value of informing on an American, traveling alone, who spoke Korean and Mandarin.

[quote]鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to wrap your mind around the idea that a nation-state might have picked up your kid from a foreign country,鈥� says Kathleen. 鈥淏ut after the conference, we thought it might be a 75 percent chance.鈥漑/quote]

Downs understood that the evidence was all circumstantial, but he knew how North Korea operated. After Craft鈥檚 interview, Downs began investigating the case. He鈥檚 now convinced that David was abducted. 鈥淚 believe that David is in North Korea as strongly as you can believe anything,鈥� he told me last summer. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see any other explanation. I just do not doubt it.鈥�

In April 2011, Downs picked up the phone and called Kathleen Sneddon to share his theory. Kathleen was guarded but allowed Downs to run through the evidence. His plan was not to convince her but to get her and Roy on a plane to Washington, D.C., where he was hosting a conference for Korean and Japanese families of abductees. 鈥淐ome speak with them,鈥� Downs told her, 鈥渁nd see if you feel you have something in common.鈥�

There is little information about what life is like in North Korea for kidnapped foreigners, but most of what we do know has come from the Japanese who managed to escape or were released. Many are reluctant to speak for fear that the North Korean regime will retaliate against family and friends, but a few have shared their stories. One of the best known cases involves Kaoru Hasuike and his then girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo.

In 1978, the pair wandered away from a crowd of beachgoers in Kashiwazaki City, Japan, onto a quiet stretch of sand where they held hands and watched the sun set. As the waves crashed against the shore, several men approached, and one asked for a cigarette lighter. Before either could answer, one of the men punched Hasuike in the face while another tied his arms together, forced a gag into his mouth, and shoved him into a large sack along with Okudo. The men loaded their captives into an inflatable speedboat and roared off into the night. The next time the couple saw land was two days later, when they arrived in North Korea.

Hasuike was separated from Okudo and taken to a so-called guesthouse in a valley where he was surrounded by barbed-wire fence and armed guards. During 24 years of captivity, Hasuike鈥檚 captors forced him to read the teachings of Kim Il Sung and kept him hidden from other abductees, routinely moving him from one house to another. He was put to work as a translator, and he felt torn rewriting Japanese newspaper articles in Korean. After two years, he was reunited with Okudo and allowed to marry. The couple had a son and daughter and decided to lie to their children, telling them they were Korean so that others would not discriminate against them. Hasuike said it was 鈥渢he longest and most bitter period of my life.鈥�

Hasuike was released in 2002. When he reunited with his family in Japan, he told his brother Toru that he was 鈥渁 citizen of North Korea鈥� sent to Japan to 鈥渘ormalize鈥� relations between the two countries鈥攁 clear indicator of relentless brainwashing. Over time, however, Hasuike adjusted to life outside North Korea and began teaching at a university. Toru saw the effects of the indoctrination begin to fade and concluded that Hasuike had not been permanently altered but was 鈥渨earing body armor to protect himself from North Korea.鈥�

There are no officially recognized cases of abducted Americans, but the experience of U.S. Army sergeant Charles Jenkins probably offers the best glimpse of how American鈥攑ossibly even David鈥攎ight be treated.

In 1965, Jenkins, then 24, with a distinct North Carolina drawl, was stationed at an outpost along the edge of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. On a cold January evening, after guzzling nearly a dozen beers, he set off as though going on his nightly patrol duty. Terrified of being sent to Vietnam, Jenkins told his supervisor that he was going to check out a strange noise and crossed into North Korea. His plan, poorly thought out, was to get captured in hopes of being sent to the Soviet Union, North Korea鈥檚 Cold War ally, and then eventually shipped back to the United States. 鈥淚 did not understand,鈥� Jenkins later said, that 鈥渙nce someone goes there, they almost never, ever get out.鈥�

Jenkins was blindfolded and taken to a small house outside Pyongyang, where North Korean soldiers interrogated him for ten days. Afterward, Jenkins was taken to another house and forced to live in a tiny bedroom with three other American soldiers who had defected: Larry Abshier, Jerry Parrish, and James Dresnok. A six-foot wall surrounded the house, and outside a guard kept watch from a crow鈥檚 nest on top of a telephone pole. Jenkins , 鈥淚 suffered from enough cold, hunger, beatings, and mental torture to frequently make me wish I was dead.鈥�

Jenkins eventually began teaching English to North Korean soldiers. For many years, his lectures were recorded for others. He was forced to appear in anti-American propaganda films and television shows. All captive foreigners endured daily reeducation and indoctrination classes. Prisoners also engaged in a mind-control exercise that required them to admit their faults and pledge their allegiance to the supreme leader.

Arranged marriages were also part of prisoner life. Late at night on June 30, 1980, Jenkins heard a knock on his door. When he opened it, he saw a 21-year-old woman in a white blouse, a white skirt, and white high heels. 鈥淚 had never seen anybody so beautiful,鈥� Jenkins said of meeting Hitomi Soga, a Japanese abductee who would become his wife. 鈥淚n those grubby old surroundings, it was like she was from a dream or an entirely different planet.鈥� The two bonded over their hatred for North Korea and eventually had two daughters. In 2002, Soga was one of the five Japanese prisoners allowed to return home after Kim Jong Il admitted to their abductions. Back in Japan, Soga鈥檚 stories of her American husband and her children still in North Korea were taken up by the media, and in 2004 North Korea released Jenkins and their two daughters. Today the couple lives a quiet life in a remote village in Japan.

Through the years, Roy and Kathleen Sneddon ran through every conceivable explanation for David鈥檚 disappearance, but nothing ever gave them a sense of finality. They ruled out drowning after finding evidence that he hiked safely across the gorge. Murder? Chinese authorities and locals swore that violent crime was virtually nonexistent in the region. Suicide? Nothing pointed to depression. In fact, David was excited about his senior year at BYU and had already paid for student housing with his own savings.

In May 2011, when the Sneddons returned home from meeting with Downs and the families of abduction victims, they finally had an explanation that seemed plausible鈥攅ven if it also sounded patently absurd. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to wrap your mind around the idea that a nation-state might have picked up your kid from a foreign country,鈥� says Kathleen. 鈥淏ut after the conference, we thought it might be a 75 percent chance. The North Korea thing was just a puzzle piece that seemed to fit.鈥�

More pieces soon followed. In winter 2011, an organizer of unofficial meetings between the U.S. and North Korea asked a North Korean diplomat about David. 鈥淲hat was remarkable to me, having dealt with North Korean officials for years and expecting a reaction of outrage,鈥� said the organizer, who is speaking out for the first time on the condition of anonymity, 鈥渨as the total lack of surprise at the intimation that something of this kind might have occurred at the behest of authorities. He asked me to spell [David鈥檚] name, and the fact that he was willing to note the name indicated to me that he was not excluding the possibility that this might have happened.鈥�

The following year, in May 2012, the Tokyo nonprofit dropped a bombshell. One of the organization鈥檚 most reliable sources, a North Korean defector who had provided flawless intelligence to NARKN for years, had obtained Chinese security documents indicating that in August 2004, a 23- or 24-year-old American studying at a Chinese university was arrested in Yunnan province on charges of helping illegal residents. According to the documents, authorities had released the American in September, and he鈥檇 ended up in the hands of five North Korean secret agents who were in the area searching for defectors. NARKN was certain it had to be David.

鈥淲e have much confidence in our source and have no reason to doubt this information,鈥� says NARKN vice chairman Yoichi Shimada, speaking publicly for the first time during an interview last fall. Shimada believes that corrupt officers sold information about David鈥檚 release to North Korean agents.

The following month, the Sneddon family received yet another lead from a man in South Korea with close ties to the North Korean defector community. (His identity cannot be revealed for his safety.) The man told the Sneddons that an American in his early thirties who matched David鈥檚 description had been spotted teaching English outside Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. This information has not been corroborated, and if David is indeed in North Korea, Downs says, 鈥渉e would be in a highly controlled environment, and most North Koreans would not ever know he was there,鈥� making verification difficult.

While NARKN鈥檚 information appears genuine, some skeptics question the organization鈥檚 credibility and accuse it of using David鈥檚 case to raise the profile of its own political agenda. If an American abduction could be confirmed, the issue would undoubtedly receive a huge publicity boost. The Sneddons, however, don鈥檛 seem to care about NARKN鈥檚 motives. 鈥淭hey may be using us,鈥� says Kathleen, 鈥渂ut we鈥檙e also using them. It doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檙e lying.鈥�

Last May, I sat next to David鈥檚 brother, Michael, in the third row of an auditorium at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., for a symposium on North Korean abductions. Michael flew in from Germany, where he now lives with his family. Waiting for the event to begin, Michael tapped his finger on his knee and trained his eyes on the two people in the room who might help find David: Keiji Furuya, Japan鈥檚 cabinet minister in charge of the abduction issue, and U.S. ambassador Robert King, special envoy for North Korean human-rights issues.

At intermission I approached Furuya, who told me that he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe believe that NARKN鈥檚 information is entirely credible. 鈥淚t is most probable that David Sneddon is still residing in North Korea,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut I do not think that the United States is working fast enough to collect evidence.鈥� And since David is an American, he lamented, Japan can鈥檛 get involved.

Ambassador King stated in his symposium remarks that the United States鈥� 鈥渃ommitment to this issue could not be stronger.鈥� But in reality, officials want nothing to do with David鈥檚 case. Since David鈥檚 disappearance, Roy and Kathleen have written 55 letters to various members of the State Department, including Hillary Clinton during her time as the department鈥檚 secretary. Most went unanswered, but the replies that did come were infuriating. Under the Privacy Act, the U.S. government will not release any information about David without David鈥檚 written consent. To Roy and Kathleen, it is the mother of all catch-22鈥檚.

In November 2012, a friend of the Sneddon family filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department for all records related to David. Though the request turned up 14 documents, the government refused to release 13, citing concern for privacy and the 鈥渋nterest of national defense or foreign relations.鈥� The one document they did release simply stated that China had not found any trace of David.

For the Sneddons, these concerns are infuriating. Why would the United States be reluctant to search for one of its own citizens? But to anyone familiar with the delicacy of high-level diplomatic relations, the government鈥檚 position on the issue is understandable. Asking too many accusatory questions about David could potentially threaten America鈥檚 vital relations with China. If David was in fact detained in China, it would mean that China broke its treaty obligation to inform the U.S. within four days. Pressing the issue with North Korea, meanwhile, would jeopardize possible nuclear negotiations. 鈥淚t鈥檚 simply more convenient for the United States if David is dead,鈥� Michael Sneddon says.

As of now, nearly a decade after David vanished, the Sneddons are still asking the same questions, still hoping for that one additional shred of evidence to compel the powers that be to intervene.

David鈥檚 parents鈥� home in Logan remains a shrine to their missing son. Nearly every surface, from the living-room walls to the refrigerator, is dotted with pictures of David: in his crib as a baby, playing ice hockey, traveling in China.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to forget him,鈥� Kathleen says. 鈥淗ow would I feel if he came through the door and said, 鈥楳om, you don鈥檛 have any pictures of me鈥�? I鈥檇 want to scream, 鈥楴o! I kept you in my heart and my mind and my prayers, and you were always there.鈥� I can鈥檛 take the chance that he鈥檇 think we forgot him. People say we鈥檙e crazy, but that鈥檚 their business.鈥�

Kathleen envisions David as a 34-year-old man, married with children. If he is teaching English in North Korea, she imagines that he is enjoying himself and making the best of his new life behind the iron veil.

The day before David left for China, Kathleen talked with her son deep into the night. The following morning, she was so busy helping him finish packing that his departure seems like a blur. She knows she waved goodbye as she stood on the front porch watching David pull out of the driveway, but she can鈥檛 remember giving him a hug or saying 鈥淚 love you.鈥� 鈥淚 just have to trust that I did.鈥� 听

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So what will your money get you? “It is not exactly a sun-sea-and-swimming destination,” says Nick Bonner, of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which has been leading trips for non聳U.S. nationals since 1993. Indeed, most of the outfitters are offering a roughly ten-day tour centered in the capital city of Pyongyang. While accompanied by at least two government guides, you’ll visit the daily Arirang (Mass Games), in which a cast of 100,000 dances the history of North Korea’s collective struggle; take in the 65-foot-tall bronze statue of Kim Il Sung (Jong Il’s father); and view the country’s enormous collection of gifts聴like the stuffed upright crocodile carrying a cocktail tray, sent by the Sandinistas聴at the International Friendship Exhibition. One outfitter, Geographic Expeditions, is offering a chartered flight to 9,022-foot Mount Paektu, but options for thrill seekers are limited. Your best bet: a trip to a Pyongyang barber.

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