Kim Jong Un is the third generation of North Korea’s ruling Kim family, the first and now only hereditary socialist dynasty. But while still in his early thirties, he appears to be as deft with wielding power as his grandfather, “eternal president” Kim Il Sung, and father, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il.

The headlines are all about nuclear weapons and ballistic missile launches. But on the ground in North Korea, scenes of daily life attest to both the poignancy and resilience of a people struggling to succeed.

Along with its famous mass games, North Korea has taken the tradition of the military parade to a level all of its own. Its parades are used to show off the best and newest weapons in its arsenal and the almost-unhuman precision of its goose-stepping troops.

As the heroes of socialist propaganda, they are depicted as a self-sacrificing, proud proletariat upon whom the weight of the nation is said to depend. But the life of the worker in North Korea has never been easy.

In the totalitarian world of Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, everything begins from the center of Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang’s physical and spiritual center. And every neighborhood, it seems, has some sort of a statue or monument in honor of the Kim’s and the nation their created.

Grassroots barter and trade that began as a necessity in the famine years of the 1990s has grown into a quasi-legal market system that is now one of the most important drivers of North Korea’s domestic economy. For those who know how to navigate it, called the “money masters”, there are riches to be had.

For more than 60 years, the artificial dividing line between the two Koreas has separated families and stood as a testament to hostilities that have seemed to have no end. The Demilitarized Zone, despite its name, remains the world’s most heavily fortified border.