North Korea: Daily life

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.

Apartment buildings peep out of the morning mist as the sun rises over Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Commuters ride escalators at a subway station in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Traffic policewomen chat next to a residential building while off duty in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Oct. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

School children walk past an apartment complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 5, 2015. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A girl walks with her mother on a downtown street in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb.18, 2014. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Commuters wait for a trolley bus to arrive in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Commuters ride an electric trolley in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea, at the end of a work day on July 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Commuters stand on a bus in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

School girls holding brooms bow to pay their respects toward a mural that depicts the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung delivering a speech, before sweeping the area surrounding the mural on Dec. 1, 2015, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A woman waits in the rain outside a restaurant in Pyongyang, North Korea, on July 25, 2015. The rainy season in North Korea usually lasts through the month of July. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Colorful residential buildings fill the skyline of Pyongyang, North Korea, in the morning light, as seen from the top of the Juche Tower on Feb. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Students attend their first day of class at the Ryonhwa primary school in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

Youths play with a ball during a break at Pyongyang International Football School in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 24, 2016. North Korea has poured funds into the development and training of promising athletes over the past several years in an effort to fulfill one of leader Kim Jong Un's primary goals to become a country be reckoned with on the global sports stage. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

A boy takes a picture of his family at the Moranbong park in central Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sunday, May 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A North Korean nurse speaks by video conference and telephone to a doctor inside a maternity hospital in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Oct. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

A waitress moves a dining chair at a restaurant terrace that overlooks a residential street at dusk in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Women who work at the Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang textile factory spend their free time in a sauna at their dormitory in Pyongyang, North Korea, on July 31, 2014. This is the country's largest textile factory with 8,500 workers, and 80 percent of them are women. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Lights are switched on in occupied apartments as dusk descends in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 10, 2015. Most of the North Koreans in Pyongyang live in high-rise apartments. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Girls are silhouetted during a dance class at the Mangyongdae Children's Palace in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 7, 2015. The Children's Palace is a place where talented school children go for extracurricular classes, and is one of the places tourists visit during their stay in Pyongyang. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A man sings karaoke while his daughter plays piano at a hotel bar in Mount Kumgang, North Korea, on Oct. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il glow on the facade of a building at dawn in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 19, 2015. The Juche Tower, one of the city's landmarks, glows in the background at top left. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

A man reads while waiting for a train in a subway station in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 1, 2014. Foreign visitors are usually only allowed to take one to two stops on Pyongyang's north-south Chollima subway line. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A man sits in the car of a cargo train traveling toward Pyongyang along the outskirts of Hamhung, North Korea, on July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Two farmers walk between snow-covered fields on Dec. 3, 2015, in Kujang county in North Pyongan, North Korea, where the winter season has begun. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Women push their bicycles across a train track in the Chollima district of Nampo, a city and seaport located on the west coast of North Korea, on Jan. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A young girl dressed in her swimming suit walks along a stream between fields in Hamju, North Korea, on July 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A boy slips while playing on a frozen lake in Sinpyong county, North Hwanghae province, North Korea, on Feb. 20, 2016. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Construction workers walk on a bridge that takes them over the Pothong River in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Nov. 28, 2015. The Pothong River is the second largest river that runs through the North Korean capital. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A man cycles past rice fields in Pyongyang, North Korea, in the early morning on Oct. 13, 2015. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

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