6 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About North Korea - 4

According to Guttenfelder, there's a huge priority on performing arts for young children in North Korea. In this photo, a kindergarten student prepares to put on a play of a popular children's fable.

Whether he visited a school or a factory, Guttenfelder saw significant time and energy being invested in arts for children.

Kindergarteners practise riding unicycles in a Pyongyang gymnasium.

Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has called for a resurgence of athleticism. One of the most popular forms of exercise among North Koreans is rollerblading. In this photo, skaters enjoy a park built just for this purpose.

An outdoor speaker plays popular local music while people of all ages gather to dance in a Pyongyang park.

Arcades and carnivals are popular all over North Korea. In this photo, youngsters fire toy guns in a carnival game.

At Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, students go swimming and enjoy massages from water jets in the pool.

A group of factory workers and their families take a day off at a new swimming pool in Pyongyang. "People were diving and belly flopping," Guttenfelder says. "They were just so happy even though they didn't know how to dive."

Schoolchildren clamber over a playground slide made to look like a North Korean airliner.

A young boy climbs up a slide while rollerbladers look on. Some icons of the West—like Mickey Mouse on the boy's backpack—are so pervasive, they've made it into the closed-off world of North Korea.

A drab apartment building in Pyongyang offsets colourful playground equipment. Guttenfelder says that despite the long work hours and tightly controlled personal lives, "people are trying to make the most of a pretty difficult situation."