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Dutch magician performs for North Korean kids, proving you can find joy just about anywhere

Jesper Grønkjær’s sense of humor and awe has inspired smiles around the globe.

via Freeport Traveler/YouTube

Jesper Grønkjær performs magic for children in North Korea.

North Korea is the most oppressive place in the world, and its people lack freedom of speech, press, or movement. The government, headed by Kim Jong Un, controls all aspects of its citizen's lives, and those who stand up against the regime are punished harshly. It’s also hostile to people outside the country for fear that outside ideas could destabilize the regime.

The country is so isolated from the rest of the world that it just recently opened its border to allow a small number of tourists to visit its Special Economic Zone for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, North Korea demonstrated its alliance with Russia by permitting more than 800 of its citizens to visit the isolated nation.

Another of North Korea’s recent visitors was Dutch magician and adventurer Jesper Grønkjær, who set out to see if he could manage to get a smile from its citizens. “I’ve spent my life proving one universal truth: a smile is the shortest distance between all people on Earth,” Grønkjær said.

"We know you can suppress people, but you can't suppress a smile. I will investigate that, and where better to do it than in one of the strictest countries in the world?” he opens his video on the Freeport Traveler YouTube page. When Grønkjær visited North Korea, he was accompanied by two guards wherever he went, and his passport was taken from him. At night, he was locked in his hotel like a jail cell. However, he still elicited huge grins from children and adults alike as he wowed them with magic tricks with animal balloons, a stuffed ferret, red foam balls, card tricks, and much of his joyful brand of Abracadabra.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

While visiting North Korea, Grønkjær watched the country’s “Day of the Sun Celebrations” at Kim Il-Sung Square in North Korea. Held each year on April 15th, the holiday celebrates the birthday of Kim Il-Sung, the country's founder, and features dancing, military tests, parades, and concerts. For North Koreans, the holiday is akin to Christmas.

Grønkjær’s trip to North Korea isn’t the only exotic and potentially dangerous place where he has performed magic. He has also performed for Indigenous people in Peru, the descendants of the Incas in the Andes mountains, and the Masai warriors in Tanzania. The magician of 20 years has also performed for orphanages in Uganda, the jungles of Irian Jaya, the ice caps of Greenland, and the Las Vegas strip.


Grønkjær uses his adventurous expeditions as subject matter for his various lectures, print articles, and appearances on Danish television. When he’s back home, he performs more than 225 nights a year for family events, circuses, weddings, and corporate parties.

In a world where it can feel like the people in North Korea, Tanzania, Peru, or Denmark are a world away culturally and politically, Grønkjær’s work shows that no matter where you live on the planet or what language you speak, we all share the same sense of wonder and humor. While nefarious forces in the world work to drive us apart, he proves it takes very little for all of us to realize our shared humanity.

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In the heat of battle, they asked for ammo and got candy. Somehow, they made it work.

66 years ago, thousands of American and allied forces were saved thanks to a very small, very chewy secret weapon:

Tootsie Rolls.

Photo by Allison Carter/Flickr (cropped).

Yep, that's right. The mediocre-at-best chewy chocolate candy that you eat reluctantly six weeks after Halloween or if you're really good at the doctor's office also totally saved lives.

But what? How? Buckle up — it's history time.

It was the winter of 1950. Allied troops had been deployed to help an underarmed South Korea fight off powerful North Korean invaders.

United Nations troops, which consisted mainly of U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine Division, joined forces with a U.S. Army combat team, some South Korean Military Police and a detachment of British troops, around 25,000 men altogether. The group was chasing North Korean soldiers — who, by the way, had the might of China's Mao Zedong along with the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin behind them — out of the Changjin Reservoir, often referred to as Chosin.

But they weren't alone.

Hearing the North Korean soldiers were in a bad way, Mao sent 150,000 Chinese soldiers to back them up. The Chinese soldiers surrounded the allied troops, hoping to isolate and destroy the 1st Marine Division.

"I thought the whole division was going to die," Capt. Richard Wayne Bolton told Military.com. "The Chinese came to annihilate the 1st Marine Division and I thought every one of us was going to die."


Photo by U.S. Marine Corps/Wikimedia Commons.

Not only were the men surrounded and outnumbered, they were freezing cold.

This wasn't "Wow, I could use some cocoa" cold. It was cruel, punishing, unforgiving cold, as low as 40 below zero at night.

Bulldozers and tanks couldn't move. Fuel lines cracked. Guns wouldn't fire properly. Sweat froze on skin and between toes. Rations and extra blood for the wounded were frozen solid and rendered useless.

They were hungry, tired, frostbitten, and running out of options.

Photo by U.S. Marine Corps/Wikimedia Commons.

That's when someone put in a call for more mortar shells, the code name for which was — you guessed it — "tootsie rolls."

Only someone back at command wasn't familiar with the code.

When the supplies arrived via airdrop, instead of ammunition, the soldiers opened the crates to reveal thousands of frozen Tootsie Rolls.

GIF via Great Big Story/YouTube.

But the troops didn't have time to get mad. They needed to get home.

Desperate for food, the allied soldiers thawed the candy in their mouths and armpits for some quick energy.

And given the sticky properties of the Tootsie Rolls, once defrosted, they could also be used to repair broken fuel lines and bullet holes in equipment.

The men applied the melted candy over a rip or tear and waited for it to freeze again. Boom. This was their way out.

GIF via Great Big Story/YouTube.

For 13 days, the allied forces at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir refused to give up.

The Marines formed a column and marched toward the port city of Hungnam and the Sea of Japan, where other American forces were waiting.

When asked if his company was retreating, 1st Marine Division Gen. Oliver Prince Smith responded: "Retreat? Hell, we are attacking in another direction."

A column of troops move through Chinese lines during their successful breakout from the Chosin Reservoir. Photo by Cpl. Peter McDonald, USMC/Wikimedia Commons.

For 78 miles, they marched the steep, dangerous road, fighting through 10 Chinese infantry divisions.

Fueled by sheer will, guts, and a few thousand pieces of candy, the men managed to claw their way back from certain doom.

One Marine wrote: "By large, Tootsie Rolls were our main diet while fighting our way out of the Reservoir. You can bet there were literally thousands of Tootsie Roll wrappers scattered over North Korea."

Photo by U.S. Marine Corps/Wikimedia Commons.

While many would hesitate to call the 13-day event a victory in the traditional sense, the withdrawal is one of the most well-known campaigns in Marine history.

There's even a Navy ship named after it.

The men, outnumbered and surrounded, managed to not only get to the sea but to slow the progress of the Chinese troops and immobilize several of their divisions.

Those who survived, who call themselves the Chosin Few, owe their lives to ingenuity, grit, and highly under-appreciated candy.

It may not be the tastiest treat around, but the story of how it earned its place in American history should never be forgotten.

Marines and their families attended the Chosin Reservoir monument dedication in California. Photo by U.S. Marine Corps/Wikimedia Commons.

See a re-creation of the heroic and surprising turn of events in this video from Great Big Story.

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North Korea doesn't want you to see this, and they'll be really furious if you share it.

Hyeonseo Lee managed to escape North Korea, TWICE. She went back a second time to save her family. Here's the tragic and amazing story of how she accomplished it.

  • At 0:50, she starts in on what happens in North Korea.
  • At 1:16, she talks about a horrific letter from her co-worker's sister.
  • At 1:50, she talks about something she will never erase from her memory.
  • At 2:47, she shows us an enlightening map.
  • At 4:20, her worst nightmare comes true.
  • At 5:23, she shares a tiny bit of happy news.
  • At 6:22, she moves and faces more challenges.
  • At 6:55, she makes a heartbreaking confession.
  • At 7:12, North Korea decides to threaten her family as vengeance.
  • At 7:35, she explains how people escape.
  • At 8:20, the old "show me your papers" line wields its ugly head.
  • At 9:00, her family is arrested multiple times and held for a month. Then she runs out of bribe money.
  • At 9:45, a hero arrives. And we start tearing up a little.
  • At 10:53, we get a happy ending. And she suggests some ways to actually help.
  • And at 12:00, the audience rewards her bravery and resolve with a standing ovation.

    • Then you may feel the urge to share this. And you may feel the urge to like her on Facebook, at which point, I'll totally owe you one. It's an important story, and everyone should get the opportunity to hear it.

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