A South Korean diver wearing a little mermaid costume performs in a tank ahead of the “Chuseok” national holiday, at the Coex Aquarium in Seoul, South Korea, 26 August 2022. Chuseok is the autumn harvest celebration of the Lunar Calendar and is one of Korea's biggest traditional holiday, which falls on 10 Setpember this year. (Photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA/EFE)

A shoe and a plastic halloween pumpkin are pictured at the scene where a stampede during Halloween festivities killed and injured many people at the popular Itaewon district in Seoul, South Korea on October 30, 2022. (Photo by Yonhap via Reuters)

A girl plays kayagum, stringed Korean harp, at the Tongmun kindergarten No.1 in Taedonggang District of Pyongyang, North Korea Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Photo by Cha Song Ho/AP Photo)

A veterinarian takes a sample from a cat at an animal shelter in Yeoju, southeast of Seoul, South Korea, 01 August 2023, after cats were found to have been infected with a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza strain at shelters in Seoul on 25 and 29 July, marking the first infections of the virus in mammals since 2016. (Photo by Yonhap/EPA)

Hot air balloons are prepared for a flight as others take off during an international hot air balloon festival at Maayan Harod National park in northern Israel September 30, 2015. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A man pulls a cart with collapsed cardboard boxes past boutiques in the Sinchon district in Seoul, May 5, 2015. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A woman travels on a train stopping at a subway station visited by foreign reporters in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Associated Press photographer Wong Maye-E tries to get her North Korean subjects to open up as much as is possible in an authoritarian country with no tolerance for dissent and great distrust of foreigners. She has taken dozens of portraits of North Koreans over the past three years, often after breaking the ice by taking photos with an instant camera and sharing them. Her question for everyone she photographs: What is your motto? Their answers reflect both their varied lives and the government that looms incessantly over all of them. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)