Japanese Yuuka Hasumi, 17, and Ibuki Ito, 17, also from Japan, who want to become K-pop stars, perform at an Acopia School party in Seoul, South Korea, March 16, 2019. Acopia is a prep school offering young Japanese a shot at K-pop stardom, teaching them the dance moves, the songs and also the language. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

North Korean soldiers wave along the Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite to the Chinese border city of Dandong October 7, 2014. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)

Visitors look up at mock-ups of dinosaur skeletons inside the Museum of Natural History in Pyongyang on September 28, 2016. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

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)

South Korean youths dance to electronic music during the Ultra Music Festival Korea at Olympic Stadium on June 10, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Jean Chung/Getty Images)

Girls enjoy nice weather at a park in front of the Pothonggang Department Store in central Pyongyang October 11, 2015. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/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)