North Korean youngsters sing and play accordions to entertain foreign visitors including United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who visited Pyongyang, May 4, 1979. Visitors report music education in North Korea begins at an early age and is taken seriously by children and adults. (Photo by Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

North Korean soldiers march during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea, April 15, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A soldier from the South Korean army special forces breaks stone plates with her head during a martial arts demonstration for Memorial Day at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 6, 2016.(Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

“North and South Korea staged dueling war games Monday as threatening rhetoric from the rivals rose to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010”. – Associated Press. Photo: North Korean soldiers with weapons attend military training in an undisclosed location in this picture released by the North’s official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang March 11, 2013. South Korea and U.S. forces are conducting large-scale military drills until the end of April, while the North is also gearing up for a massive state-wide military exercise. North Korea has accused the U.S. of using the military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has threatened to scrap the armistice with Washington that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. (Photo by KCNA/Reuters)

People dance during a heavy metal concert at Omni Space in Beijing, China, August 14, 2020. China boasts a small but buoyant heavy metal scene, where bands mix genre standards with Chinese elements. Black metal is a sub-genre that creates a dark, moody atmosphere layering heavily distorted guitars and high-pitched vocals. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A woman watches a Mariachi band play aboard a float during the Day of the Dead River parade on October 29, 2021 in San Antonio, Texas. People gathered in San Antonio to celebrate, commemorate, and remember departed loved ones for this year's Día de los Muertos. This year's celebration is newly returned after in-person gatherings and festivities were canceled last year due to COVID-19. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

An Iowa State Patrol trooper works the scene of an overturned semi truck along the westbound shoulder of Interstate 80 near Anita, Iowa, on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, after a band of intense weather crossed through the area. A powerful storm system is blowing through the Great Plains and Midwest, combining with unusually warm temperatures to close highways and prompt numerous tornado warnings. (Photo by Bryon Houlgrave/The Des Moines Register via AP Photo)

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)