How totalitarian is the North Korean regime? At surface level they seem to meet all the requisites, from the monopolization of political life and the means of communication, to the over-the-top personality cult surrounding its leaders and willingness to employ state terror. Dig a bit deeper, though, and the regime’s control over society appears less all-encompassing.

And it’s not just the well-documented, and tolerated, emergence of the jangmadang to help families make money; North Koreans are indulging in foreign entertainment at home, using South Korean USB sticks to share information, and offering bribes to overcome the regime’s once-stringent bans on travel outside their hometowns (including to the capital Pyongyang, bad Songbun or not). A spectacle such as the denunciation and execution of Jang Song Thaek demonstrates that the North Korean regime remains a force not to be ignored, but sources indicate that people at the ground level are demonstrating greater independence, as well as creativity.