I studied in North Korea for a month. The isolation shocked me the most. [Video]

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Todor Merdjanov, 33, a Bulgarian university student who spent a month in September 2013 attending Korean language classes at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Merdjanov currently works as a copywriter for a digital marketing agency and an official translator for the Bulgarian embassy in Seoul, South Korea. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s been over a decade since I sat in the water of a Pyongyang public bathhouse, fielding questions from several North Korean university students.

The communal bath house is a place for bonding and chatting with friends. It’s a cultural staple in both North and South Korea.

It was also a very strange experience to be paddling naked next to the other students from my dorm at Kim Il Sung University in the capital city of North Korea.

I had been studying at the country’s oldest universityfor several weeks, and with …