North Korea

Diane Sawyer produced a documentary in 2009 (I believe) of a restricted visit she was allowed, as a journalist, into North Korea.  Her visit was limited to 12 days, but what I saw in the documentary truly shook how I formerly perceived North Korea.
Diane's observations opened a door of new insight into a country that has shrouded itself from the rest of the world for decades.  Contemporary North Korean society depicts an extreme, albeit draconian in its enforcement, Confucian social world.  This is observable from the amount of weight put on traditional Confucian values, such as obedience, adherence, loyalty, and being content with one's place in society.  While the current North Korean government appears to use eccentric measures to maintain their Confucian utopia, so to speak, this way of life is not unlike how many East Asian countries functioned during periods of closed trade or martial law, less than a century ago.  Examples of this would be the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and the Korean peninsula as a whole (prior to the Japanese occupation).

It may appear to us, as Westerners or Americans in particular, that the North Koreans are being brainwashed through pro-nationalistic and anti-foreign propaganda.  I cannot find grounds to dispute to the contrary, as the government diligently controls their entire perspectives.  On the other hand, the ideas of propaganda and brainwashing are completely relative.  Certainly to the North Koreans, we would be considered brainwashed.  We grow up trained to firmly believe that democracy and capitalism are the best forms of government, and anything to the contrary is borderline heresy.  I do not see how, then, that differs from the apparent oddities in North Korean thinking: anti-foreign interaction, no curiosity about the outside world, unrelenting loyalty and faith in their country, and so forth.  They grow up believing that their way is the best and there is no need to venture further.