"Electricity is a real problem. We have only six hours a day," said the North Korean, who lives in an apartment in a choice neighborhood of Pyongyang, the capital. "When you are watching a movie on TV, there might be a nice love scene and then suddenly the power is out. People blame the Americans. They blame Bush."
He said as North Korea worked to change its state-run economy, it would look to China as an example and seek to change gradually. He didn't use the word "reform" -- anathema to some trained under the socialist system.
"In the past, we were revolutionaries. But now we prefer evolution to revolution," he said. "We will try to learn from China's successes and failures."
As for international negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arms program, he said he thought Pyongyang would probably show up at the next round of talks. But his country would prefer to negotiate directly with the United States, he said, rather than in six-party discussions that also include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
He said the Americans' insistence on including six countries had caused undue complications.
"If we sort out the problems with America, everything else will fall into place. The problems with Japan can easily be sorted out," he said.
The North Korean criticized some Japanese politicians' efforts to link the nuclear talks to the question of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.
"This was something done by a few overly enthusiastic people long ago," he said. "We tried to make amends.
"Now people like Shinzo Abe [deputy secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party] are using it for political purposes and destroying the interests of millions of people."
The most important point the North Korean said he wanted to convey in the conversation was that his nation was a place just like any other.
"There is love. There is hate. There is fighting. There is charity.... People marry. They divorce. They make children," he said.
"People are just trying to live a normal life."
