''They see themselves as small and isolated, and are looking for new friends, especially in West Europe,'' said a foreign businessman here.

Though North Korea is still very much under the thumb of ''Great Leader'' Kim Il Sung, and his son and political heir, Kim Jong Il, whose twin portraits stare down from every ill-lit apartment and office wall, the small community of foreigners living here say they have seen minor but tangible signs of change in the past few months.

Bizarre by standards anywhere else in the world, these changes include the appearance of taxis on Pyongyang's well-swept streets, and the sight of a limited number of bicycles.

Until recently, the humble bicycle was regarded as a 'security threat' as it enabled people to act independently of the state-run transport system. Another mild relaxation is the apparent freedom ordinary people seem to have to converse with foreigners.

The last time this correspondent visited Pyongyang, in the 80s, it was impossible to leave the hotel unescorted.

This time, I jumped in a taxi outside the multi-floor Koryo Hotel, which itself opens directly on to the city street, and asked the driver to take me to a hotel across town. He complied without demur.

Unsupervised, at least by the overt presence of a guide, I hopped on a crowded tram car with a colleague, and we trundled two kilometres.

As we had not bought tickets before getting on, not knowing how to do this, a young man handed us two with a smile, and two women each holding young children offered their seats and seemed disappointed these were declined.

Actions like a taxi or tram ride would be utterly commonplace anywhere else: here, in what is known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, they are an indication that things are easing a degree or two in the world's most systematically repressive state.

The changes at present are only cosmetic, but similar shifts were the harbinger of some relaxation in China in the early 70s.

They also pose the question of whether, as in China, if the door to the world is opened even a crack, hardline Stalinism, as in the cult of the Kims, can survive intact in its present form.

''All this has happened in the past year,'' noted a foreign businessman who said he was thinking of quitting his present position to start a joint venture project with North Korean counterparts.

''Anyone getting in on the ground floor, as in China a decade back, is going to make a lot of money here,'' he said. ''They are very eager for joint ventures or even wholly-owned foreign projects, with no problem about repatriation of profits.'' It is easy to see why - there is severe economic malaise. In a week travelling in North Korea, I saw not one crane working.

There is, officials tell foreign businessmen, a severe petrol shortage. This stems from Russia's insistence that oil must be paid for in hard cash. From the old Soviet Union, Pyongyang received petrol either in barter or at rock bottom ''friendship'' prices.

Meat is also in short supply. I saw only two pigs and not a single chicken while criss-crossing the mountainous country. ''It is hard to get meat,'' a North Korean said, though some was sometimes available on the black market at five times the officialprice.

Most people seem to subsist on rice, kim chi (pickled cabbage) and radishes, with perhaps occasional rationed meat.

However, foreign businessmen who have toured most of the country say they have seen no signs of real hunger.

Pyongyang's show-piece underground railway seems to be working 5am to 11pm, despite reports to the contrary, and there are a few private cars, owned mostly by North Koreans whose relatives overseas have remitted hard currency.

There are also shops selling overseas goods which include radios with multi-metre bands. Until now, they have all been fixed to only official Pyongyang programmes so that North Korea's 23 million citizens are not exposed to ''contamination'' by South Korean programmes. Many people seemed to have dollars to spend.

New colour television sets can also receive South Korean programmes but one North Korean official explained: ''Nobody here would watch them because of the lies they tell about us.'' Although this is the most rigidly controlled police state in the world, it is now much easier to talk to North Koreans. When one produces a Korean phrase book, while some shy away, most North Koreans gather round eagerly and begin to talk about life's simple things, mostly their families.

Though one sees chillingly fixed smiles in the marble and gilt state-run children's palaces, which are little more than indoctrination centres built to glorify the Kims, a majority of people now respond with ready natural smiles when greeted in the street.

North Korean girls are even mildly flirtatious in a harmless way. One can sing along with them in official karaoke bars.

Some are quite smartly - a few fashionably - dressed; since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when North Korea seemed eager to host some events, women have been encouraged to dress with more style.

Fashion models they are not, but they are certainly not as dowdy as most women once were in the old Eastern Europe.

None of this is to suggest North Korea remains anything other than a totalitarian state. The only signs of free enterprise are private photographers who snap wedding couples and families in parks.

Amnesty International reported last week that North Korea has detained tens of thousands since the 60s. It said many have died in camps for so-called ''special prisoners'' who were given no food and told to survive on what they could produce.

Amnesty said it had accounts of dissidents being publicly sentenced to death and executed, the most recent in November, 1992.

But, touring the remains of an ancient royal palace outside Pyongyang, the guide, a woman in the traditional flowing Korean dress, the hanbok, asked a visitor if he was a Christian.

When he replied in the affirmative, she then sang Silent Night in Korean - the authentic voice of a people beginning in a small way to make themselves heard at last.