Python Embeddable Zip File Doesn't Include lib/site-packages in sys.path

After extracting the Python embeddable zip file, there is a file called python36._pth in the root directory. That file contains the following text:

# Uncomment to run site.main() automatically
#import site

As the comment indicates, simply uncomment the import site statement by removing the '#' character. After doing so, the sys.path variable contains:

'...\\python36.zip'
'...'
'...\\\n'
'...\\lib\\site-packages'

This is still different than the installed version, but is exactly what I needed in my particular case.

BEGIN EDIT

I also discovered that you can remove the python36._pth file entirely, which reverts Python to behavior of the non-embeddable version.