North Korean Economy Watch

NK News gets creative: The innovative and informative NKNews.org is selling goodies this holiday season to fund its operations (I wish I had thought of that).  When I saw these playing cards, I laughed out loud:

I think I need these. You can order them here.

Inside Air Koryo: Martyn Williams notified me of this web page put up by tourists that took an aviation tour in the DPRK. Some incredible photos to be seen.  Here is just one:

The photo set also includes interior pictures of the “famous” Ilyushin-14 given to Kim Il-sung. UPDATE: The source claims that Stalin gave the plane to Kim Il-sung in 1955, however, as a reader points out, Stalin died in 1953.

Here is a flickr set put up by another member of the group.

Mobile phones: A few days ago, NK News posted a link to these photos taken by Russian tourists to the DPRK. Among the lot was this great photo of North Koreans filming/photographing fireworks in Pyongyang with their mobile phones:

Rodong Sinmun photoshop: Perhaps it is unfair to hold Rodong Sinmun to the highest standards of professional journalism, but if you are going to photo-shop a picture, at least put some effort into it:

Click picture for larger version.

I am unsure why Rodong Sinmun felt compelled to badly photoshop what would otherwise have been a lovely photo.  Is it really so hard to get a photo of a girl playing a violin in front of her (very loyal) family?

Rodong Sinmun has inspired me to coin a  new word: Frankenphoto. Here is a working definition: When all of the compositional elements of a single photo were originally copied from separate pieces and painfully (badly) rendered together into a new image that at times seems to violate the laws of nature.

Just weird [revised]: Below is a very strange act that appeared on North Korean television. I did not understand it at all. After posting it, however, a reader informs me that is is a knock off of an act that appeared on  Soviet Television.  The original Latvian actor was named Arkady Raikin (Аркадий Райкин). See video of Raikin here. Wikipedia page here.

In this North Korean version, skip to the 3:26 mark.  New characters emerge at 5:26, 7:08, 8:17, 10:06.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2012 at 10:34 am and is filed under Aviation, Cell phones, Civil society, Transportation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.