North Korean Economy Watch

North Korea Uncovered version 18 is available.  This Google Earth overlay maps North Korea’s agriculture, aviation, cultural locations, markets, manufacturing facilities, railroad, energy infrastructure, politics, sports venues, military establishments, religious facilities, leisure destinations, and national parks.

This project has now been downloaded over 140,000 times since launching in April 2007 and received much media attention last month following a Wall Street Journal article highlighting the work.

Note: Kimchaek City is now in high resolution for the first time.  Information on this city is pretty scarce.  Contributions welcome.

Additions to this version include: New image overlays in Nampo (infrastructure update), Haeju (infrastructure update, apricot trees), Kanggye (infrastructure update, wood processing factory), Kimchaek (infrastructure update). Also, river dredges (h/t Christopher Del Riesgo), the Handure Plain, Musudan update, Nuclear Test Site revamp (h/t Ogle Earth), The International School of Berne (Kim Jong un school), Ongjin Shallow Sea Farms, Monument to  “Horizon of the Handure Plain”, Unhung Youth Power Station, Hwangnyong Fortress Wall, Kim Ung so House, Tomb of Kim Ung so, Chungnyol Shrine, Onchon Public Library, Onchon Public bathhouse, Anbyon Youth Power Stations.

After western sports apparel firms signed China’s top athletes in anticipation of Olympic exposure, an innovative Chinese sports apparel firm, with a significantly smaller advertising budget, got creative and attempted to boost its brand name by sponsoring North Korean Olympic teams that would likely do well in sports that the Chinese would watch (such as gymnastics, table tennis, and diving).

So the “Erke” label made its appearance in the 2008 Olympics.  There were some issues to overcome…for instance, a tremendous amount of bureaucracy in working out the deal.  Additionally, the North Koreans did not want the Erke logo on the clothes for fear it would draw attention away from the North Korean flag. Perhaps most amusingly, the victorious North Korean players did not thank their sponsors on television, but rather “you know who”.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Erke is also sponsoring North Korea’s 2010 World Cup team:

Since sponsorship for North Korean teams began, Hongxing’s domestic presence has grown to nearly 3,800 retail outlets across China from about 100 in 2000. And with the World Cup qualification, Erke is confident its investment in an overseas market versus competing for domestic sponsorships with Adidas and Nike will pay off.

“Football is one of the areas which we feel have a lot of potential for development and we hope to be able to raise our brand visibility … in major events, such as the World Cup,” Yeo said.

In 2008, the company expanded its scope of international sponsorships to include the International Table Tennis Federation Pro Tour and its tournaments in Qatar, Austria, Germany and France.

Read the full story here:
North Korean soccer brings success to Chinese apparel company
Los Angeles Times
Chi-Chi Zha
6/19/2008

UPDATE 7/3/2009:  Kim Jong Il masterminded North Korea’s World Cup qualification? According to Russia Today (Successor to USSR Today–like Korea Today):

North Korean sporting officials claim that it was the invaluable tactical advice that the head of the state gave to the players that allowed them to win a ticket to South Africa in 2010, reports Choson Sinbo, a Japan-based newspaper published by the General Association of Korean Residents.

“The Great Leader gave in-depth guidance on the development of Korean football. He proposed the game’s tactics most relevant for the physiological characteristics of the Korean players”, Kim Jong Su, General Secretary of North Korean Football Association, said.

The official also said Kim Jong Il personally guided the team at the stadium in April last year.

According to the newspaper, the Great Leader’s involvement allowed the Korean footballers to show their own game and cope without copying the style of play of the leading Western teams.

Head Coach of the North Korean national squad, Kim Jong Hun, explains the main reason of his men’s success lies in their “exceptional spiritual strength and unity.”

“Perhaps there’s no other team in the world, who would be fighting with the same dedication to please the leader and to bring fame to their motherland,” Kim Jong Hun said.

Read the full story here.

UPDATE 6/21/2009: The North Korean team came home to a hero’s welcome.  Photos here and here.  The best is by far this one:

click for larger image

Too bad Kim Jong il could not meet them at the airport in person… 

UPDATE: The North Korean team is going to South Africa. From the Washington Post’s Stephen Goff:

North Korea secured its first World Cup berth since 1966. The other automatic qualifiers from Asia are Japan, South Korea and Australia. The Saudis will face Bahrain in a two-game regional playoff in September, with the winner facing Oceania champion New Zealand for a World Cup slot.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion the North Koreans and Americans will land in the same group in South Africa next summer? Sort of like when the USA and Iran were “randomly” paired in 1998. (How many of you remember the USA-North Korea friendly at RFK Stadium in 1991? The Koreans won, 2-1.)

Other Notes:
1. The Bleacher Report offers a satirical take.

2. More coverage of the game here.

3. If you have not seen The Game of Their Lives, you probably should.  YouTube has a trailer here.

4. How come the Koreans get to send two teams to the World Cup? (joke)

Read previous posts below: 

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UPDATE: From Timeout (Vietnamese English publication):

The largest collection of paintings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) ever shown in Southeast Asia was put on display at the Nha Trang Sea festival last week.

The paintings were produced by more than two dozen artists with recognized artists – so-called Merited artists – and emerging talents all contributing.

The exhibition included a series of beautiful paintings in a variety of styles and materials – prints, watercolour, oil, pencil drawings and “jewel-powdered paintings”, a Korean specialty art.
 
With little exposure to the outside world, North Korean art is considered very pure. North Korean artists are loyal to their country and adhere to the country’s political philosophy.

In the absence of influences by contemporary art trends from the rest of the world the painters have, in a unique manner, developed their own techniques and the use of colors in an original style.

The displayed paintings include, among other things, a variety of beautiful sceneries of nature and of North Korean daily life. These pieces of artwork give a rare insight into the lives and thoughts of the people of this country.

Some of the most impressive pieces are the products of the veteran artist Han Gyong Bo and the emerging artist Han Song Il, a precocious 24-year old who has won many top prizes at national and international exhibitions.

Han Gyong  Bo is famous for his watercolour paintings of wistful and fanciful landscapes created in strong, deep and bold brush strokes. Meanwhile Han Song Il bewitches viewers with his romantic yearnings and smooth style. With refined and flowery strokes, Il’s paintings express the beauties of his country’s natural landscapes.

The painting collection belongs to Swiss businessman Felix Abt and his Hanoi-born wife Doan Lan Huong, who lived and worked in Pyongyang for seven years, where they got to know and love North Korean arts.

At present Abt and his family mostly stay in Nha Trang, Vietnam where they manage their own website Pyongyang-painters.com, one of the very few on-line galleries outside North Korea permitted to sell art and to represent the country’s leading artists as well as new talents.

“Much to our surprise we noticed that (artistic) talents are identified very early in a person’s life and systematically fostered thereafter. As a consequence a high number end up as painters with extraordinary skills. Unfortunately this is largely ignored by the outside world,” says Felix Abt.

Together with the Korea Paekho Fine Arts Company in Pyongyang, Felix and his wife prepared last year the systematic launch and promotion of North Korean paintings on the world wide web and through other marketing measures.

Famous painters from North Korea as well as promising new talents, including young female painters, are now being introduced to a wider public. Abt’s website has been up and running since the beginning of this year and orders are coming from all over the world.

During his time in Pyongyang, Abt and his wife Huong had the opportunity to get acquainted not only with the country’s institutions involved in fine arts but also with numerous artists across the country.

“We learnt that the Koreans were not merely transmitting Chinese culture but also assimilating and adapting it and creating a unique culture of their own while also influencing neighbouring cultures for thousands of years,” says Abt.

But Abt knows that a good website alone is not sufficient to introduce North Korean paintings to a larger public. The paintings need to be physically closer to potential buyers.

“The Sea Festival in Nha Trang, where both Vietnamese and foreigners spend holidays and may want to shop in a relaxed atmosphere was a good opportunity for us to ‘test the market’ in Vietnam,” says Abt.

“In addition, since Nha Trang is a beautiful place with a highly promising potential for tourism, we intend to operate this business out of Nha Trang for both the domestic and international arts markets.”

Talking about their future galleries in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Abt shares that making beautiful North Korean paintings available in these cities is a good idea since there are certainly a sufficient number of people in both cities who would love to have such paintings and can also afford them.

But instead of setting up their own galleries they would prefer to build up a close partnership with a couple of existing galleries in these cities that meet their expectations. Moreover, “this business model which we start in Vietnam could then be applied to other major cities in the region such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.”

Read the Press Release below:

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Donald Kirk has a must-read article in today’s Asia Times on the subtle ways that the Kaesong Industrial Zone is undermining Pyongyang’s control over the North Korean people.  He points out that the DPRK’s verbal attacks on South Korea, combined with demands for new land, labor, and road use contracts in the Kaesong complex, are an attempt to blame South Korea when Kim Jong-il finally closes the project.

Quoting from the article:

Think Choco Pie, the thick wafer-like confection, all pastry and cream, served in the Kaesong Industrial Complex as a daily dessert for the 40,000 North Koreans who toil for 100 South Korean companies with factories in the complex.

“North Koreans love Choco Pie,” said Ha Tae-keung, president of NK Open Radio, which beams two hours of news daily into North Korea from its base in Seoul. “It’s an invasion of the stomach.”

North Korean workers, and the friends and family members for whom they save their daily treats, may salivate over Choco Pie, but it’s giving a severe stomach ache to senior officials fearful of the infiltration of South Korean culture in all corners of their Hermit Kingdom.

Choco Pie - along with other favorite South Korean cakes and candies as well as instant coffee - has come to symbolize the image of the capitalist South as a multi-tentacle beast that may be impossible to digest.

For Kim Jong-il, suffering from diabetes, recovering from a stroke and hoping to survive a few more years while grooming his neophyte youngest son, in his mid-20s, to succeed him, the best way to deal with the Kaesong complex, 60 kilometers north of Seoul and just above the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, may be to spit it out.

It’s for this reason, said Ha, that North Korea has precipitously scrapped the agreements under which South Korean companies operate in the complex, built and managed by Hyundai Asan, an offshoot of the sprawling South Korean Hyundai empire.

“He’s come to see Kaesong as a burden rather than an asset, and is inclined to shut it down,” said Ha.

While the Kim Jong il government focuses its attention on cultural infiltration from the South, there appears to be little it is doing, or can do, about cultural infiltration from China–the DPRK’s most significant trading and political partner to the north:

When it comes to South Korean cultural infiltration, however, North Korea has far more to fear from the entry of goods from China than from the Kaesong complex. South Korean DVDs and CDs, even soft-core porn movies made in the South, are now distributed surreptitiously throughout North Korea. Electronic gadgetry, MP3 and MP4 players, TV sets, radios and rice cookers, also shipped via China, are also available for those with the money to pay for them.

Read the full article here:
Pyongyang chokes on sweet capitalism
Asia Times
Donald Kirk
5/21/2009

(Big hat tip to Werner who located this information)  For some time now now, DPRK football players have been earning hard currency and training with European pro-football teams.
 
- Choe Myong Ho (in Russian: Tsoi Min Ho) is playing for the Russian Premier League’s team Krylia Sovetov Samara–which has a player from both North and South Korea (read more here)
 
- Hong Yong Jo is playing for Russia’s Rostov:

Hong plays his club football at FC Rostov in the Russian First Division, following a short spell with Serbian outfit FK Bezanija. Unlike those days at his first club April 25 of Pyongyang, for whom he scored 41 goals in four seasons, Hong has had to fight for his place in the European leagues while frequently flying back home to join the national team for their South Africa 2010 qualifiers. The time change and distance has to cover is considerably greater than those of team-mates An Yong Hak or Jong Tae Se, who ply their trade in Korea Republic and Japan respectively.

There has, in fact, been signs of fatigue: Hong was uncharacteristically unimpressive during the UAE game and he was replaced in the 71st minute. His substitute Kim Kum Il made an instant impact with a neat through ball that resulted in Korea DPR’s opening goal. But it took only four days for Hong to redeem himself, winning and converting a crucial penalty against Korea Republic (FIFA.com).

- Pak Chol Ryong and Kim Kuk Jin are playing for FC Concordia Basel (2nd Swiss division).  Read more in German here.
 
Additionally, two DPRK women football players are training with the FFC Turbine Potsdam (a leading German women’s team from Potsdam). The players, Jon Myong Hwa and Kim Un Hyang, are both from the 2008 FIFA women’s championship team.  The managers of the German football club said that they did not actively seek out the North Korean players, but rather they were approached by a North Korean who has been living in Cologne for several years who asked Potsdam to invite the women players to train with them. (Read more in German here).
 
Also, the DPRK men’s national team is attending a training camp in Switzerland right now. (Read more in German here).  Last week they played a friendly match against FC Concordia Basel (2nd division) and lost (Read more in German here)

Daily NK
Moon Sung Hwee
4/29/2001

As a result of a first-of-its-kind refusal to sign an army enrollment petition, students soon to graduate from a middle school in Hoiryeong, North Hamkyung Province have been ordered by the Party to work on collective farms for life.

Furthermore, during this process the parents of some of the students protested after the children of government officials in Hoiryeong were granted exemptions from the same order.

The incident occurred at the Osanduk Middle School in early February. The Army Mobilization Department had urged graduating middle school students to sign the “People’s Army (KPA) Enrollment Petition,” stressing that “America and South Chosun puppets are taking provocative wartime measures.”

An enrollment petition requests a signature agreeing to “voluntary enlistment in the KPA for the security of the fatherland.” In the past, North Korean authorities forcefully carried out “voluntary” petition movements for youths between ages 17 and 35; however, since the reform of its military service law in 2003 the country has had compulsory military service. Thus, in practice the voluntary enrollment petition is a purely ceremonial expression of patriotism.

A source from North Hamkyung Province explained the background to the incident:

Although signing the enrollment petition has nothing to do with enlisting in the army itself, students worried whether they would have to enter the army immediately after submitting the petition. Moreover, they had heard a rumor that if they went to the army late then they would have to suffer deadly hard military service and subsequent malnutrition.

Both official class and lower class students fought each other so as not to sign it first. Ultimately, due to this factional conflict, all the students passed the submission deadline.

Then the fights among the students continued through February 16th, the birthday of Kim Jong Il, becoming a serious political issue. Not one Osanduk Middle School graduating student had signed the petition, which had had to be completed before the Dear Leader’s birthday. The fact that the school is located in Hoiryeong, the hometown of Kim Jong Il’s mother Kim Jong Suk, also contributed to the incident’s being turned into a political one.

The incident having been reported to the Party, all officials, including teachers, the principal, vice-principal and the manager of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, were laid off for “failing to properly educate students.” Then the higher authorities, invoking the duty of correcting societal law and order, ordered the dispatch of approximately 120 students who were expected to graduate on March 8th to countryside farms. In North Korea, being dispatched to collective farms is treated as de facto banishment into exile.

In North Korea, once one does not complete his military service or is sent to a collective farm, he/she will be deprived of all opportunities for advancement, including entry into the Party or university. Further, due to the pre-modern societal system which considers one’s family background in all things, the advancement of family members and children are also affected.

With the incident growing out of control, the parents in the official class objected. In particular, at the time of Kim Jong Il’s visit to Hoiryeong on February 24th, one Mr. Han, the manager of the Hoiryeong Basic Food Factory who was accompanying the General, requested that his son be removed from the list of banished students and allowed into the KPA. In North Korea, people who have met Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il are entitled to a “special reception” and are eligible for all kinds of societal privileges.

Meanwhile, other officials mobilized networks of relatives residing in Pyongyang and/or offered bribes to help their children. Ultimately, the Party in Pyongyang absolved eight students of responsibility and gave consent for them to enter the KPA.

Subsequently, the parents of those students who remained destined for collective farms immediately went to the Party in Hoiryeong and began protesting.

The source explained, “Recently in Hoiryeong people have been buzzing about this issue. They have been saying with sarcastic pessimism, ‘It is better that those who are fed by the regime go to the Army. Our children from no-good family backgrounds only go to the Construction Corps.’” The Construction Corps is known to be a hard military service assignment.

He also added, “With negative sentiment rising, the following decrees have been issued by the Party of Hoiryeong, ‘Strengthen ideological reeducation projects through the People’s Unit and Union of Democratic Women meetings’ and ‘Rein in your tongue to stop the spread of groundless rumors.’”

Meanwhile, the source also wryly noted, “While parents have tried to get their children excused by doing the rounds of officials, the students who received the banishment have been rejoicing, saying, ‘We thank the General for allowing us not to go to the Army.’”

He concluded in exasperation, “In the past, one who was banished to a collective farm could not even raise his head in public, but the graduating students from Osanduk Middle School have been acting as if they are generals returning from a victorious campaign.”

According to the source, the mentality of the younger generation in North Korea is that instead of wasting away for ten years in the Army, they would rather make money. Then, they can get away from the collective farm with the money they earn during that time.”

The Art Newspaper  published an interesting piece on how artists are trained and art is produced in the DPRK.

On artistic training:

All DPRK artists are members of state-run studio complexes where the art is actually created, and every artist has a formal ranking. These start at level C, move up through B and A, followed by “Merited Artists”, then “People’s Artist”. There are around 50 “Merited Artists” still working today and perhaps 20 “People’s Artists”, the best known being Son U Yong, Kim Chun Jon, Jong Chang Mo, Li Chang and Li Gyong Nam. Almost all artists working in oil and brush-and-ink are men but there are exceptions—for example Kim Song Hui, well known for her brush-and-ink work, is also a People’s Artist. There is also the Kim Il Sung Prize but artists normally have to be at least over 50 to receive this highest accolade, the most famous recipient being Jong Yong Man.

The top art institute is the Pyongyang University of Fine Art with various sections: brush-and-ink, oil, sculpture, ceramics, mural painting and industrial arts. Young artists are selected from around the country and if they are judged sufficiently skilled they will study here. Pyongyang University requires a minimum of five years study: at the moment there are 7-10 students studying oil painting and around 20 studying Korean brush-and-ink painting. In total there are around 150 students a year in the fine art department. Students enjoy class outings to local factories and much time is devoted to object and life drawing although not with nude models but, for example, girls in swimming costumes.

After finishing university the students are selected by various art studios—the Paekho or Central Art Studio, the Songhwa established in 1997 for retired artists, and the most active studio-compound, the Mansudae in Pyongyang.

On artistic style:

The art itself looks like classic Social Realist propaganda, that Beaux Arts technical tradition received through Russia, maintained by the Soviet Union and now, with the transformation of China, only being practised in North Korea, unchanged for more than 50 years. Abstract painting does not exist as it is deemed bourgeois and anti-revolutionary, and if some representational art can be purely aesthetic without political overtones, many landscapes do portray places of the revolution or of political significance.

Obedience to the ideology and excellence in its clear communication to others are what matter rather than any individual glory. This ensures an anonymity to much DPRK production that only its cognoscenti can penetrate. Experts can not only assign an artist’s name to a work, they can also determine whether it is an “original” or one of endless “copies” of an image.

Ever since the founding of the state in 1948, certain themes have maintained their place in the officially approved iconography of the “Fatherland” and it is hard to establish which artist first produced a specific image and when. These same images can be reproduced countless times over the decades. Thus much detective work is required to trace the origin of an image, the only real source being the annual “Yearbook” cataloguing official production.

As [Nick] Bonner explains: “The skill level is very high in academic drawing and painting, but the production is massive and it’s hard to find ‘pure’ pieces, you have to know the provenance or where things were first found.” Indeed, even the museums display copies, ostensibly to “preserve” the quality of the originals kept in storage.

More information on the Mansudae Art Company:

Here visitors, especially foreign tourists, are welcome to see the artists working in their small studios, watch the instructional video on the operation of the company, and buy some work from the large gift shop. Prices at the very top end for a “People’s Artist” can reach as high as €15,000, the favoured currency for all foreign transactions.

Woodblocks are a North Korean speciality, though nowadays they have been almost entirely replaced by lino prints with an attractive rich ink finish. The first ever exhibition of such prints in the United States, loaned from Bonner’s collection, opened last year at New York’s Korea Society, which is currently touring through the country. Initial editions are often very small, less than ten, but if the image proves popular the lino is either re-cut by the same artist or by a “copy” artist and signed by him.

At Mansudae there are also small-scale ceramic sculptures available, naturally of a propagandist nature, as well as more classical ceramics. There is even a startlingly realistic sculpture, reminiscent of Duane Hanson, of North Korea’s most famous ceramicist Uchi Soun (1919-2003) and examples of his widely-exhibited work for as much as €10,000 a pot. There are also striking large-scale figurative watercolours on paper and the highest-quality work, local ink paintings called “Chosonhwa”, some of which will be “thematic art” on revolutionary themes, as each artist will produce at least one a year for the state to show his support for the country. Mansudae employs some 150 of these ink-artists, compared with perhaps 60 oil painters. With some 1,000 members Mansudae produces at least 4,000 top level original works a year, though it also has a factory-style section producing copies for western hotels. Employees, who work a five day eight-hour week, are paid, dependent on level, at a similar rate to the national average, €35 a month for a worker and €70 for a technician.

More information on art in the DPRK: 

1. The Paekho Art Studio has partnered with Felix Abt to sell their art internationally.  Their web page is here.   The Mansudae Art Studio also launched a web page (click here).

2. Nick Bonner has a huge collection of North Korean art.  I have seen quite a bit of it, and it is impressive.  He also sells North Korean art through the Pyongyang Art Studio.

3. There are a couple of books on North Korean Art.  They are very different: North Korean Posters: The David Heather Collection and Art Under Control in North Korea.

4. (h/t Werner) The Mansudae Overseas Development Group, which has been building monuments and buildings across the developing world (mostly in Africa) is part of the Mansudae Art Studio.  

Read more below:
Inside the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea
The Art newspaper
Adrian Dannatt
3/18/2009

I was looking at the Koryo Tours web page and found the following information on North Korea’s revolutionary operas:

In the DPRK there are five revolutionary operas, all created in the early 1970s, which have been termed in North Korea as ‘immortal classics’.  In order of production date these are; Sea of Blood, The Flower Girl, A True Daughter of the Party, Tell O’ the Forest! and The Song of Mt. Kumgang. These operas are still performed to this day and on the occasions that performances take place it is even possible for tourists to attend the shows, the performing language is of course Korean but when foreigners are in attendance English language supertitles are beamed onto a wall beside the stage so that the narrative can be followed by visitors. All operas are full-scale, large cast efforts with amazingly high production values and these 5 shows have sustained their popularity over the decades. All of them of course contain strong political messages that reflect the issues concerning the country at the time of their writing up until the present day and people of all ages attend the shows frequently. For complete information on what comprises and constitutes a Revolutionary Opera and what characteristics and values it must have then there is only one book to read; On the Art of Opera by Kim Jong Il.

I have posted descriptions of the five operas below (each also from the Koryo Tours web page):

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UPDATE: Here is a photo of the fireworks show. 

April 15 is the biggest holiday in North Korea–it is Kim Il sung’s birthday.  I thought this would be a good opportunity to post some good old fashioned communist propaganda which I found on the Korean Friendship Association web page.  

The film is called Always Together, and it is in Russian, which gives it that socialist je ne sais qua.  Another important thing to note is that although the film appears to be about Kim Il sung it is really about Kim Jong il and how is is the legitimate successor to his father. 

Those interested in North Korean propaganda will be surprised to see how many classic propaganda images are taken from this video.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.