North Korean Economy Watch

Choson Ilbo (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
8/30/2007

Three South Korean terrestrial TV stations agreed in July to pay tens of millions to North Korea annually for footage from North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station. An SBS executive said South Korean TV stations have used TV pictures aired by KCBS for free, but in July, the Korean Foundation for South-North Economic and Cultural Cooperation, as a proxy of the North Korean TV station, concluded negotiations with three TV stations whereby SBS will pay about W20 million every year to KCBS through the foundation. MBC will pay slightly more than that, and KBS will pay about W30 million.

The foundation, chaired by United New Democratic Party member Im Jong-seok, was established in 2004. It held talks with the three terrestrial networks for a year and a half. In the talks, the three argued it was unreasonable for South Korean TV stations to pay for North Korean footage in programs that aim at promoting mutual understanding, and they generally rejected the idea of unilaterally paying North Korea when the North does not pay South Korean broadcasters for footage.

Joong Ang Daily
Jin Se-keun
8/27/2007

A U.S. orchestra may visit North Korea while Pyongyang sends its own orchestra to the United States, an official of a Hong Kong-based company said yesterday.

Bae Kyeong-hwan, vice president of Daepung Investment Group, told the JoongAng Ilbo that his company has been authorized by the North’s Culture Minister, Kang Neung-su, to schedule and plan the events.

“We contacted the New York Philharmonic orchestra first, but if its schedule does not permit, the Boston Philharmonic or the Philadelphia Philharmonic could be an option,” Bae said.

The New York Philharmonic earlier confirmed that it has been invited to visit North Korea, but has not yet made an official decision.

After a performance in Pyongyang, the U.S. orchestra may return via South Korea, crossing the inter-Korean border at Panmunjeom Village, Bae said.

The North’s National Symphony Orchestra will then return the visit by going to the United States for a performance, according to Bae.

He claimed that negotiations for these reciprocal visits have been worked out by Christopher Hill, Washington’s chief negotiator to the six-party talks, and his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-gwan.  

North invites the New York Philharmonic
Joong Ang Daily
Brian Lee
8/16/2007

It’s up to the New York Philharmonic orchestra to decide whether it will accept an invitation to perform in North Korea, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Tuesday.

“We’ll consider it,” Eric Latzky, the orchestra’s director of public relations, told Agence France Press. “We received an invitation to perform in Pyongyang through an independent representative on behalf of the ministry of culture of North Korea.”

Latzky said the request, which had just been received, was “unusual” and that the orchestra would consult with Washington before making any decision. Furthermore, Latzky said, any such visit would come as part of a tour in the region.

The Philharmonic is scheduled to play in China in February 2008.

When asked whether such a visit was feasible, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, “I think it’d be fully up to them whether or not they accept such an invitation. As for the details of being able to go there and whether there’s any compensation, that sort of thing, those are probably technical details.”

Financial sanctions and restrictions regarding arms, missile and nuclear technology are in place under a United Nations resolution adopted last year in the aftermath of a nuclear test by the North, but there are no restrictions on travel to the North by ordinary U.S. citizens.

But despite the symbolic meaning the orchestra’s visit could have, McCormack said he suspected it would only play for Pyongyang’s elite. “Whether or not your average North Korean gets an invitation if the New York Philharmonic’s in Pyongyang, I have my doubts about that.”

North Korea interested in inviting New York Philharmonic
Korea Herald
8/13/2007

North Korea has shown interest in inviting the New York Philharmonic to perform in its capital, Pyongyang, apparently as part of its efforts to improve ties with the United States, sources here said Sunday, according to Yonhap News Agency.

During a meeting of six-party nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing in July, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, and proposed that the two countries start civilian exchanges as part of confidence-building measures, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kim responded positively, saying that his government has already thought about such exchanges and would be interested in inviting the New York Philharmonic, according to the sources.

Eric Latzky, spokesman for the New York-based philharmonic, told Yonhap News Agency that he was unaware of any invitation by the North but said discussions were under way with South Korea for a performance tour there.

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
8/15/2007

The Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League magazine, “Youth Vanguard” maintained, “Every household should plant at least five stumps of fruit trees, according to Kim Jong Il’s command. A beautiful landscape made up of persimmon, apple, and pear orchards and houses peace is unfolding in the fatherland.”

Youth Vanguard said on the 5th,”Every home should plant fruit trees. The great General has ordered that each farm plant over five stumps of fruit trees and he has now ordered that agricultural households start a fruit tree planting movement.”

Further, it stressed, “It is the esteemed General’s heart’s desire and the Father’s, who has sacrificed his entire life to provide a life for us citizens, noble will to help expand persimmon or pear houses in every village.”

Also, it said, “The esteemed General has offered his whole heart and energy to nourish this lofty goal into a reality,” and introduced the following anecdote.

It was a day in Juche 87 (1998), January.

The esteemed General, who has provided high-powered leadership in several areas of business through strenuous efforts while fighting the strong snowstorm in the northern region, told a person in charge of a district that he did well in ceaselessly managing the area, but a fruit-tree planting movement should take place in every household.

After saying so, he ordered the construction of 55 homes and to plant fruit trees in every home. At that moment, the worker could not stop his passions from flowing.

The 55 homes were cozy homes, which supported the teaching of the esteemed General, and were built next to a mid-size powerplant.

The homes were newly built and since this is the coldest season of winter, the home owners had not yet thought about how to decorate the surroundings.

The worker in charge had felt touched by the warm grace of the esteemed General who let us civilians to live in such nice houses and even taught us about planting fruit trees, so that we could enjoy delicious fruit and perspire under scenic fruit trees.
The esteemed General, while looking at the workers, re-emphasized that every home should plant fruit trees this spring.

The Youth Vanguard relayed, “The children who are starting new lives in order to observe the will of the Party have started a new custom of sending and receiving young fruit tree plants whenever given the chance.”

Regarding this, North Korean defector Lee Min Bok, whose background is the Academy of Science for Agriculture, said, “In 1978, an order also came down to plant five stumps of fruit trees in domestic homes.”

Lee said, “The party said to plant five stumps of fruit trees, so I planted them diligently, but after a little while, my mother had chopped down all of the trees. When the trees bear fruit, it is easy to be stolen, so my mother exhibited wisdom.” Other houses also cut them away before the trees started bearing fruit.

He reminisced, “We could not even eat corn and life was so hard, so how people could plant trees and eat fruit from them? They even told us not to plant corn, but I planted them anyway in secrecy.”

One defector said, “The North Korean authorities, under the pretext of dissolving the food shortage, created plots of grass all over the country and made us breed goats and rabbits. They also made us pursue a fish-farming business.”

He pointed out, “Who would create a pasture for raising goats in a matter of few years while he or she is in the midst of starvation? Would goats provide several days worth of food? If there is available land, our situation dictates that we plant an additional row of corn.”

Korea Times
Lee Hwan-hee
8/8/2007

British film director Daniel Gordon will visit Korea Aug. 12-14 to promote the release of his documentary “Crossing the Line” (2006), a film about James Joseph Dresnok, one of the four American soldiers who defected to North Korea during 1960s and the only one who is still living there.

The other three are Charles Robert Jenkins, who made the news in 2004 by turning himself in to the U. S. Army in Japan to face desertion charges, and Larry Allan Abshier and Jerry Wayne Parrish, both deceased.

The film is Gordon’s third documentary on North Korea; the previous ones are “The Game Of Their Lives” (2002), about the North Korean national football team who defeated Italy to advance to the quarterfinals of the 1966 World Cup, and “A State Of Mind” (2004), about two North Korean child gymnasts participating in the “Pyongyang mass games.”

Dresnok and the filmmaker were interviewed by the CBS News Program “60 Minutes” last January and Dresnok told the program, “I really feel at home” in North Korea, and said “I wouldn’t trade it for nothing,” in contrast to Jenkins who likened his stay in North Korea as an extended prison sentence. Jenkins penned a memoir “To Tell the Truth” in Japan, the home country of his wife, in 2005 (translated into Korean the following year).

Four years after his defection in 1962, Dresnok, and the other Americans, sought asylum in the Soviet embassy, unable to endure the hardships of living in North Korea, but the Soviets handed them back to the North Koreans, and Dresnok eventually adjusted, relatively speaking, to North Korean life. He found fame by starring in several North Korean propaganda films, playing villainous Americans. He also translated some of Kim Il-Sung’s writings into English.

He has been married three times; twice in North Korea, to an Eastern European woman, and the daughter of a Korean woman and an African diplomat; and has three children. His eldest son, James, considers himself a Korean.

Gordon will attend a screening and have a question and answer session with audience members during his visit. The film was shown at the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival, as well as the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
8/6/2007

Frequently in the last couple years, it’s been said within North Korea and among defectors that “North Korea has changed a lot.”

North Korean citizens say, “North Korea is not in the same situation as it was in 10 years ago. The biggest difference is that nowadays, people will do whatever it takes to make money. Also, they confidently raise their opinions to the authorities.”

It is hard to find merchants being called out as “opportunist factions.” It’s also different than the mid-90s when people would sell whatever they could. The market is specializing in items and broadening as well. The market is taking its form.

North Korean authorities have also expanded micro-level autonomous management systems to factory enterprises as they are unable to give out rations.

Of course there are people who make ends meet but most people are merchants. It is hard to find people who work as “servants” or housemaids or people who starve to death. They unanimously say, “It is enough to suffer once. Even cows don’t fall into pits that they’ve fell into once.” This is to say that there will no longer be horrific incidents such as the Great Famine of the mid-90s.

We listened to five defectors who recently entered South Korea on changes in the situation of North Korean residents.

I’m the one who farmed

“I’m the one who farmed. Why should I hand it over to the government?” Defector Kim Kyung Sik [pseudonym] from Onsung, South Hamkyung Province, who came to South Korea in March, 2007 says, “There was an incident with a riot as laborers collectively protested the increase of land tax in 2006.”

After the measures taken on July 1st, 2002, North Korea had laborers other than farmers farm on designated areas according to household and expanded the policy of submitting a portion of the harvest to the government.

Concerned that this measure would be seen as a revolutionary liberal step, North Korea assigned the land according to company title and gave a square around 992 meters to each laborer in the company.

Kim said, “As people farmed on their own land, laborers would work wholeheartedly and there would not even be a patch of grass on the farming land. Because people would find some way to get fertilizer to spread, the size of the fruits was also different.”

He said, “As it became fall, the Management Committee (collective farm’s Leading Group) and the collective farm who had designated the land gave orders to hold off on the fall [harvest] until the standards of grain exchange came from above. Along with this an incident occurred and tens of laborers protested.”

Choi, a woman from the same region said, “As the laborers of Onsung Mine were told to submit 10% of the yield to the government, laborers strongly opposed saying ‘Who had farmed this?’ ‘Why should we hand it over to the government?’ It happened in 2003.”

Accordingly she said, “After dividing the land to the laborers, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of people starving. It will be hard to reverse such tide of change.”

Increase of “Audio-Video Places”

Recently in large cities of North Korea, places to screen multimedia CDs or videos called “Audio-Video Places” – comparable to video rooms in South Korea – have increased. As it is set in a square 50 meters that is decorated like a small theater and plays movies, citizens of the region have been reacting positively.

Defector Suh Kang Chul [pseudonym] from North Hamkyung Province Chongjin who had defected July 2006 said, “There are three screening rooms around the Chongjin Train Station. It is 50 won to see a film. You must watch 2-3 films at once to be satisfied. This is not a small amount of money.”

Screening rooms of North Korea renovate the interior of a building and with the goal to screen “North Korean or Russian films,” they receive the government’s approval. However, most play Chinese or Hong Kong movies. As long as they don’t play South Korean, American, Japanese or pornographic films, there are no severe punishments. The reason people go to screening rooms is because movies are screened for 24 hours without a power outage.

Suh said, “If there is a power outage, the store owner hurries to change to a car battery to play the film. The films people like are Bruce Lee’s “The Big Boss” (1971) and “Fists of Fury” (1972) or Jet Li’s action films.”

Foreign multimedia have been a strong catalyst to change the thoughts of North Koreans. Even Korean dramas that have been copied on to CDs have secretly spread the “Korean Wave” in North Korea. Bae Yong Joon of “Winter Sonata” is recognized as a famous actor.

Many years ago, the “109 Inspection Team” (Bureau to oversee VCDs and videos) was established to regulate illegal screenings and even on the 3rd, in the name of the People’s security, there was an order that “Public officials, institutions, entities and groups must rid all karaoke rooms, movie rooms, computer rooms that were established without the government’s approval for the purpose of making money.”

However, Kim says, “as the ratings of Korean dramas rise, it becomes a situation that cannot be controlled.” Thus, most of the viewers are tied to the Security Agency or an acquaintance of the People’s Safety Agency that it will not be easy to eradicate this problem.

North Korean authorities have made declarations on the “Exposure of Liberalist Corrupt Culture” but in reality the regulating institutions have stopped at indirect responses.

In a phone conversation with a reporter on the 2nd, an internal North Korean news source also said, “It is planned that the Great North Korean Defamatory Broadcasting that was based around the Kaesung area will now move to the Tumen River area. People have been saying that there have been many cases where people are tricked into believing the broadcasting and betraying the country or watching Korean films to get fantasies and crossing the border, but such acts will be severely punished.

Daily NK
Kim Song A
8/2/2007

Kim Jong Il Enthralled by the Desire to Produce International Films

A memoir of late film director Shin Sang Ok titled, “I was a film” (Randomhouse) was published. Shin Sang Ok had lived quite the life having been kidnapped to North Korea with his wife Choi Eun Hee – the most famous South Korean actress of the 1970s – and later escaping.

As this book was written by Director Shin himself as an autobiography, he had finished writing in 2001 but the publication was delayed as he passed away due to the worsening of his illness. Only after a year had passed did his wife Choi Eun Hee organize the late director’s manuscript and laid it out for the world.

In the book remains the untouched film life of Director Shin that starts from his entrance into the film industry and glory days to his kidnapping and escape from North Korea and finally his advancement into Hollywood.

Shin captured the reader’s attention as he recounted various episodes of his times in North Korea after his kidnapping in 1978. He was captured this very year after inquiring about the whereabouts of his wife Choi Eun Hee who had been kidnapped to North Korea first.

One incident when he was shooting his second film, “Tale of an Escape” in North Korea. Director Shin needed a scene with a train explosion so he submitted a proposal to Kim Jong Il. He writes, “Thinking I had nothing to lose, I said I wanted to explode a real train to enhance the movie’s special effects. In response, the approval came immediately.” He recalls, “This is only possible in North Korea. It’s the first time I experienced a film shoot so spectacular.”

Such consideration was only possible because Kim Jong Il was a crazed movie fanatic. Shin claims he was quite surprised to see that there was about 15,000 films from around the world stored in a movie storage area that is pretty much Kim Jong Il’s personal property.

Shin said, “Kim Jong Il uses films for a political agenda but is also enthralled by the desire to veer off from conventional mannerisms to create a further international film of higher quality. One way to overcome such agony and dilemma was to kidnap us two.”

To Kim Jong Il, Shin even made quite dangerous remarks such as advising him to “Free oneself from worshiping individuals.” Shin claimed that the obstacle to advancing North Korean films was “Kim Il Sung instruction” and said “if [Kim Jong Il] rid the practice of worshiping individuals, the film industry will revive and the country itself will also advance.”

He also said that for the first time in a North Korean film, he inserted a caption to introduce the cast and staff and in place of the Kim Il Sung instruction, he inserted a passage from the introduction to “Les Miserables”. He claims he did not bind himself to the instruction of Kim Jong Il.

In 1983, Kim Jong Il established a film production company named “Shin Film” with Director Shin’s name. Shin says, “What if Kim Jong Il required me to make a political propaganda film for idolatry? What would I have done? In that sense, I have a unique sentiment towards Kim Jong Il.”

The book also mentions an episode about when Shin was in North Korea remembering a scene from a movie he directed while he was in South Korea. He thought that this scene was a sight for sore eyes as he secretly wrote to his brother in South Korea and asked him to burn the original copy.

In the preface he self evaluates himself saying, “With the tragic reality that not many veteran actors remain, I felt that someone needed to start archiving. Just like the title, the highs and lows of life started to cross and I lived a path that was even more dramatic than the movies I directed.”

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
8/1/2007

INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

Following two days of talks between economic representatives of the two Koreas at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, South Korea announced on July 7 that it would begin shipping raw materials to the North in exchange for DPRK natural resources. South Korea shipped 800,000 USD of polyester fabric on July 25, and is set to send the rest of the materials by the end of November. North Korea accepted South Korean prices for the goods, and will pay transportation, cargo working, and demurrage costs, as well. South Korea will pay for shipping, insurance, and the use of port facilities. On 28 July, a South Korean delegation left for the North in order to conduct on-site surveys of three zinc and magnesite mines. The team will spend two weeks in North Korea.

It was reported on 17 July that North Korea proposed a joint fishing zone north of the ‘Northern Limit Line’ dividing North and South territorial waters to the west of the peninsula. Seoul turned down the offer.

Inter-Korean military talks broke down early on 26 July after only three days of negotiations as North Korea insisted on the redrawing of the Northern Limit Line.

North Korea demanded on 27 July that workers in the Kaesong Industrial Complex be given a 15 percent pay raise. The North Korean workers will not work overtime, weekends or holidays beginning in August unless the raise is granted.

It was reported by the Korea International Trade Association on 26 July that inter-Korean trade was up 28.6 percent in the first six months of 2007, totaling 720 million USD.

RUSSIA-DPRK INVESTMENT

It was reported on 19 July that Russia and North Korea have agreed to connect Khasan and Najin by rail, enlisting investment from Russian oil companies interested in an inactive refinery at Najin Port capable of processing up to 120,000 barrels per day. The project is estimated to cost over two billion USD.

MONGOLIA-DPRK RELATIONS

During a four-day visit to Mongolia by Kim Yong-nam beginning on 20 July, the two countries signed protocols on cooperation on health and science, trade and sea transport, and labor exchange issues. This follows on the heals of an agreement to allow South Korean trains to travel through North Korean territory on to Mongolia in route to Russia and Europe.

JAPAN-DPRK PROPAGANDA

Japan took one step further to recover abductees in North Korea this month when the government began broadcasting propaganda into the DPRK intended for Japanese citizens. The broadcasts are made in Korean and Japanese (30 minutes each) daily, and updated once per week.

U.S.-DPRK PEACE PROSPECTS

U.S. Ambassador to the ROK Alexander Vershbow stated that Washington was prepared to negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula by the end of the year if North Korea were to completely abandon its nuclear ambitions.

EGYPT-DPRK INVESTMENT

The Egyptian company Orascom Construction Industries announced a 115 million USD deal with North Korea’s state-owned Pyongyang Myongdang Trading Corporation to purchase a 50 percent state in Sangwon Cement. To put this in perspective, the deal in worth more than four times the amount of frozen DPRK funds that had caused six-party talks to break down and delayed the implementation of the February 13 agreement.

NORTH KOREAN SOCIETY

The Economist reported on 7 July that, according to foreigners living in the North’s capital, concern for petty law appears to be weakening. Citizens are reportedly smoking in smoke-free zones, sitting on escalator rails, and even blocking traffic by selling wares on the streets.

It was reported on July 11 that a letter sent earlier in the year by the North Korean Red Cross indicated severe shortages of medical supplies. The letter stated that North Korea would accept any medicine, even if it was past expiration, and accept all consequences for any problems that arose from using outdated supplies. The (South) Korea Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association had no choice but to reject the request.

Events were held on July 11 in North Korea in order to promote women’s health and well-being issues. Marking World Population Day, a North Korean official stated that the DPRK has cooperated with the UN Population Fund since 1986, and is now in the fourth phase of cooperation.

Seeing entertainment venues as a “threat to society”, North Korean security forces have been implementing a shutdown of karaoke bars and Internet cafes. These venues mainly cater to traders in the northern regions of the country.

It was reported on July 13 that construction of North Korea’s first all-English language university was nearing completion. The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, funded largely by ROK and U.S. Christian evangelical groups, will hold 2600 students and offer undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in business administration, information technology, and agriculture.

Local elections were held on 29 July for DPRK provincial, city, and country People’s Assemblies. 100 percent of 27,390 candidates were approved with a 99.82 percent turnout reported.

Asia Times
Michael Rank
8/1/2007

Above the chic shops and arcades of London’s Pall Mall, the flag of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea wafts incongruously in the wind. Look inside, and portraits of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader stare out at you.

No, the North Korean army hasn’t marched across the River Thames, but Pyongyang has established a small cultural enclave in London’s West End in the form of the first major exhibition of North Korean art in the Western world.

Curator David Heather says he first got the idea after meeting a North Korean painter at an art exhibition in Zimbabwe in 2001. “I got chatting with Mr Pak and he invited me to Pyongyang,” said Heather, making it all sound surprisingly straightforward. But the 45-year-old financier admits that mounting the exhibition was “quite a challenge … very time-consuming” and also admits that he has no great knowledge of art or the international art market.

He describes the surprisingly extensive exhibition of about 70 artworks as “an opportunity for people to see art from what is a secretive and protective society at first hand”.

The show ranges from apolitical landscapes and ceramics to a vast, blatantly propagandistic battle scene celebrating the routing of the US Army in the Korean War, as well as hand-painted posters on such unexpectedly diverse themes as “international hero” Che Guevara and “say no to sexual slavery in the 21st century”. This is a clear reference to Korean and Chinese “comfort women” who were forced into prostitution to serve Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Heather brought over three of the artists to London for the opening of the exhibition, including Pak Hyo-song, whom he had met in Zimbabwe and who has two dramatic – if highly un-North Korean – wildlife paintings of zebras and lions on show.

Pak spent five years in Zimbabwe as representative of the Mansudae Art Studio, North Korea’s leading group of official artists, whose activities include designing monuments and propaganda posters on behalf of foreign, mainly African, governments.

Pak’s dramatic if not entirely lifelike oil paintings seem to have been influenced by the well-known British African wildlife artist David Shepherd, and sure enough, the 47-year-old “Merited Artist” told Asia Times Online at the opening party that he was a great fan of Shepherd.

He is undoubtedly the only North Korean artist to have had a one-man show in Europe, after Heather mounted an exhibition of 15 of his paintings in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2005.

The London opening featured a remarkable mix of people. It was was a rare chance for the three North Korean artists and normally elusive members of the North Korean Embassy in London to mix socially with South Korean diplomats, art collectors and business people as well as with British Foreign Office officials, members of Britain’s tiny pro-Pyongyang New Communist Party, and at least one aging Moonie.

Heather said he had hopes of bringing the show to Paris, Berlin and even New York, and that only a few days after the opening he had already sold 50 posters at 250-300 pounds sterling (US$500-600) each, as well as two large paintings priced at several thousand pounds.

The sum of 300 pounds may sound like a lot for a none too subtle North Korean poster by an anonymous artist, but propaganda art is highly fashionable nowadays, with Chinese posters from the 1960s and 1970s fetching hundreds of dollars in London and New York. Given that the North Korean posters are hand-painted while the Chinese pictures are mass-produced prints that originally cost a few cents, the North Korean versions may turn out to be rather smart investments.

Heather said he had “no idea” how much he had invested in the exhibition, including renting a gallery on one of London’s most expensive streets for six weeks. “I don’t do it to make or lose money,” he said, but he clearly takes pride in being “a good negotiator”.

He said the North Koreans are “very direct and straightforward” and that “they are very open to ideas”. He has visited Pyongyang just once, in 2004, and conducted most of his negotiations in Beijing. Heather said he had bought 150 artworks, which he would show in rotation. Pricing the pictures was difficult, as this was the first time North Korean works of art were being sold in the capitalist West, he noted. “It opens up a new market which wasn’t there before.”

The biggest and most expensive picture in the exhibition is called Army Song of Victory and is priced at 28,000 pounds. A collective work by seven artists, it shows a Korean People’s Army brass band celebrating as US troops flee in the Battle of Rakdong River in 1950. A spokeswoman said the gallery was considering an offer of 21,000 pounds on the opening night.

Heather said he had received “a lot of help” from the North Korean Embassy and the British Foreign Office, and quiet encouragement also from the South Korean Embassy, which was anxious to see what North Korean art was all about. He has taken the North Korean artists to the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and the historic city of Bath – despite the floods covering much of western England – and invited them to his home for a traditional British dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Heather has clearly formed an excellent rapport with the North Korean Embassy, and has even played golf with one of its diplomats on a course near London. “He’s sort of average like me. He has played on the Pyongyang golf course; it’s mainly for the elite,” Heather explained.

But holding an art exhibition is just the beginning, and Heather is now hoping to bring a 150-member North Korean orchestra over to London next year. “I’m hoping they will play in the Royal Albert Hall or Royal Festival Hall,” he said, referring to London’s two biggest concert halls.

This may not be quite as far-fetched as it sounds. Heather is working on the orchestra project with British soprano Suzannah Clarke, who has given several concerts in Pyongyang and is one of North Korea’s few foreign celebrities. Her rendition of “Danny Boy” is said to be especially popular with North Korean audiences. Given her fame and his business prowess, it’s an unlikely plan that just could come off.

Artists, Arts and Culture of North Korea runs at La Galleria, 5b Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY, until September 2.

NPR, All Things Considered (Hat Tip LDP)
7/27/2007

One of the first indications of North Korea’s interest in opening up to the West came not at a diplomatic summit, but at an international film festival. For the first time in its history, North Korea had a film screened at the Cannes film festival, held earlier this year.

Korean film scholar Souk Yong Kim says movies can open a unique window into life in the mysterious country.

What most outsiders know about North Korea is its history of human rights abuses and nuclear proliferation.

In the United States, that has made North Korea a target for satire, in movies such as Team America: World Police by the creators of Comedy Central’s South Park series.

Kim teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and studies North Korean popular culture. She says the country hasn’t been better at portraying us. Especially during the height of the Cold War, propaganda films featured brutal Americans.

One melodrama from 1966 shows a U.S. soldier coming onto a beautiful North Korean woman. When she resists his advances, he shoots her.

“It’s quite in-your-face, blunt propaganda to incite hatred of Americans,” Kim says.

The film scholar says that everything in North Korea’s state-run entertainment industry serves as propaganda.

In North Korea, film has traditionally been a cheap and easy way to spread the revolutionary message to rural peasants, and the medium is beloved by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

“He is known to be an extremely artistic person by all accounts, and he tapped into that artistic talent to really prove his filial piety for his father, Kim Il Sung,” says Souk Yong Kim.

Kim Il Sung founded the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. When he died, his son’s documentary about his funeral helped cement Kim Jong Il’s path to power. The aspiring young director showed masses of wailing citizens. Grief even overcomes the narrator.

“This is the moment when the first hereditary socialist nation is born,” Kim, the academic, says. “Now, Kim Jong Il is in charge, and he is showing this to the entire country and the world.”

But by the late 1970s, traditional propaganda films bored the man known as the “Dear Leader,” and he needed something new.

“This crazy man obsessed with film, probably a megalomaniac, went so far as to kidnap a South Korean film couple to make good communist film for him,” Kim says.

A popular South Korean actress and a leading director disappeared over the border in 1978. According to their account, they were abducted by North Korean agents and imprisoned for years in re-education camps. Then Kim Jong Il forced them to make movies. That transformed North Korean cinema.

Director Shin Sang Ok and his wife made seven movies before their dramatic escape in 1986. He made musicals that tackled new themes to North Korean films, like romantic love. He made a Godzilla-like movie that has achieved some cult status. And he supervised others that borrowed from Hong Kong action films, such as one about a North Korean Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the people.

North Korean movies have continued to evolve — albeit under the Dear Leader’s guiding hand. Film professor Kim says he “helped” with the script and production of North Korea’s entry to Cannes, The Schoolgirl’s Diary.

Kim says it’s interesting to note that the teenage girl at the heart of the film carries a Mickey Mouse backpack and sometimes uses English words while chatting with her friends.

She ascribes such influence to the pirated DVDs and other merchandise from the West and Japan that peddlers carry across the border from China, and says that this movie proves that borders are opening.

“Just the fact that they submitted The Schoolgirl’s Diary to Cannes … this year shows they are interested in joining the rest of the world,” says Souk Yong Kim.

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 07-7-23-1
7/23/2007

North Korea is calling for training for financial specialists in order to protect against the pitfalls of credit transactions and currency exchanges. In a recently acquired copy of the latest issue of the North’s economic journal, “Economy Research”(2007, no.2), ‘bank risk’, the term applied to the hazard of potential losses, was explained in detail, stating, “In order to strengthen the improvements made in foreign currency trading, an important issue is that banks, such as the Trade Bank, dealing with overseas debts identify and thoroughly resolve potential threats.”

It is especially exceptional that the North Korean journal fully introduced the bank risk involved in financial transactions within a market-based economic system. This issue also reported on the events of May 20, when movement toward a resolution to the issue of frozen DPRK accounts in the Delta Banco Asia took place.

The journal divided ‘bank risk’ into three categories, ‘finance risk’, ‘credit risk’, and ‘management risk’. Finance risk was defined as, “the risk that a variety of changes within capitalist financial markets could carry with them adverse effects”. Further on, finance risk was divided into ‘foreign exchange risk’ caused by fluctuations in exchange rates, and ‘interest risk’ driven by changing interest rates.

In addition, “Economy Research” also carried pieces on rational management of the banking management system, subjective evaluation of bank risk, and establishing a strategy for preventing bank risk. “The outcome of [strategy for] prevention of bank risk rests entirely on the quality, skill, and roles of workers responsible for bank administration.”

The journal also stressed that even though quality information resources and materials on financial data are available, “if the quality and skill of workers in the banking sector cannot be raised,” then bank risk cannot be understood, analyzed, or evaluated, and an appropriate strategy cannot be implemented. “When workers constantly improve their quality and turn their attention to preventing bank risk…then an appropriate strategy can be set up.”

In one article, training in international financial transactions was called for, with the journal printing, “Even though today’s workers know how to use modern information resources and include financial experts with foreign language skills, they need to be well versed in the changing modern banking sector and international financial transactions.” From the 2002 “Foreign Investor Banking Law’ to last year’s ‘Commercial Banking Law’, established to stimulate private-sector financial transactions, North Korea continues to tweak its financial system.