North Korean Economy Watch

Daily NK
Park Young Nam
7/14/2007

Even in North Korea, there are special schools for the gifted and talented. In particular, talented students are selected for high schools and special education. The writer also attended a special high school while in North Korea.

I enrolled at an elementary school in `92. Since 3rd I was taught separately and received special education. Under the care of my class teacher, I studied math and nature subjects in detail until 6 o’clock at night.

After completing 4 years of elementary school, I was selected as a representative for Musan and entered Chongjin No.1 High School in April `96. No. 1 high schools are special schools for the talented and are located in Pyongyang and each province.

I arrived at Chongjin No. 1 High School to find many other students as bright as me. On top of that, these students all came from good backgrounds.

Undoubtedly, I was no different. My father worked for the People’s Committee and my mother was a doctor. At the time, my family lived an abundant life and had all the necessary electrical goods such as a TV and refrigerator.

High school days, shirking going to school

Unlike average high schools, we often missed classes and went on day trips. Again, punishment is severe at average high schools but we were not treated to harsh punishment because of our respectable backgrounds. Even if you were caught drinking alcohol on the streets and taken to the police, you were let go once you informed them that you attended “Chongjin No. 1 High School.”

Despite playing like this, I studied very hard at the end of each month in order to sit for the exams. I studied 10 days prior to each exam. During the summer, I could study a lot as the days are long, however in the winter, I couldn’t study because the sun set early and there was no electricity.

The winter was the worst as there was no central heating in the dormitories. Even if you wanted to cook rice, you couldn’t. The moment you placed a heater, which was made with twisted nicrome wire, in the socket and, the dismal light only became dimmer and if you put three of these wires into the wall socket the fuse went out. In the end, I became so frustrated that I shoved a spoon into the fuse socket only to find that it didn’t black out but operated fine.

Expelled for watching a video

That’s how I spent my days at school. Then things began to go wrong from about 4th grade.

In February `99, after I had begun 4th grade and sat for an entry exam for Pyongyang No. 1 High School. I sat for the test with the desire to go to a slightly better school but it ended in failure. At the time, I fell into misery and for a while I went around playing and my grades continued to drop.

In August `99, I went to visit a friend’s home who had come from Hoiryeong with 4 other mates. He had a TV and video player in his home. To be honest, the house had been under inspection by the National Security Agency because of this, but at the time, I didn’t even consider this. We watched three videos at that friend’s home.

I watched the old South Korean drama “Men from 8 Provinces,” and other American movies, “Titantic” and “Six Days, Seven Nights.”

I was alarmed after watching “Titantic” and “Six Days, Seven Nights.” The foreign movies were really enjoyable but what clearly remains in my memory is the thrill I had from simply watching the films. We watched the complete and unabridged version of Titanic, even the scene where the two main characters have an affair in the car. As part of the audience, I found this shocking.

While watching these characters traveling freely in the movie, I thought, why can’t we travel on boats like that and why can’t we play freely like that. It was inevitable that I felt culture shock.

However we were caught and were sent to the detention centre in early October. All 4 of my friends who watched the videos were also caught and we sat in the centre for about 10 days.

I wasn’t even sure what the crime was, but I had a feeling it was because we had watched foreign movies. Whether or not it was because we were young, we were let go after a few beatings with something like a broomstick.

After returning to school, there was no reason for us to be the centre of attention. We didn’t tell anyone where we had been but I think everyone generally knew. At the same time, my grades were really low and in the end I was expelled from school.

From expulsion until arriving in South Korea

Following that incident, I went to live with relatives in Pyongyang for 1 year.

I had a business in Pyongyang. When my mother brought clothes from China, I sold them in Pyongyang. With this money, I bought rice and then made profits by acting as an intermediary and selling the rice to Musan. Compared to Pyongyang, rice was expensive in Musan and as a result, I was able to reap in a lot of profits.

However, I couldn’t continue to do this. I felt bad living with my relatives. In the end, I returned to my home in Musan.

Having returned to Musan, I began to associate with children from the wealthy class and one day heard that they traveled in and out of China and in 2001, I crossed over to China in search of a better life.

I crossed the borders, not because I was hungry or because I was in danger. I was merely worried about my uncertain future and found living in North Korea suffocating. I yearned for a more abundant life.

Currently, I am preparing to enroll at POSTECH. However, for the 5 years since my expulsion, I have not had any opportunity to study while traveling from Pyongyang to China, then Korea. Re-starting my studies is not easy. The time I lost while defecting is such a shame.

Studying is something I had forgotten for a long time. I must acclimatize myself to an education system very different to that of North Korea. Nonetheless, I believe I will be able to do well if I try very hard.

Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
7/13/2007

Over the past couple of weeks, the small community of Seoul-based Pyongyang watchers was busy discussing a minor professional sensation. The Wolgan Chungang monthly, widely known for its good insights on all things North Korean, published a lengthy transcript of a speech, allegedly delivered last December, by a high-level Central Committee official. He was obviously talking to a group of prominent academics and engineers. The official’s name is cited as Chang Yong-sun, but he seems to be a complete unknown to the North Korea experts.

The authenticity of the transcript cannot be proved beyond doubt, but the Seoul expert community tends to believe that this tape was indeed secretly recorded somewhere in Pyongyang a few months ago and then smuggled to the South.

Being a former Soviet citizen, this author is inclined to believe this view as well. The tape rings true. This is how a high-level official would talk when lecturing lower layers of elite on the current situation, and such regular lectures were typical for many communist countries.

The semi-privileged met the bigwigs to get instructions on recent events, as well as some alleged insiders’ stories and anecdotes. The semi-privileged cadres felt themselves partaking in the enigmatic world of grand politics, and also learned something about the new trends in their leadership’s thinking about the world.

Most people who deal with “Chang’s lecture” concentrate on those parts of the lengthy presentation that deal with US-North Korea relations and the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament. Indeed, such issues are treated at great length by this document. Many others pay attention to rather unfavorable depictions of the Chinese or outbursts of threats against Japan.

However, I believe that there are more important things in the transcript than merely a North Korean version of what happened during former assistant secretary of state James Kelly’s visit to Pyongyang or during the first rounds of the six-party talks. The tape allows us to have one more glimpse at the world view held by the North Korean elite or, at least, by its lower reaches.

What are the features of the world as seen from Pyongyang? First of all, the significance of North Korea is blown out of all proportion. Somebody would describe this as Pyongyang megalomania, but perhaps author Bruce Cummings found a better term when he talked about “North Korean solipsism”, an assumption that North Korea lies at the center of the world, and that the world itself surely must be aware of this.

The North Korean press now tells its readers that the major international conflict of the modern world is the ongoing struggle between US imperialism and heroic North Korea. Chang Yong-sun even told his audience that the development of North Korean missiles has produced a serious impact on the public-health issues in the US: “Nobody can intercept our missiles now. All the people in the US are aware of this.

“This is why all the people in the United States are completely allergic to missiles of our republic. Once they learn that we test-fired missiles, they become so worried about the rockets changing their directions and exploding over them and killing them, so they develop nervous diseases and nettle rash breaks out all over their bodies. This is what is happening in the United States.”

One should not feel too sorry about the bastards, however. According to the official North Korean world view, once again reiterated by Comrade Chang, the US is responsible for everything that goes badly in Korea, and the constant military threat from the warmongering Washington is the major fact of North Korean life.

The audience was reminded that in 1950 it was the Americans who attacked North Korea, bringing death and destruction to the country (this official version of 1950 events seems to be almost universally believed by North Koreans). This great crime of 1950 has not been avenged yet, Comrade Chang reminded his listeners.

Many people in the US want to believe that such hostility stemmed from President George W Bush’s policies, but Comrade Chang reminded his audience a number of times that there is no real difference between the Republicans and Democrats: both US parties are pathologically hostile to the Country of the Beloved General. The differences between them are of a purely tactical nature, Chang Yong-sun told his audience. He said Republicans rely more on brute force, while Democrats are more canny and more willing to use ideological subversion and economic pressures.

Chang Yong-sun repeated a number of times that the major threat from the US is not that of a sudden military attack. The imperialists are not that simplistic: these days their major weapon is internal subversion. He said: “Although it appears as if the Americans do good things to us, their real nature has not changed at all. Their primary objective is, from start to finish, to undermine us from within and melt us down by disarming us ideologically.”

Chang Yong-sun repeated the message that has been delivered countless times by North Korean leaders big and small: the ideological threat of the outside world constitutes a greater danger than all imaginable military threats. He alleged that the foreign enemies have designed some grand plan of subversion. Chang said specially designated think-tanks work on this issue day and night. If his fantasies are to be believed, one of such centers is somewhere in Washington and employs no fewer than 370 retired generals whose only job is to find ways to undermine North Korea from within.

Being an enthusiastic supporter of soft power, the present author knows perfectly well that there is no coordinated plan of applying soft pressure on Pyongyang. The amount of money and efforts spent on broadcasts aimed at North Korea, on support of refugee groups and other similar activities, is ridiculously small. It is a dream to have a US research center specifically dealing with North Korean issues and stuffed with even, say, five post-doctoral candidates (let alone with 370 ex-generals).

But this raises a question: If this the case, why do Pyongyang politicians keep repeating similar statements? Why do they refer to a non-existent threat? Perhaps because they know what they should be really afraid of. They know only too well how potentially precarious against such a challenge their position is, and they probably cannot even believe that their adversaries fail to appreciate the major vulnerability of Pyongyang and do nothing to exploit the related opportunities. Comrade Chang would be really surprised to learn how weak and disorganized are actual efforts of the “class enemies” in the area that he (perhaps correctly) considers decisive.

Some twists of Pyongyang’s official mindset might come as a surprise to many readers. For example, Comrade Chang found a source of great pride in the North Korean penchant for secrecy. He used one peculiar example to explain why this secretiveness is great. According to him, the Americans defeated the Iraqis because they imitated the voice of Saddam Hussein and then sent fake orders to Iraqi troops in his name.

However, as he proudly reminded everyone, Marshal Kim Jong-il had spoken in public only once, so Americans will never find enough material for their perfidious schemes. The entire secrecy is necessary to keep foreigners at a disadvantage: “A long time ago, the Great General taught us to make sure that our internal things appears to be hazy as if covered by fog when the Americans spy on us. So we have made sure that internal things of our country appear really hazy as if in a fog when our country was viewed from outside.”

It is remarkable that the country’s economic woes are explained in a novel way, which was made possible by the nuclear test. Until 2006, North Koreans were supposed to believe that the only reasons for the recent famine were huge floods that “might happen only once a century”. Now it is admitted that the government needed money for missile and nuclear development, and hence had no other choice but to sacrifice some people to save the nation.

Chang Yong-sun said: “To be frank with you, even if one sells 50 plants as large as Kim Ch’aek Steel Mill, the money is not enough to develop a missile. During the ‘arduous march’ [Pyongyang-speak for the famine of the late 1990s], if there [was] a bit of money, it had to be spent on developing missiles, even though the generals knew that factories did not work and people were starving. This is why we have survived, and were not eaten up by those bastards. Had it not been like this, the bastards would have eaten us a long time ago.”

This line of argument is psychologically more powerful than the earlier version. Nowadays, people’s suffering can be presented not as the result of some blind misfortune caused by nature, but as a part of heroic sacrifice. People died because their country was at war and needed everything to save itself from complete destruction by the brutal enemy. Their deaths were those of heroes.

Such a change of tune is indeed typical of North Korean propaganda during the past few months. However, it might have some political consequences. This propaganda line makes it more difficult to surrender nuclear weapons even if such a notion will ever be seriously entertained by Pyongyang. If North Korea chooses to give up its nuclear arsenal, these sacrifices will be rendered meaningless.

Another propaganda line is that now people should expect a certain improvement of their lot, since the major work has been done: “Now we have conducted a nuclear test and other things, so we have to improve the people’s living standards by concentrating on economic construction.”

Still, Comrade Chang does not want his audience to entertain an excessively optimistic picture of their country’s future. Improvement will be minor and, as one might guess from some other parts of the speech, is likely to be limited to, say, complete reintroduction of Kim Il-sung-era consumer standards, which were not exactly luxurious (550 grams or cereal a day, plus a few pieces of meat on special occasions, four or five times a year).

Chang Yong-sun explained that North Korean industry is surely capable of producing quality consumption goods but cannot do it, because the ever present threat of an imperialist attack deems austerity and sacrifices necessary. He also made clear that his listeners should not await serious improvement of their lot any time soon.

The statement resonates very well with what another life-long analyst of North Korean propaganda, Tatiana Gabroussenko, wrote recently: unlike earlier eras when masses were extolled to make sacrifices for the sake of some identifiable future, nowadays North Korean leaders tell their people that no significant improvement is in sight. Comrade Chang even made a joke of this: “Since the end of the Korean War, we have lived with our belts tightened … One thing I can assure you: we’ll have to live with our belts tightened until the day our country is unified. If we do not have any more holes in our belts, let us make them.”

However, the audience was reminded that in the final count it is again the foreign forces who are to be blamed for these hardships. To quote Comrade Chang once again: “It is not because we do not know how to live better that we are not well off. Who is responsible for this? The US imperialists are responsible for this. That is why we call the US imperialists our mortal enemy with whom we cannot live under the same sky!”

Most of the speech consisted of US-bashing and Japan-bashing, but what about South Korea? Here Comrade Chang used the new tactics that have become typical for North Korean propagandists since the 2002 inter-Korea summit. Brian Myers, another remarkable specialist on North Korean culture and propaganda (not quite distinguishable areas, actually), recently wrote at length about a change of tune in Pyongyang propaganda: South Korea ceased to be depicted as the living hell, the land of depravation. The new image of the South is that of the country whose population secretly (or even not so secretly) longs to join its Northern brethren in their happiness under the wise care of the Beloved General.

This society might be relatively affluent, but it is inherently corrupt and lacks integrity, so its population knows that the only way to regain the moral purity is to join the spiritually superior North Korean civilization. The only force that prevents the South from achieving such happiness is the brutal US occupation army and a tiny handful of traitors on the Central Intelligence Agency payroll, but even those perverts are losing control over South Korean society.

Sometimes Chang’s fantasies went positively wild. He said, for example: “A portrait of the General is [respectfully] placed on the wall of the Main Hall on the fourth floor at the [Seoul] Government Building. Right now!” Then the flight of fantasy goes even further: “These days, South Korean publications do not sell in South Korean society if they do not carry the images of the General … 45% of the entire population in South Korea say that in case of a war they will fight on the side of the General.”

The domestic situation did not attract much of Chang Yong-sun’s attention, but he still made some comments on these issues. He admitted that even last December, in spite of all the government’s efforts, it was impossible to provide rations for the entire population, and that most people had to rely on the market for their needs, which is not good but was unavoidable.

He also explicitly stated that growth of the markets is not compatible with the socialist system: “All the people’s talk is money and again money. Is this socialism?” It is remarkable, however, that the virtues of socialism were seldom mentioned in the speech: its rhetoric was overwhelmingly nationalistic.

Chang Yong-sun also admitted that some North Koreans are very rich, and that their fortunes are now measured as a few hundred million North Korean won (100 million won is roughly equivalent to US$50,000). He did not make a secret that under less critical conditions the government would strike these reactionary elements hard, but under the current circumstances such a radical solution is impossible because of ongoing economic difficulties.

In essence, he admitted that government is not capable of controlling society as tightly as it wishes (or as it used to in the good old days of Kim Il-sung’s ultra-Stalinist rule): “Those ideological perverts are no longer counted as our people. Why are we not able to strike [them]? We are not able to strike them because we are not able to provide rations to the entire population.”

So the picture is quite clear. North Korea as depicted by Comrade Chang is a small but proud state that lives under the constant threat of annihilation by brutal enemies, betrayed by money-hungry allies. It fights for a great goal of national unification. There are signs that this goal is getting nearer, but people should not expect too much: life will not become easy any time soon.

Compromise with enemies is impossible since they, especially the Americans, will never change their nature, will never stop dreaming about destroying the small and proud republic led by the Beloved General. However, the country has finally developed military means that make all enemies’ schemes powerless. This project required great sacrifice, but the people who died during famine were in essence soldiers: their deaths saved many more lives.

There are internal problems in this society, largely because the government lacks resources to make sure things move smoothly (and it is assumed that government should be ultimately responsible for everything). However, these problems should not distort the larger view of ongoing heroic struggle and new victories.

Dr Andrei Lankov is an associate professor in Kookmin University, Seoul, and adjunct research fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.

Korea Herald
7/12/2007

North Korea has ordered the closure of karaoke bars in an apparent attempt to stem outside influences on the isolated communist country, AP reported, quoting a South Korean civic group as saying Wednesday.

Separately, the North’s Ministry of People’s Security conducted house-to-house overnight inspections in areas near the border with China earlier this month to search for cell phones and illegal video CDs, the Good Friends aid agency said in a newsletter, according to the report.

It reported that the ministry said in a directive last week that the move against karaoke outlets was a ”mopping-up operation to prevent the ideological and cultural permeation of anti-socialism,” according to the aid group.

Violators were warned they would face punishment, including deportation to other regions within North Korea.

The group did not say how it obtained the information. Its previous reports on the North’s isolated regime have been reliable.

It was not clear how many karaoke bars the country has.

AP said officials at South Korea’s top spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, were not immediately available for comment.

Yonhap
Kim Hyun
6/26/2007

Trying to reach out the highly commercialized South Korean art world, a group of North Korean artists who defected to South Korea launched an organization Tuesday aimed at setting the stage for the communist state’s little-known style of artistry.

“However good they were in the North, they can’t show it alone in the South. They are alienated,” said Kim Yong-nam, the president of the association who was a composer in the North before he defected in 2002.

“They have no ground to stand on, so we decided to find it step-by-step,” he said.

The General Association of North Korean Defector Artists represents about 100 musicians, singers, choreographers and other artists from the North who have had few chances to share their artistic skills since they left home.

Many members were well-known in the North. Kim Young-sun, 71, one of the few surviving choreographers who trained under legendary dancer Choe Sung-hi, hoped she could transfer what she learned from her mentor to young dancers in the South. Choe, who created the first modern Korean-style choreography after studying abroad and is still revered in the South, died in a North Korean political prison camp in 1969.

“North Korean art should never be considered low, because it’s where master Choe took root,” Kim said, before presenting her artistic skills on stage at the launching ceremony at the Press Center in central Seoul.

“People in the South have such good bodies and good physical frames to dance. But they have never seen her. I hope Choe’s talent can be transferred to them and our young members (of the defectors’ association) so that they can know her not just in theory, but know her enough to take it to the world stage,” she said.

Reflecting the sense of alienation that many defectors here have, only a few South Koreans attended the launching ceremony, and legislative and government officials who were invited or sponsored the event did not appear. The participants hoped the launch could help them reach out to the unfamiliar South, even though future projects still need to be worked out.

“Today’s launch seems small now, but it will be recorded in history,” Hong Sun-gyong, a senior defector, said.

“Art in North Korea is used to maintain the dictatorial regime. In contrast, South Korean art, while it is called fine art, has been ailing with indescribable corruption and failed to contribute to the healthy development of South Korean society. We hope our organization will do something to break the dictatorship and develop healthy commercialism here,” he said.

Library of Congress John W. Cluge Center

Suk-Young Kim
June 27, 2007
12:00 noon
LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress,
10 1st Street S.E.
Washington, D.C.

This event is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

Communist regimes are often described as “drab,” but North Korea is highly fashion conscious – a place where style and politics go hand in hand. For decades, North Korea’s political leaders have been preoccupied with designing uniforms for almost every sector of society. Fashion, especially women’s fashion, is seen as a national project, meant to promote group identity and ideology. Like many authoritarian regimes, North Korean designers have been drawn to masculine, military styles that seem to embody revolutionary spirit. But women’s fashion in North Korea also openly allows for a contradictory sense of traditional femininity. This talk explores the representation of ideal body in North Korean visual media, such as theater, film, magazine illustrations, paintings and posters.

Daily NK
Kim Min Se
6/22/2007

It has been reported, colourful clothes and accessories such as gold rings are current hot trend among North Korean women, unlike their conservative dressing ritual in the past.

This transformation has been clearly revealed by Daily NK’s recent encounter with North Korea-China traders and their main importing goods for North Korea.

On the 18th, Choi Myong Hee (pseudonym), who has been trading the indispensable from Dandong, China, to North Korea, talked about this new trend in North Korea as meeting one of our reporters at some place in downtown Dandong.

Choi said “Recently white-based yellow and red floral prints have been going very well” “And also animal prints with puppies or ducks have been good,too. On the other hand, human-figured prints have not been doing well”

According to Choi, colourful looks have been the latest mode among North Korean women in big cities like Pyongyang. In particular, accessories have been a big trend.

Currently, Choi has been selling light industry goods such as clothing. However, it is accessory trading she has made a sizable profit nowadays. The accessories she has bought in Shenyang or Dalian, China at 5~8 Yuan (US$ 0.6~1) have been sold at 10~15 Yuan (US$ 1.3~2 ) in department stores and markets in Pyongyang.

Choi admitted “Accessory trading requires less cost and makes greater profit. Especially, I have never had a problem transporting them because of their efficient size.” we were told, she normally imports 10,000 various kinds of accessories to North Korea, mainly necklace and hair clips, and her major clienteles are women in Pyongyang.

Choi declared that necklaces, rings and hair clips have become common accessories for most of North Korean women. In fact, she has been trading accessories quite a few times on the sly.

“Still, necklaces and bracelets with religious symbols such as a cross or charms are prohibited” she remarked. In addition “Too much dazzling or abnormal looking necklaces are also forbidden.. So, it is crucial to import most favored design and colour.”

It is considered this radical change of North Korean women has resulted from increasing flexibility of the population because of the stimulated market as trading has been the only way to provide maintenance due to the fall of rationing system.

Besides, the influence from Chinese accessory fashion is observed to be one of the major factors as growing numbers of North Koreans have been visiting China.

Moreover, this changing trend of North Korean women, who have begun to dress up with colourful clothes and accessories, is perceived as a reflection on women’s natural desire, admiration on beauty.

Daily NK
Kim Min Se
6/20/2007

It’s been reported South Korean English dictionaries have been sold almost double the market price in major North Korean cities like Shinuiju as North Korea – China trade invigorates and greater learning of Chinese and English

”Mt. Baikdu Store” has been in business in Dandung, China targeting North Korean merchants and North Korea officials their main customers, have been selling “Essence Korean-English Dictionary” published in South Korea by Minjungseorim at 420 Yuan (US$55). The same dictionary sells around at 37 dollars in South Korea.

North Korean merchants are purchasing these dictionaries by order directly from upper class North Koreans. The dictionary mentioned above has traded at 210,000 North Korean won (approx. US$69).

The proprietor of Mt. Baikdu Store said “Among South Korean dictionaries, Essence Korean-English Dictionary, 2005 special edition, published by Minjungseorim, has been a bestseller.” “They are 2 or 3 times more expensive than Chinese counterparts but North Koreans are very keen on them for their well-written layout.”

”Dictionaries published in South Korea have gained popularity among the North Koreans for they are well –written so that anyone could study easily. In particular, upper-class parents have been throwing money around to educate their children.”

Park Myong Cheol (pseudonym), a North Korean, engaged in North Korea–China trade stated “Recently Pyongyang and Shinuiju have seen a sizzle for learning English and Chinese.”

Park reasoned that the overwhelming trend has been derived from recent stimulation on North Korea–China trade. Accordingly, he specified that many have noticed the highly-required needs of language skill for overseas trade and employment.

Besides, increasing popularization of computer is one of the factors. Learning English has been considered a must to gain computing skills for technical terms which contain English.

Park admitted “In the past, it caused a big trouble reading South Korean publications. However, this has not been a problem any more just for studying material like a dictionary. It was out of discussion before.”

According to him, currently an increasing number of the Chinese, who have been preparing North Korea-China joint ventures in Pyongyang and Shinuiju, have hired the North Korean as a translator.

Chinese employers prefer local employment for bringing Chinese translator over cost fortune because of the expense covering entrance and staying. In addition, it requires complicated document procedure. For example, it cost 300 Yuan (US$43) per day excluding accommodation and meals.

Park reported that it is natural for North Korean young adults, fluent at foreign language, to eager to be a translator of Chinese businessmen in the rise of unemployment in North Korea.

Evidently, it is observed that upper-class North Koreans have devoted to educate their children hiring private English tutors with dictionaries from South Korea. Moreover, this craze has been interpreted as a display of the people’s desire on opening of North Korea.

Asia Times
John Feffer
6/15/2007

The North Korean film projectionist is thinking back on her earlier life. When she was younger, she tells the camera, she dreamed of acting. She wanted to play a heroic role on the screen. Her eyes take on a wistful look. And there is a hint of pain in her voice. In any other country, this would be an ordinary show of emotion. In North Korea, however, the ordinary is extraordinary, for outsiders catch a glimpse of it so very rarely.

The North Korean woman, Han Yong-sil, is one of four film projectionists featured in a new documentary, Comrades in Dreams. Directed by Ulli Gaulke, a young German filmmaker, the documentary ties together the lives of cinema lovers from four countries: the United States, Burkino Faso, India and North Korea.

While all the footage is fascinating, the material from North Korea is unique. Films from and about North Korea rarely pierce the carefully constructed surface that the country and its citizens present to the outside world. Yet here, captured by Gaulke, Comrade Han reveals an individual personality behind the ritualized propaganda that she initially offers the camera.

Film has played an unusually prominent role in North Korean culture and history. Although it opens an important window on to a closed society, North Korean film has been a singularly overlooked subject. North Korean films are almost never shown in the United States. They rarely appear in international film festivals. Few articles have been written on the subject.

That all may change soon, however. A French company has just bought the rights to show the North Korean film A Schoolgirl’s Diary, reportedly seen by 8 million North Koreans, more than one-third of the population. Scholars are beginning to comb through North Korean films for clues about how the system ticks. And documentaries like Comrades in Dreams and the latest effort from Dan Gordon and Nicholas Bonner, Crossing the Line, are attracting attention at film festivals around the world.

The US and North Korea are inching closer together as a result of ongoing nuclear negotiations. With normalized relations on the agenda, information about North Korean society becomes ever more valuable. But do North Korean films ultimately reveal or conceal the reality of the country?

Bring up the subject of North Korean film and most people would be hard pressed to name a single title. But nearly every article about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il mentions that he’s a film buff with one of the largest film collections in the world. In fact, Kim started out in the cinema world. The rise of the “Dear Leader” to political leadership is linked inextricably to his film career.

“Kim Jong-il used film to prove that he was the legitimate guardian of his father Kim Il-sung’s legacy,” explained Kim Suk-young (Speaking at the Library of Congress Next Week), a specialist on North Korean theater and film at the University of California-Santa Barbara. “Kim Il-sung was very keen on protecting his legacy as a national father. So Kim Jong-il in the 1970s used film to prove that he was the legitimate heir.”

These films helped solidify his father’s personality cult and demonstrated that Kim Il-sung’s successor, unlike Deng Xiaoping in China or Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, would avoid any iconoclastic reforms.

Kim Jong-il was not the first person in North Korea to recognize the political uses of film. The regime early on realized the revolutionary potential of the medium. When it took control over the northern half of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, the North Korean Workers’ Party under Kim Il-sung relied heavily on Soviet assistance. The Soviets, having pioneered film technique in the early days of the Russian Revolution, offered cinematic help as well.

From the very start, however, North Korea showed its independent streak by not following the Soviet model. “Even at its very beginning,” writes historian Charles Armstrong, North Korean cinema “was diverging from its Soviet sponsors’ aims by creating a distinctive cinema rooted in melodramatic emotionalism, a sentimental attachment to the Korean countryside, and the alleged values of peasant life, and a nationalist politics centered around the person of Kim Il-sung”.

To merge Soviet communism with North Korean nationalism – all rolled into the package of Kim Il-sung’s personality cult – film was the ideal medium. As Kim Suk-young explains, it is much easier to send films throughout the country as a propaganda tool than, for instance, relying on traveling theater groups. More important, Pyongyang could control the form and content from beginning to end. Political speakers sent to deliver propaganda to the masses might succumb to improvisation. Theater actors might give an unintended interpretative spin to their lines of dialogue. But movies allow for total control – or as close as the regime could get to total control in the cultural sphere.

Re-imaging history
Unlike Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung often clothed his political instruction in narrative form. His multi-volume autobiography, for instance, is full of stories and parables. But nothing could compare to the power of film to create resonant images and stirring nationalist messages.

For instance, in the 1960s film On the Railway, set during the Korean War, the train-engineer hero infiltrates the territory held by US and South Korean forces and pretends to be a defector driving his train over to the other side. He is, like Kim Il-sung, a trickster who achieves victory despite overwhelming odds. He doesn’t do so on behalf of the workers of the world, however. He is fighting for the Korean fatherland and against the foreign aggressor.

Other movies, such as An Jung Gun Shoots Ito Hirobumi and Star of Chosun, dramatize moments of Korean history such as the 1909 assassination of a Japanese colonial official and the life of Kim Il-sung. Like the 1915 US film The Birth of a Nation, these films present a rewritten history that can replace authentic memory and balanced scholarship. A government can censor books. But film has the appearance of reality and can more seductively change how a citizenry understands its past.

Kim Jong-il put his stamp on North Korean filmmaking with his involvement in productions such as Sea of Blood and Flower Girl. These films, adapted from revolutionary operas credited to his father Kim Il-sung, established a cultural vocabulary similar to the opera productions that Madame Mao (Jiang Qing) unleashed on the Chinese population during the Cultural Revolution (so memorably described in Anchee Min’s memoir Red Azalea).

The language of these operas-turned-films, which both describe the atrocities of the Japanese colonial period, defined the parameters of acceptable cultural discourse. The images became iconic, like the Biblical tableaux that appeared in classical painting and formed the visual vocabulary of pre-modern European culture.

By the late 1970s, having established his bona fides with his father, Kim Jong-il perceived that North Korean film had hit a dead end. At that time, he already possessed an extraordinary collection of world cinema. He understood the widening gap between the international and the national. To bridge the gap, Kim Jong-il sought help from outside.

Revolution lite
One of the most popular films in Bulgaria in the late 1980s was North Korea’s Hong Kil Dong (1986). A classic tale of a Korean Robin Hood, the film introduced Hong Kong-style action to the Soviet bloc. The ninja moves and soaring kicks dazzled East European audiences. “Hong Kil Dong attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the cinemas across Bulgaria,” writes Todor Nenov. “It was almost impossible to get tickets for it, unless you booked them two or three days earlier!”

Borrowing from Hong Kong action movies was only one of the ways that the North Korean film industry revived itself in the 1980s. Kim Jong-il borrowed more directly from outside when he arranged for the abduction of South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee in 1978. Six months later, Kim abducted her estranged husband, famous South Korean director Shin Sang-ok.

Before the pair managed to escape in 1986 during a stopover in Vienna, Shin Sang-ok introduced many new innovations into North Korean film. His most famous films during this period – a North Korean version of Godzilla called Pulgasari and a retelling of the famous Korean folk tale of Chunhyang called Love, Love, My Love – added science fiction and musical romance to the North Korean repertoire.

It is difficult to know whether the entertaining aspects of Hong Kil-Dong and Shin Sang-ok’s movies distracted North Korean moviegoers from the political messages or made those messages easier to absorb. The historical and fantastical settings allowed for greater leeway in presenting stories. Although the screenplays nod in the direction of the People, the writers needn’t lard the narrative with adoring references to the country’s leader or address the tasks facing contemporary North Korean society.

The contemporary love story in Traces of Life (1989) is by contrast entirely subordinate to the political message of building a utopian society. The movie tells the story of a grieving widow. Her husband has died in a suicide mission that blows up an invading South Korean ship. Guilty about arguing with him on the night he left to make the sacrifice, she exiles herself to the countryside, where she becomes a farmer and eventually raises rice production to unprecedented levels.

She thus transforms her love of husband into love of country. When Kim Il-sung himself comes to her farm and praises the collective’s success, her love achieves its apotheosis. The love of the hero leader has absolved her of the guilt she felt about not living up to the ideal of her hero husband.

Romance in North Korean films tends to be of the revolutionary not the bourgeois variety. As Ri Hyang, the character in Urban Girl Comes to Get Married (1993), explains to her friend, she wants “a man with perfume”. Her friend, surprised, replies that “a man is not a flower”. Ri Hyang continues: she is looking for “a man who creates his life with great ambition, a man who is respected by people”.

Although Urban Girl has a much lighter touch than Traces of Life, the message is the same: love should be reserved for those who want and can build “paradise on earth”. If that means partnering with the fellow on the farm who spends night and day working on a better breed of duck, as urban girl Ri Hyang ultimately does in the film, so be it.

Utopian dreams
Films in North Korea do not simply carry messages. They model behavior. Han Yong-sil, the projectionist in Comrades in Dreams, explains that the audiences for her films learn about new agricultural advances. And indeed, Urban Girl features information about livestock breeding and rice transplanting, and Traces of Life provides information on microbial fertilizer.

But the films don’t just supply technical content. They model revolutionary virtues. Kim Suk-young points to the popularity of amateur contests in which average North Koreans learn the lines of famous movie parts and then compete for the honor to present their monologues at the finals in Pyongyang. “It sounds very oppressive to us,” she says, “but there’s comfort in identifying with those heroes.” In this way we see that North Korean films don’t simply reveal or conceal reality. They actively construct North Korean society.

As a projectionist on a model farm, Han Yong-sil also struggles to live up to the examples set in the films she shows. Her husband is far away on an assignment to beautify Mount Paektu, the reputed birthplace of the Dear Leader. This is an important mission and, like the heroine of Traces of Life, she knows that she should subordinate her personal loneliness to the good of the nation. Still, it is clear that she finds this task very difficult.

Her display of emotions reveals the normalcy of North Koreans. Ironically, it is this very normalcy, because it falls short of the revolutionary ideal, that the North Korean government is loath to reveal to the world. And so the outside world tends to perceive North Koreans as slightly unreal, as mere mouthpieces for government propaganda.

In the 1960s and even into the 1970s, the utopian themes in North Korean cinema went hand in hand with the rising expectations of the population. After the devastation of World War II and then the Korean War, North Korea rapidly rebuilt itself. The government prided itself on the various industrial and agricultural advances that put it on par with and even ahead of South Korea. By the 1980s, however, North Korea was stagnant. It had fallen behind not only South Korea but even its own previous standards.

It is interesting that Kim Jong-il perceived that North Korean film, too, was stagnant at this time. A kind of cognitive dissonance must have begun to emerge among the North Korean population. The government and the films were portraying an ever-improving society and yet the population must have been noticing that reality was stubbornly not keeping pace. In the Soviet Union, during the years under Leonid Brezhnev, people could get their entertainment elsewhere – foreign films, books, samizdat publications. But North Koreans, until very recently, did not have any alternatives. And so the North Korean film industry turned to escapism, like romance stories.

But even escapism has its limits, for there is a utopian quality to Urban Girl and Pulgasari as well. Perhaps in response to the growing cognitive dissonance, the North Korean entertainment industry has begun to address new themes: divorce, love triangles, the double and triple shifts of women. “These dramas dealing with failure suggest that people are craving something different,” observes Kim Suk-young.

Reaching out?
The North Korean government boasts of its world-class film industry. But since a devastating loss in an international film festival in Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s, North Korea hasn’t tried very hard to promote its films abroad.

Pyongyang has, however, hosted its own international film festival since 1987 and allows visitors to its film studio. “North Korea has never been shy about propagandizing its grand achievements, and the film industry is not something secretive,” said journalist Ron Gluckman. “You can visit the studios as part of a tourist itinerary.

“I did so on my first visit to North Korea back in 1992. I visited again in 2004, and the equipment shown off was definitely ancient. I suspect they have been unable to keep up to date due to the economic situation, and film has suffered as a consequence.”

More recently, the government has allowed outside directors to make films inside the country. Pyongyang Crescendo (2005) follows the story of a German conductor who spent 10 days in the North Korean capital teaching music students. Dan Gordon and Nicholas Bonner have produced three documentary films: on the North Korean soccer team that made it to the World Cup quarterfinals in 1966, on two girls training for the mass games in Pyongyang, and most recently on the US soldier James Dresnok, who defected to North Korea in 1962.

The Game of Their Lives, the 2002 soccer documentary, showed that films could be made in North Korea, said Nick Bonner. However, the country isn’t exactly issuing a general invitation to the film world. “It is still very difficult to film in [North Korea] and is certainly a case-by-case situation,” Bonner added.

With A Schoolgirl’s Diary, the North Korean film industry will try once again to break into the international market. In this 2006 release, a teenager complains that her scientist father is too busy to pay attention to her. It is, according to reviews, a “humorous drama about a rebellious teenage girl”. It offers a picture of the North Korean elite that, in the film, uses computers, carries Mickey Mouse schoolbags, and eats good food.

It shows a few flaws in the system, such as deteriorating housing stock. But these are, according to Bonner, the “day-to-day flaws that fit the story line of struggle during this time when great sacrifice is needed to build a strong country”.

Regardless of whether A Schoolgirl’s Diary attracts an international audience on the merits of its story and its filmmaking, it will be an important document of North Korea’s evolving society. It will also show what kind of model behavior the government now wants to inculcate in its citizens.

“We might have to imagine the world with North Korea for another 25 or 50 years,” Kim Suk-young concludes. “We should look at film in order to understand and co-exist and to have a glimpse of North Korea instead of reducing it to a one-dimensional propaganda tool.”

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
6/19/2007

“North Korean government has employed movies to propagate superiority of the regime and Su-Ryeong (supreme leader) absolutism. However, North Korean movies have seen a new wave recently.” John Feffer, co- director at Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), an Institute for politics & diplomacy in the U.S, declared through his article on the web on 12th.

Feffer remarked “North Korea was quickly recovered from World War∥ and Korean War. From the 60s to 70s, North Korean had had a great expectation on Utopia” “However, it has been stagnated since then.”

He was interested in the fact that even Kim Jong Il himself perceived that North Korean film was stagnant the same time of North Korean stagnation. Additionally, “The government and the films were portraying an ever-improving society and yet the population must have been noticing that reality was stubbornly not keeping pace” he explained.

◆ People noticed North Korean reality

He appraised “During the reign of Brezhnev (1965 ~1983), people in the former Soviet Union could get their entertainment from foreign movies, books and samizdat publications. On the other hand, the North Korean had no other alternatives” Thereafter, North Korean film industry has gone for a romance for escapism, he explained.

The most representative film is “the family” series. This series of short film, 9 episodes in all, pictured a struggle of the family caused by the couple’s divorce and their troubled children.

Feffer also said that North Korean movies, which haven’t opened to the public, have released to the world audience one after another.

Currently a film titled “A Schoolgirl’s Diary” portraying a story of a North Korean girl, has been expected to be released in Europe by a French distributor. Also, Daniel Gordon British director, have produced documentary films “A State of Mind (2005)” and “The Game of Their Lives (2002)” gaining permission from North Korean government.

Feffer pointed out “Since Film has played an prominent role in North Korean culture and history, scholars are beginning to comb through North Korean films for clues about how the system ticks.” However, he doubted whether North Korean films ultimately reveal the reality of the country or not.

He continued “We should look at film in order to understand and coexist and to have a glimpse of North Korea instead of reducing it to a one-dimensional propaganda tool.” “Besides, Kim Jong Il made most of movies to manage his political agenda.” He added.

He said that media have often said Kim Jong Il is a huge film buff.” “Therefore, the rise of the “Dear Leader” to political leadership is linked inextricably to his film career.” He explained.

• Bulgarian audience fascinated by “Hong Kil Dong”

He continued to observe “North Korean movies would play a role to idolize Kim Il Sung. And Kim Jong Il, unlike Deng Xiaoping in China and Gorbachev in the former Soviet Union, was able to escape from criticism against the hereditary succession of power.”

Feffer noted. “In the 70s, Kim Jong Il, having established idolatry cult on his father, Kim Il Sung with movies, realized North Korean film hit the dead end.“ At that time, Kim, who is a remarkable film collector, had clearly understood the widening gap between national and overseas films.”

” ‘Hong Kil Dong’ was the most popular movie in the late 80s in Bulgaria and this classic tale, Korean version of Robin Hood, introduced Hong Kong style action to the East European for the first time.” “The brilliant action footage of the film dazzled the East European audience. It was part of the plan to revive North Korean film adopting Hong Kong style action.” he specified.

Kim’s passion on film reached the peak as abducting Choi Eun Hee , South Korean actress, in 1978.

Feffer mentioned “He also abducted Shin Sang Ok, the estranged husband of Choi Eun Hee, and made him to produce movies. This couple had brought a new wave on North Korean film industry until their escape in 1986.”

”The most renowned movie among Shin’s production is “ Pulgasari,” North Korean version of “Godzilla” and “Love, Love, Oh my Love,” revived Chunhyang, classic romance in Korea. Shin Sang Ok adapted Romance and SF to Korean style story line,” he assessed.
However, he pointed out “It’s difficult to know whether entertaining aspect on “Hong Kil Dong” and the new wave on Shin Sang Ok distracted the North Korean audience from political messages or made those messages easily absorbed.”

Indeed, Feffer appraised Kim Jong Il is not the first individual who recognize the political uses of film.

He explained that North Korean regime have recognised the evolutional potential of the media. Korea Workers’ Party, under the Kim Il Sung’s lead, was able to occupy Northern Korean Peninsula after the World War ∥ relying on the support from the former Soviet Union. The Soviets had already pioneered film technique in the early days of the Russian revolution.

However, North Korea already showed its independent streak not following the Soviet model .

Feffer said “Film was ideal means to adapt Russian Communism to North Korean Nationalism, which is solely manipulated for idolatry on Kim Il Sung.” “Leaders in Pyongyang was able to control over all the context. Government can manipulate publications. Still, film can be more powerful maneuvers of the past for it reflects reality.”

Daily NK
Kim Young Jin
6/12/2007

Recently, it has been reported that businesses in charge of facial plastic surgery and skin maintenance are becoming more popular among the wealthy class.

Through a survey DailyNK conducted on actual living conditions in the Northeast region of North Korea, it was discovered that massage rooms, steam baths, beauty-related enterprises (plastic surgery and skincare maintenance) are the main thriving businesses.

Beauty-related businesses such as these prevail in relatively large-sized cities, such as Chongjin in North Hamkyung, Hamheung in South Hamkyung, and Wonsan in Kangwon. This trend seems to follow the up and coming wealthy class who have risen through doing business in North Korea.

Skin maintenance and plastic surgery which has caused a stir among the women in Shinuiju and Pyongyang have spread to inland countrysides within the last several years.

Double eye-lid surgery, eyebrow tattoos, and others can be simply performed by a plastic surgeon doctor or beauty operation specialists, so it has been widely popular among young women.

The cost of plastic surgery, in the case of double eye-lid surgery, was 500 North Korean won per one-eye in 2004, but the asking price has been 1,500 won since 2006. The North Korean exchange rate was recently 2,980 won per dollar.

In addition to double eye-lid surgery, breast augmentation has been spreading to a portion of upper-class women. The popularity of the breast enlargement surgeries demonstrates an encouragement of beauty among North Korean upper-class women.

◆ “Massages” a rage, centered on large-scale cities = Chinese-style health massages cost around 10,000 (US$3.4) North Korean won per hour and for an additional 2~30,000 won, on-the-spot sex with a female masseuse is possible.

This survey, based on the latter half of May, took place by focusing on the price of commodities in five cities, such as Kim Chaek and Chongjin City in North Hamkyung, Danchun and Hamheung in South Hamkyung, and Wonsan Kangwon.

The results of the survey showed that the region with the highest standard of living in the Northeast region is Wonsan City of Kangwon. The reason why Wonsan has a relatively high standard of living is that it has been a central place of trade with Japan.

If North Korea and China’s trade can be represented by Shinuiju, then Wonsan has played that role with trade with Japan. However, it has recently been severely targeted by the suspension in North Korea and Japan’s trade.

Wonsan’s upper-class restaurants are known to show aggressive service by shouting “Welcome” when guests come in, by decorating the interior of restaurants, and by adopting a Chinese-style waiter and waitress system.

In addition, Japanese secondhand goods have been highly traded in Wonsan. Electronic rice cookers, sewing machine, fans, TVs and other Japanese thrift goods are commonly traded and have more reasonable prices than the other regions.

Newly released 2-3 person electronic rice cookers are around 13~150,000 won, fans around 7~80,000 won, used gas stoves around 15~200,000 (approx. US$50.34~67.10), used TVs around 20~250,000 won, and flat-screen TVs over 350,000 (approx. US$117.50) won.

The supply of electricity is not an issue, so it is provided 24 hours long and electricity is better-supplied than in Hamheung.

Further, the “105 factory (furniture production factory)” in Wonsan produces furniture which is delivered to the Central Party and the quality, compared with the cost, is supposed to be the best in North Korea.

Industrial goods in Chungjin are relatively economical, but Chinese-made color TVs and flat-screen newly-released TVs are sold for 20~250,000 and 350,000 won, respectively. Used bicycles imported from Japan is sold for 10~150,000 won.

In Chongjin, the number of taxis have risen lately, but because of the expensive cost, not too many people take advantage of it. Going 4km costs around 5,000 won. Taxis that are operating are either Chinese used taxis or imported cars which are past the expiration date.

◆ The price of rice narrowly rises = In Hamheung, the cost of taxis is supposed to be slightly higher than Chongjin. There are not too many people who ride taxis, so the rate is doubled beyond the center of cities and in remote places.

The cost of penicillin has risen significantly in Chongjin, with the spread of the measles, the scarlet fever, and other infectious diseases since last winter. Chinese penicillin is hard to acquire due to its reputation for having poor quality and North Korean penicillin is sold at Jangmadang (market) for 500 won per one.

The cities considered to have low standards of living are Kim Chaek of North Hamkyung and Danchun in South Hamkyung. The size of the jangmadang (market) is smaller than in other regions and there is a limit in the variety of goods. Steam baths or massage places do not even exist. The price of medical goods are also supposed to be exorbitant.

The specialty of Kim Chaek City is its low cost of nails. The Sungjin Steel Works Complex in Kim Chaek produces nail by melting steel and sells them, which is sold for 2,200 won~2,500 won per kg in Hoiryeong, at 1,200 won in Kim Chaek. However, not only is the weight heavy and is difficult to package, but the usage by civilians is not very high, so the incidence of sale to other provinces is low.

In Danchun, the price of fruit is very expensive, so it is not sold by the kilogram unit, but is sold individually. One medium-size apple is sold for up to 800 won.

On one hand, the price of rice in North Korea’s northeast region showed a narrow upward tendency in the latter half of May at the end of the spring shortage season. Corn, the staple of low-income civilians, did not show a huge change.