Back in February, B.R. Myers, author of The Cleanest Race, gave a few talks in the US. Apparently I missed all of them.
You can order the book at Amazon here.
(hat tip to a reader)
Archive for the ‘Domestic publication’ Category
“The Cleanest Race” on C-Span
Monday, October 25th, 2010‘Rimjingang’ in the Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010According to the Wall Street Journal:
There are several news organizations supporting journalists in North Korea. One is Rimjin-gang magazine, a division of AsiaPress International, based in Osaka. The founder and editor of Rimjin-gang is a Japanese journalist by the name of Jiro Ishimaru. As the world’s journalists were reporting from Pyongyang last week, Mr. Ishimaru was in the U.S., presenting his reporters’ remarkable videos, photographs and articles to American audiences. A book containing English-language translations of some of the magazine’s best stories was published on Oct. 15.
Rimjin-gang is the Korean name for the Imjin River, which begins in North Korea and runs south across the demilitarized zone. It is a symbol of North Koreans sending information to the South, Mr. Ishimaru says. “I came to realize that outsiders attempting to shed light on North Korea hit a wall that is simply impossible to breach. No one can report on a nation better than its own people.”
Mr. Ishimaru runs a staff of 10 reporters. For security reasons, each reporter operates independently without knowledge of the identity of his colleagues or what they are doing. The reporters are men and women who want to do something with their lives and who want to help their country, Mr. Ishimaru says. They believe that “if you don’t do something, you are just a slave.”
Mr. Ishimaru recruits his reporters in the border regions of China, home to tens of thousands of North Korean refugees who have escaped across the Yalu or Tumen rivers. He and colleagues from South Korea give the budding journalists a crash course in the basics of journalism and teach them how to use essential technology. The journalists then go back to North Korea with enough money to travel around the country, pay bribes if they get into trouble, and eventually return to China.
It is next to impossible for ordinary North Koreans to get close to military installations, the gulag or Kim Jong Eun. So the reporters have decided to focus on day-to-day life in North Korea, especially starvation, the growing market economy and corruption. They have produced more than 100 hours of video on these subjects. Among the tapes I viewed were ones that showed bags of rice labeled “WFP”—for the United Nations World Food Program—being sold in a marketplace, and soldiers using a military truck as a bus service for paying customers.
The information doesn’t flow just one way. Mr. Ishimaru’s reporters also try to get information about the outside world into North Korea, usually in the form of CDs containing videos of South Korean soap operas, news shows or documentaries. Before DVD players came into use in China, VCD players—video CD players—had a short run of popularity. Chinese merchants now sell these discarded devices, along with CDs, across the border in North Korea. It’s against the law to possess a VCD player or to watch South Korean videos, but the law-enforcement system has broken down enough that more and more North Koreans are taking the risk, assuming that if they get caught they can bribe local officials to look the other way.
Here are previous posts featuring information from Rimjingang.
Read the full story here:
A Free Press Stirs in North Korea
Wall street Journal
Melanie Kirkpatrick
10/19/2010
DPRK newspaper stresses prudence of ‘Juche economy’
Thursday, September 30th, 2010Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-09-28-1
9/28/2010
While hopes had been raised following Kim Jong Il’s recent visit to China that the North may undergo some reform and opening, an editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, emphasizes the prudence of following the DPRK-style ‘Juche’ Economy’, and rejecting support from foreign powers. The article, which appeared on September 18, stressed the value of Juche as the tool for reviving the economy, and stated that there was no greater sin than passing on a “crippled economy” to the next generation. It emphasized the selfishness of living well only by the support of outside powers, as this provides no sustainable economy for future generations.
The paper went on to call on North Koreans to work together, stating that “there is no time like the present, when the principle of realizing Juche stands out in its universality,” and said that it is the current trend of economic development to “develop the resources of one”s own country, and to concentrate efforts on using [domestic] materials… If we actively develop our inexhaustible resources, we can live wealthily and raise the funds necessary for the construction of an economically strong state.” After stressing the implementation of Juche and self-reliance, the newspaper added, “If we rely on our own strengths and bring in foreign capital, we can avoid the serious crisis we are now facing, or we ultimately would not be able to choose this path.”
The newspaper also emphasized that the people of North Korea, “descendants of Comrade Kim Il Sung,” must not live selfishly, and “must not retreat even half a step on the road to Juche implementation,” urging that the current state of dependence on outside technology and resources cannot be tolerated. Kim Jong Il is quoted as saying that Juche must be firmly established in every realm of construction and development “today, tomorrow, and always” as the “revolutionary spirit of revival through one’s own efforts” is lifted high, and all problems must be resolved through one’s own strength. In particular, he is quoted as emphasizing “there can be not even a little flunkeyism and reliance on the outside,” and promising that the Workers’ Party will strive “to build an independent economy based on Juche philosophy.”
It is nothing new for North Korea to call for the establishment of a Juche-driven self-reliant economy, but it is noteworthy that the Rodong Sinmun would run such an article soon after Kim Jong Il’s trip to China and China economic development was so highly lauded. Kim said during his summit with Hu Jintao at the end of last month that China’s development was “spirited” everywhere and that China had “developed quickly after reform and opening.” The Rodong Sinmun editorial is likely a result of concerns that expectations for reform and dependence on outside forces might be growing within North Korea following Kim’s remarks about Chinese growth, and that this could complicate the effort to appoint Kim Jung Eun as successor.
Chongryun on YouTube?
Thursday, August 12th, 2010UPDATE: As noted in the comments and in this post, Uriminzokkiri is run by the North Koreans, not the Chongryun.
ORIGINAL POST:
The pro-Pyongyang ethnic Korean community in Japan (Chongryun, Chosen Soren) has apparently opend a YouTube channel named “uriminzokkiri” (“On our own as a nation”) where they are uploading pro-DPRK and DPRK-made videos.
The Chongryun operate a number of web pages on behalf of themselves and the North Korean government (Chongryon.com, Naenara, elufa.net, uriminzokkiri.com, and more) all of which host video content. So why open a YouTube account? All these web pages are blocked in South Korea—so I am wondering if South Korean readers see these YouTube videos?
UPDATE: Gag notes the following in the comments: “The ‘uriminzokkiri’ account is presumably run by the website of the same name, which links to it. The uriminzokkiri.com homepage lists two email addresses on silibank.com, so I doubt that it’s run by the Chongryon either. (elufa.net, which is in Japanese, has an email address on its own domain.)
I wonder also whether it is just a matter of time before the US Justice Department/Treasury Department goes knocking on YouTube’s door. If this account is sponsored by the official Chonryon organization, the US government might have a problem with that. I suspect, however, that the account is “maintained” by a “private” individual so that it cannot be construed as engagement in a business trade with the DPRK. In the past, on line chat services owned by Yahoo and Linkedin have been asked to close accounts of individuals in sanctioned countries like the DPRK.
As of now, the account hosts nearly 40 videos. Unfortunatley not a single one is of the North Korean evening news. The North Korean news is usually posted on Elufa.net, but has not been updated since July 26. Rather than running 10 pages poorly, they might consider consolidating and running 2 pages well!
According to Yonhap:
North Korea has apparently registered an account with the iconic U.S. video-sharing site YouTube, uploading clips that praise the isolated regime and defend itself against accusations that it attacked a South Korean warship.
…
The name in Korean means “on our own as a nation” and was registered July 14.
The uploaded footage contain regurgitations of official cant that honor the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, and the usual South Korea bashing. The Aug. 2 upload contained an elaborately produced three-minute clip lashing out at South Korea’s foreign minister.
Another clip, uploaded the same day and also produced in Korean, ridicules Seoul for its failure to stop the U.N. Security Council from placing Pyongyang’s denial in its statement deploring the deadly March sinking of the Cheonan warship.
DPRK has e-books
Sunday, April 11th, 2010According to the Korea Times:
North Korea, the planet’s deepest information void, appears to be dabbling with electronic books (e-books), a South Korean activist claimed Thursday.
It’s questionable how much an ecosystem for e-books would be relevant to readers living in perhaps the most censored country in the world.
But according to Free North Korea Radio’s Kim Seong-min, North Koreans have choices beyond government propaganda books to read on their computers, including translations of Western classics such as Shakespeare’s plays, “The Iliad,” “Don Quixote,” “ Jane Eyre,” “ Les Miserables” and even “Gone With The Wind.”
“North Korea will have less complications surrounding copyright issues compared to the South, and with the government pushing the project directly, the country seems to have acquired a wealth of e-book content over a relatively short period of time,” Kim told Yonhap News.
Kim revealed “Electronic Library Mirae (Future) 2.0,” North Korea’s e-book computer program he claimed to have acquired from one of his foreign sources.
When run on Microsoft Windows, Mirae 2.0 opens a page that resembles a conventional library search site, and provides access to the electronic versions of about 1,500 books and 350,000 kinds of other documents.
The books include a wealth of non-fictions work, mostly on political theories and history, but also a variety of literature, song collections, and educational content such as dictionaries and books of facts.
The e-book collection of literature contains some contemporary North Korean work that hasn’t been previously introduced to the South, Kim said.
Users of Mirae 2.0 can search for e-books by title or content.
They can even use its voice recognition system by clicking the “read” tab at the top of the screen, with the computer responding with a recorded female voice that seems “natural” by North Korean standards, Kim said.
Read the full article here:
North Korea has electronic books
Korea Times
Kim Tong-hyung
2/8/2010
Friday Fun: Centre Forward and Mass Games photos
Friday, March 26th, 2010Koryo Tours is distributing the North Korean film Centre Forward–a film which “critics are already hailing as the best North Korean-themed football movie of all time”.
See the trailer you YouTube here.
See the trailer on Youku (PR China) here.
You can order the film directly from Koryo Tours by email: [email protected]
Also, photographer Werner Kranwetvogel worked with Nick Bonner to produce high quality photography of the Mass Games:
North Korean comics II
Thursday, March 4th, 2010UPDATE 1 (2011-6-21): Slate covers Prof. Fenkl’s collection
ORIGINAL POST (2010-3-4): Taking a page from the Brian Myers playbook, Heinz Insu Fenkl, a literature professor at the State University of New York, produces English translations of hard-to-find North Korean Comic Books (“Gruim-chaek”).
According to Reuters blog:
Heinz Insu Fenkl, a literature professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz, has cracked one secret to understanding the bizarre regime of North Korea: by reading its comic books.
The academic, who refers to himself as an American-Korean, spends hours in his office tucked away in upstate New York, churning out English translations of the rare books (called “gruim-chaek” in North Korea) after he gathers them at shops in China and from colleagues who travel to Pyongyang.
The plots are often wacky, usually pinning blame on loud-mouthed Americans and opportunist Japanese for cursing their promised land with vice. Most books are leaked to China through the border town of Dandong — a hub of smuggling in North Korean goods. Others end up in a single shop in Tokyo that specializes in hermit-state memorabilia. Still, others mysteriously make their way to university libraries in the U.S.
Of the “gruim-chaek” I’ve located, those published this decade tend to be spy thrillers probably aimed at young boys and teenagers. The cartoonists establish the storylines strictly as moralistic good-versus-evil tales. And almost all the books are printed in black-and-white on poor quality paper.
“I’ve also seen some covers of more recent comics that seem to be re-establishing a mythic narrative by referring back to old folktales,” Fenkl said, adding that he’s planning a single massive web archive for all his North Korean comic books.
The books are also designed to instill the father of North Korea, Kim Il-sung’s, philosophy of Juche — radical self-reliance of the state, added Nick Bonner, founder of Koryo Tours, an English-language tour company in Beijing that takes visitors to North Korea several times each year.
“They’re much like the themes I read when I was a kid, on the British Army fighting the ‘Nazis and Japs,’” Bonner reflected, pointing out that some propaganda plots nonetheless resemble our own. “But [in North Korea] their themes are either historic or based on the Anti-Japanese Guerilla War, or the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War [the North Korean name for the Korean War in 1950-53].”
In “A Blizzard in the Jungle,” published in 2001, a group of Americans and North Koreans traveling on an airplane crash in an unnamed African country. When they’re stranded in the jungle, the Americans selfishly split ways with their North Korean colleagues, only to be devoured by alligators in a nearby river.
Let it be a warning from the Dear Leader: never embrace the self-indulging lifestyle of the American warmongers.
The fact that North Koreans were writing politically charged comic books set in Africa comes as no surprise, Fenkl said. Quite a few North Koreans live as expatriates on that continent: for years, North Korea has sent military advisers to Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ethiopia and Uganda to supply weapons and train soldiers in exchange for mineral concessions.
Strangely, one character onboard the crashed airplane is named Zacharias — possibly an allusion to Zacarias Moussaoui, a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers. “A Blizzard in the Jungle” was published in that same year, though Fenkl concedes this is probably a coincidence.
Other comic books directly point fingers at American leaders, rather than only bashing capitalism.
In a similar storyline from 2005 called “General Loser and the Gnats,” Americans who go by the last name “Bush” find themselves disgraced by their president’s policies. They change their names and confide in the revolutionary cause. (I have not yet found satires on Barack Obama out of the hermit state.)
North Korea’s comic craze is nothing new. For decades, the communist regime has distributed books to elementary school students.
One of North Korea’s most famous comic books aimed at children is “The Great General Mighty Wing,” an epic narrative published by a state-run press in 1994.
Mighty Wing the honeybee confronts a horde of imperialist wasps — cunningly dressed like Japanese soldiers from World War II — trying to invade his land. After the wasps lay dead, he quickly rallies his enthusiastic colony into a workers’ collective.
By working together, they build an extensive irrigation canal that flows abundantly to all the bees — not just the powerful wasps.
Concerned about a drought and famine that would eventually kill about 600,000 people, North Korea at the time was looking for ways purvey water to its people. The regime was constructing a large irrigation canal at the same time Mighty Wing became a sensation.
“Mighty Wing, in some ways, was an iconic image,” Fenkl said. “It was a brilliant move to use bees, or beol, as a symbol to resonate with the historical irrigation project, the Yeoldu 3,000 Ri Beol.”
“The books were in color, unlike most comics,” he added, pointing out the importance the regime might have placed on this cartoon.
Mighty Wing gained fame in North Korea at the same level of Mickey Mouse in the West, thanks to the national fears the artists touched on. Kim Il-sung had died that same year — and many North Koreans were secretly uncertain about what would come next.
In his research, Fenkl recently noticed one anomaly: the “gruim-chaek” that reaches the international black market usually differs from those intended for a North Korean audience.
It appears that the editors “step in,” he said, imputing the black-market comics with less ideological content. This could mean they are purposely sending the comics across the sealed Chinese border to expand their readership.
“I will have to look into it before I come to any conclusions. ‘The Crystal Key,’ for example, is pretty indistinguishable from a non-ideological comic book,” he reflected, referring to another famous book published in 1992. “[With the ideological content taken out] it would be an internationally accessible graphic novel about pirates and a virtuous family protecting their community.”
Mr. Fenkel’s web page is here.
Here are excerpts from some of the comics he has translated:
3. Blizzard in the Jungle: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
4. Here are some other covers.
5. Here are images of some other DPRK comics
DPRK holds national meeting of agricultural workers
Thursday, March 4th, 2010Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-3-4-1
3/4/2010
As the failure of North Korea’s currency reform drives the country’s food woes to even greater depths, DPRK authorities and farmers from around the country met on February 25 for two days of meetings under the theme, “Let’s Focus All Efforts on Farming and Resolve the Food Problem!”
It has been four years since North Korean authorities called for a nationwide meeting of agricultural workers, with the last meeting in February 2006. From 1974 to 1994, meetings were held annually in January or February, when farmers had a chance to rest between the fall harvest and the spring planting season. However, after the famine in 1995, in which millions starved to death, no meetings were held for twelve years.
This year’s New Year’s Joint Editorial called for North Koreans to revolutionize the light industrial and agricultural sectors in order to improve the lives of the people, and for them to struggle to resolve the country’s ‘eating issues’. However, in the aftermath of last December’s failed currency reform, the North’s food problems actually worsened to the point that people are starving to death. This led authorities to hold a nationwide agricultural meeting in order to show their determination to focus efforts on resolving food shortages and to encourage farmers and other residents to focus on agriculture.
According to the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the meetings were attended by “[Cabinet Premier] Kim Young Il, [National Defense Commission Vice-Chairman] Ri Yong Mu, and [Supreme People’s Assembly Chairman] Choe Tae Bok, leading officials of ministries and national institutions, party and people”s committees and agricultural guidance organs in provinces, cities and counties, officials of farm primary organizations, model farmers, scientists and technicians in the field of agriculture and officials of relevant industrial establishments.”
Vice-Premier Kwak Pom Gi presented a report, stressing, “On the agricultural front this year, marking the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Party, we must decisively ease the country’s food issue, [and] the people’s eating issue, charging forward with the improvement of the lives of the people and the construction of a strong and prosperous nation.” He also called for assistance to agricultural communities and related sectors, and for the prioritization of agricultural goods and materials.
According to a source in North Korea reporting to the South Korean organization Good Friends, deaths due to starvation in South Hamgyong Province’s Danchon city and South Pyongan Province’s Pyongsong city were reported to central Party authorities. This led to meetings on January 27 and February 1 of central Party members, cabinet officials and People’s Security authorities at which emergency measures to stave off famine were discussed.
Results of a survey of living conditions in Danchon and North Hamgyong Province’s Chongjin reported to central Party authorities revealed many deaths due to starvation, while currently, the most deaths due to lack of food appear to be occurring in South Pyongan Province’s Sunchon and Pyongsong cities. Last year, Party authorities in these cities turned over approximately 65 percent of harvests to the military, while farmers were only issued, on average, five months worth of rations.
DPRK focuses on economy in 2010: Aims to improve the standard of living by boosting agricultural and light industry output
Sunday, January 10th, 2010Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
(NK Brief No.10-01-06-1)
2010-01-06
On January 1, North Korea published its annual New Year’s Joint Editorial in the Rodong Sinmun (official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea), Josonimmingun (newspaper of the Korean People’s Army), and the Chongnyonjonwi (newspaper of the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League).
The editorial introduces North Korea’s general policy direction for 2010. In the international realm, the editorial highlights the establishment of a peace regime between Pyongyang and Washington, as well as improving inter-Korean relations. Domestically, the editorial focused on improving the standard of living for the people by improving agriculture and light industries. It appears that the North has decided to focus on domestic and international stability.
This policy approach appears to be an attempt to strengthen the basis for the North’s drive to build a ‘Strong and Prosperous Nation’ by 2012, but in the mid- to long-term, it also seems to have been adopted with Kim Jong-eun’s succession in mind.
This year’s joint editorial focused primarily on the North’s economy. More than anything, it centered on improving the lives of the people by boosting light-industrial and agricultural output. This was highlighted in the editorial’s title, “Bring about a radical turn in the people’s standard of living by accelerating the development of light industry and agriculture once again this year that marks the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” and was a consistent theme throughout the article.
Focusing on increased economic output specifically in light industry and agriculture, it is clear that the Kim Jong Il regime is seeking to boost public support by solving food and clothing shortages.
It is also noteworthy that in the editorial’s section on the economy, there is absolutely no mention of the ‘national defense industry’ that has been prominent in previous New Year’s Joint Editorials. National defense has been prioritized in previous joint editorials, with one article emphasizing that “everything necessary for the national defense industry must first be ensured in order to meet the economic line of the Military-First Era.” The defense industry was briefly mentioned, however, in the editorial’s section emphasizing the importance of scientific and technological development.
Substantial points of the economic portion of the editorial include the following:
– The need to “bring about a radical turn in the people’s standard of living by accelerating the development of light industry and agriculture once again this year that marks the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.”
-“Light industry and agriculture are the major fronts in the efforts for the improving of the peoples’ standard of living. . . . an all-Party, nationwide effort should be directed to mass-producing consumer goods.”
-“The agricultural sector should sharply increase grain output by thoroughly applying the Party’s policy of agricultural revolution, like improving seeds, double cropping and improving potato and soybean farming.”
-“We should radically increase state investment in fields related to the people’s lives, and all sectors and units should supply fully and in time the raw and other materials needed for the production of light-industrial goods.”
-“We should gain access to more foreign markets, and undertake foreign trade in a brisk way to contribute to economic construction and the improvement of the people’s standard of living.”
-“Socialist principles should be maintained in commodity circulation, and the quality of welfare services should be decisively improved.”
-“The fundamental secret of making a new leap in this year’s general offensive is in launching a campaign to push back the frontiers of science and technology in all sectors.”
-“The defense industry sector, a major front in pushing back the frontiers of science and technology, should continue to lead the efforts to open the gate to a great, prosperous and powerful country.”
Citizen Mobilization Kicks Off Early
Monday, January 4th, 2010Daily NK
Jung Kwon Ho
1/4/10
According to sources within North Korea, citizens have been mobilized to produce fertilizer and ordered to submit scrap materials for use by the state in an attempt to bring to fruition the New Year’s Statement, in which light industry and agriculture were promoted as the main frontiers for development in 2010.
One source from North Hamkyung Province told The Daily NK on the 3rd, “The first battle of this year began on the 2nd of January. A decree was issued, stating that each adult resident has to provide 50 kilograms of fertilizer to surrounding farms.”
He went on, “Middle school students of 11 and above have to provide 30 kilograms of fertilizer to their school, and any senior citizen over the age of 60 has to provide 30 kilograms of fertilizer to their neighborhood office. This fertilizer production battle will continue until the end of March”.
This is an unusual duration, the source explained, “The annual fertilizer production battle is normally completed on February 15th, but this year the authorities are emphasizing the importance of agriculture and, as a result, declared the completion date to be the end of March.”
“The production of fertilizer is an annual event, however, its target volume and duration has doubled. The lack of available fertilizer has already initiated competition between workplaces to secure access to public toilets and dumping grounds.”
A different source in Yangkang Province explained how things were being done there, “Middle school students over the age of 15 up to adults under the age of 60 have to provide fertilizer privately to surrounding farms by sled. Students from 1st to 3rd grade in middle school and senior citizens over the age of 60 have to provide the fertilizer to a neighborhood location designated by municipal committees of the Party.”
According to the same source, the temperature in Hyesan was -26C on the 2nd when workers from each workplace and factory, and residents of people’s units, assembled in the square in front of the Kim Jong Suk Art Hall to transport the fertilizer by sled to nearby farms in Chun-dong, Geomsan-dong and Wun-dong, and to Hwajeon Cooperative Farm, causing problems.
The source explained that the farms were up to 16 kilometers away, so, “Numerous people suffered from frostbite during the transfer.”
In addition to production of fertilizer, each workplace and organization received instructions to submit scrap metal, paper, rubber and vinyl. On this topic, the source commented, “Residents are making a hoo-ha about the requirement to submit unused materials for light industry like scrap metals. During the vacation in January, each middle school student is supposed to produce fertilizer and provide ten kilograms of scrap metal plus five kilograms of scrap paper and rubber to a designated depot. When such tasks are completed, the student gets a certificate from the depot and then has to show it to school.”
The source concluded, “Residents are already concerned about the possibility of increased compulsory mobilization even worse than that for the 150-Day Battle last year.”
