North Korean Economy Watch

1. Nick Bonner, founder of Koryo Tours and producer of three documentaries filmed in the DPRK has given a recent interview to World Hub.  Mr. Bonner is currently working on a new film–a North Korean romantic comedy:

“We are hoping to start shooting in December. If that does not kill me then nothing will. We will keep people updated on Facebook and our newsletter and I think the making of the film will be one heck of a ride. Think revolutionary coal miner who wants to become a trapeze artist. But how does she accomplish this? With a script like that how can we go wrong!”

2. Kim Yong Sik was born in 1949. Having lived in Seoul all his life, he discovered his unique talent about 15 years ago; when others started to notice he looked like North Korea’s “Dear Leader.” Since then, Kim Yong Sik has made a living, part time, imitating Kim Jong Il in movies, television commercials, weddings and Japanese TV dramas.

3. Paul Romer’s TED talk: How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it’s trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: “charter cities,” city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?  Watch the presentation here.

Although the Korea Times titles the article, “Privileged North Koreans Enjoy S. Korean Movies,” the article is about neither privileged North Koreans nor South Korean films.  Rather, this interesting article by Andrei Lankov is about official attitudes towards sexual relations in the DPRK. 

Quoting from the article:

When communism was a radical revolutionary movement, it was decisively in favor of sexual liberation. When communists took power in Russia in 1917, they immediately introduced one of the world’s most liberal family and marriage laws, de-criminalized adultery and abortion, and greatly simplified divorce while putting in place some safeguards for women with children.

However, in Russia this attitude began to change from the early 1930s. The worldview promulgated as Stalin’s era continued, came to view sex as largely reproductive, something that should be confined to the bedroom of a properly married couple, and not discussed in public.

So the dominant attitudes to sex in the Soviet society of the 1940s were not that much different from the America of those years. And this was the attitude that was exported to the nascent North Korean society.

In the North, this approach was soon taken to the extreme. From the late 1950s even the slightest references to sexual activity were purged from North Korean art. Only villains could be depicted as thinking about sex, while the positive heroes were always asexual. Divorce was made difficult, almost impossible.

It seems that the government control, along with the activities of the neighborhood watch groups, the infamous “inminban,” helped to maintain the officially endorsed standards of sexual behavior. The powerful few sometimes could have extra-marital affairs, but they were an exception.

I also know of some cases when women got pregnant from premarital sex ― like a female soldier who once “did it” with her boyfriend in the late 1970s.

But once she found out that she was pregnant, she knew she was in serious trouble: if discovered, a pregnancy would lead to a dishonorable discharge from the army, after which nobody would allow her to return to her family in privileged Pyongyang.

Fortunately, her boyfriend and his well-connected family stood by her, pushed all the right buttons and arranged for an immediate discharge from the army, followed by marriage (they have two children now, and live happily in Seoul).

And regarding prostitution…

Prostitution, common in North Korean cities in colonial times, was eradicated in the early 1950s, and former prostitutes and gisaeng (high-class courtesans) were either exiled from the major cities or “re-educated through labor.”
…
However, the situation began to change in the early 1990s when the old system collapsed under the weight of economic difficulties. This influenced everything in North Korea, including the sexual behavior of its inhabitants.

After all, Koreans can now engage in premarital or extramarital sex without taking too many risks: the state does not care about such matters as much as it used to, and finding a suitable place and time is also much easier.

The emerging “black market capitalism” was (and still is) dominated by women who have acquired a great measure of economic freedom and independence, meaning that they are less inhibited about having affairs with men they like.

The female merchants travel a lot, they are essentially beyond the reach of the state, and they feel themselves far more confident than ever before.

In a sense, the sexual adventures of these women can be seen as a sign of their liberation. However, these lucky women are a minority. Others have fared much worse. The social disruption and famine of the late 1990s pushed many women into prostitution.

Some of them can be found in Chinese brothels, but it seems that the majority have to ply their trade within North Korea, where their situation is even worse (but never reported by the media).

Nowadays, North Korea has a number of private karaoke rooms ― a development which would have been positively unthinkable some 10 years ago. Some of those rooms serve as a cover for prostitution.

They have even devised ways to advertise this to a passerby, so a patron can know if sexual services are available in the particular outlet. The code words are “selling beds” or, more poetically, “selling flowers.”

Another cover for prostitution is provided by the private inns which proliferated some 10 years ago and operate with a disregard of the strict laws governing internal movement in North Korea.

It seems that sometimes the same inns can provide a space for lovers as well ― as long as they can pay the rather high fees.

Additional thoughts:
1. I have posted a number of stories dealing with divorce in the DPRK.  You can read them here.  Apparently it is common now.  According to this article, divorce settlements compose the most cases in the DPRK court system.

2. Prostitution is visible in the DPRK as every guest to the Yangakdo Hotel can attest.  However these workers are all foreigners (Chinese) on contract.  Some tourists do claim to have successfully liaised with a local Korean, but these stories are rare. 

Read the full article here:
Privileged North Koreans Enjoy S. Korean Movies
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
7/24/2009

Though quite familiar to veteran DPRK-watchers, the “colorful” language that fills North Korea’s official news was the subject of a humorous story in the BBC  last week.

According to the article:

A government official recently claimed that North Korea’s official state media has insulted the South Korean president more than 1,700 times this year alone.

That is an average of 10 insults a day.

He is variously called “a lackey”, “a stooge”, “a dictator” and the leader of “a gang of traitors”.

The official admitted that the jibes were sometimes “downright silly”.

…

At times of extreme hostility the language turns flamboyant, even poetic.

America sank so low in 2003, according to state radio, that even the “piles of manure in the fields” were “fuming out the smoke of hatred.”

It is strong stuff, no doubt, but sometimes the outside world can be tempted to analyse too deeply.

And why do the insults sound so antiquated?

Joo Sung-ha, the defector turned South Korean journalist, says there is an easy explanation for North Korea’s use of seemingly antiquated words like “brigandish” to refer to its opponents.

“They’re using old dictionaries,” he says.

“Many were published in the 1960s with meanings that have now fallen out of use, and there are very few first-language English speakers available to make the necessary corrections.”

So, while North Korea’s rhetoric is certainly worthy of analysis, perhaps we shouldn’t be too alarmed by every outburst.

Further thoughts:

1. For those interested, I posted a copy of Let’s Learn Korean which I bought on my last trip to Pyongyang. It contains many linguistic gems. Download it here.

2. All of these colorful metaphors can be easily found using the invaluable STALIN search engine which helps readers search the KCNA for specific stories.  This is especially useful for researchers who need to count the number of times someone’s name is mentioned in the North Korean media.  The STALIN search engine also has a humorous Random Insult Generator and Juche/Gregorian calendar converter.

3. Joshua has also invented the KCNA drinking game.

4. And let’s not forget the entrepreneurial individual who posts KCNA headlines to Twitter.

When North Korea Uncovered (Google Earth) was featured in the Wall Street Journal last May, one aspect in particular generated some skepticism: the identification of thousands of burial mounds scattered across the DPRK’s mountains.

(Click on image for larger version)

IHS Jane’s Senior Image Analyst Allison Puccioni, in a blog post for CNN’s Anderson Cooper, confimrmed that this unusual looking landscape is composed of burial mounds.

“It’s sadly ironic that in a time where people can no longer sustain themselves the North Koreans still manage to bury their dead with the painstaking tradition of their culture. The burial mounds are unusually close together probably to save land for agriculture” (Allison Puccioni).

Also, here is a photo of these types of burial mounds in the DPRK from ground level:

(Click on image for larger verison)

The Korean tradition of burying the dead in burial mounds up on mountain tops and slopes goes back many years.  Here is a brief history in wikipedia.

While doing some research, I stumbled on this old document on the DPRK’s Olympic Committee.  PDF here.

According to the document:

On 30th May 1952, a few weeks before the celebration of the XVth Olympiad in Helsinki (FIN), the organisers were contacted by the physical culture and sports committee of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who expressed their desire to become part of the Olympic family. As a preliminary step the IOC called for the creation of an NOC. This requirement was duly complied with in September of the following year. A formal request for recognition arrived at the headquarters of the IOC in March 1956. Provisional recognition was accorded by a session of the IOC convened in Sofia (BUL) in 1957.

At that time the NOC comprised 16 sports federations of which 6, governing respectively basketball, boxing, association football, ice skating, volleyball and table tennis, were already affiliated to an international federation. Right up to 1963, negotiations took place with a view to participation at the Olympic Games of a single, united team made up of North and South Koreans. The solution envisaged was on the lines of that adopted by the two German nations but, despite meetings in Lausanne in January 1963 and in Hong Kong on 17th May and 1st June 1963 the project eventually had to be abandoned. Finally authority was given, by the members of the IOC in session at Baden-Baden, for the two NOCs to be represented by separate teams.

Also, It seems that Kim il Sung Stadium used to be called “Moranbong Stadium” as late as 1980.

Read about the history of the DPRK Olympic Committee here (PDF)

From GPI Consulting:

In the current financial and economic situation, companies face many challenges. They must cut costs, develop new products and find new markets. In these fields, North-Korea might be an interesting option. Inspired by the economic successes of its neighbouring country China, North-Korea has since a few years opened its doors to foreign enterprises. It established several free trade zones to attract foreign investors and there are several sectors, including textile industry, shipbuilding, agro business, logistics, renewable energy, mining and Information Technology, that can be considered for trade and investment.

North-Korea is competing with other Asian countries by offering skilled labor for very low monthly wages and by offering tax incentives.  Last year, North-Korea’s exports rose with 23 percent and its imports with 32 percent. Do you want to explore new business opportunities for your company? Then join us from 19 – 26 September 2009 on our trade & investment mission to North-Korea. The program includes individual matchmaking, company visits, network receptions and dinners. Furthermore, we will visit the annual Autumn International Trade Fair in Pyongyang (see photo). We will also meet European business people who are working and living in North-Korea.
 
The mission is meant for entrepreneurs from various business sectors; tailormade meetings will be arranged by our local partner, the DPRK Chamber of Commerce. The program of this unique mission has been attached and we can be contacted for further details. In case you want to participate: please register as soon as possible, so we can start the visa-application procedure.
 
With best regards,
Paul Tjia (sr. consultant ‘global sourcing’)
GPI Consultancy, P.O. Box 26151, 3002 ED Rotterdam, The Netherlands
E-mail: paul@gpic.nl tel: +31-10-4254172  fax: +31-10-4254317 Website: www.gpic.nl
 
N.B. some examples of investment opportunities in North-Korea:  
http://www.gpic.nl/invest(hungsong).pdf and http://www.gpic.nl/invest(clock).pdf 

GPI’s marketing flyer is here.

UPDATE: A detail oriented reader has pointed out that there is no DPRK embassy in Helsinki.  It was closed, and DPRK-Finnish relations have been handled from the DPRK’s embassy in Stockholm. See the comments below for more. 

According to the Voice of the Martyrs web page:

An anonymous fax believed to have been sent from the North Korean embassy for Finland promises workers affiliated with The Voice of the Martyrs (USA) that “something very bad will happen to you” if VOM continues a special project to share the Gospel via weekly fax transmissions to government and business representatives of the restricted Asian nation.

During the past year VOM has made an effort to collect as many fax numbers as possible inside North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated nations. VOM sends weekly faxes containing Christian messages and Scripture passages on love and forgiveness to each of the fax numbers.

Apparently, the project has touched a nerve at the highest levels of North Korea’s repressive government.

“We know who you are,” begins a fax, written in Korean but without a signature. “We warn you that if you send this kind of dirty fax again something very bad will happen to you. Don’t do something you will regret.”

The threatening fax came to a VOM-affiliated office just days before two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were sentenced to 12 years hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea. It came just one day after the latest round of faxes sent by VOM to North Korean fax numbers.

“This fax is good news,” said Todd Nettleton, VOM’s director of Media Development and the author of a book on the history of Christianity in North Korea. “This means that the faxes are getting through, and they are being read. It is highly unlikely that this type of response would have been made from an embassy without some approval from Pyongyang.”

The Voice of the Martyrs exists to serve persecuted Christians living in restricted nations, and to help spread the gospel in those nations. The ministry has been active in North Korea for decades, including launching tens of thousands of “Scripture Balloons,” helium filled balloons that are printed with Scripture passages and other gospel messages.

The most recent fax sent to North Korean businesses and government offices included stories of Christians loving Communists — even the Communists who abused or tortured them. It was taken from the writings of Richard Wurmbrand, VOM’s founder who was held for 14 years in communist prisons in Romania.

“North Korea presents some great challenges, but the Good News of Jesus’ love cannot be stopped,” said Nettleton. “We simply have to find more creative ways to deliver that message, and The Voice of the Martyrs is committed to doing that.”

A PDF of the fax can be seen here.

Here is an English translation of the faxes the religious group is sending.

Coverage of the story in Chairstian Today.

Josh suggests some non-religious messages.

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

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

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

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

UPDATE 5 (2011-3-28): Radio Free Asia updates us on the Legea deal.  According to the article:

Officials of North Korea’s team and Legea met last week at the company’s headquarters in the Italian city of Pompeii and discussed details of a new jersey design under a four-year sponsorship agreement initiated at the end of the last World Cup tournament.

Two “key stakeholders” from the North Korean team discussed new designs for the team uniform and an expansion of their successful partnership during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, according to Lorenzo Grimaldi, the company’s marketing and sponsorship manager.

“Two core members of the North Korean soccer team met with company officials over the course of the two days mostly to discuss new [uniform] collections,” resulting in a decision to move forward, Grimaldi told RFA.

During the meetings, the two sides are believed to have exchanged ideas about Legea’s newly-launched Saga soccer uniform line and related supplies, as well as what support would be provided for the North Korean team.

Specific details of the arrangement were also discussed ahead of the North Korean women’s national soccer team’s participation in the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany. Legea will be sponsoring the women’s team for the tournament.

Originally, North Korean national soccer team officials and Legea had scheduled the meetings in February, but Grimaldi said they were rescheduled due to visa approval and flight delay issues.

Key sponsor

Legea has sponsored the North Korean national soccer team since the 2010 FIFA World Cup and has agreed to continue as a key sponsor for the next four years. The sponsorship for the period was valued at U.S. $4.9 million, including products for the national women’s and youth teams.

Last year, Legea sold a substantial amount of North Korean team replica jerseys, team-related merchandise and other apparel from a selection of more than 2,000 items, and Grimaldi said continued sanctions on the country have only increased the popularity of the merchandise.

He said Legea confirmed a global interest in the North Korean soccer team through its surprisingly high sales of replica jerseys last year, despite the team’s early exit from the World Cup.

Legea said the soccer team’s sportswear was popular in countries including the U.K., Spain, the U.S., and South Korea.

In Spain, Legea recorded sales of nearly 1 million Euros (U.S. $1.35 million).

Itagoal, a Legea product retailer in New York, confirmed high numbers of sales in the U.S. last year.

A representative of Itagoal said the company is eagerly awaiting a new shipment of North Korean team products from Italy.

Here (2008 Olympics), and here (2010 FIFA) are past stories on sponsorship of North Korean athletic teams.

UPDATE 4 (2010-6-2): According to Bloomberg/Busiessweek:

North Korea is returning to the World Cup after 44 years, and venturing into the sports marketing industry that evolved in its absence.

Ahead of the June 11 start of the tournament, the soccer team of Kim Jong Il’s regime has snared a 4 million-euro ($4.9 million) jersey contract over four years, according to Daniele Nastro, marketing director of Pompeii, Italy-based sports apparel maker Legea s.r.l. North Korean soccer association assistant general secretary Ri Kang Hong confirmed the deal with Legea, without giving financial details.

“Perhaps it’s a sign of incipient capitalism,” Jim Hoare, a retired British diplomat who served in Pyongyang, said from London. Although western sports leagues aren’t covered by the media in North Korea, officials “would be aware of the value of sports sponsorship,” Hoare said.

The deal is timely as North Korea faces trade restrictions. South Korea halted business last month after blaming the communist nation for a torpedo attack on a warship that killed 46 sailors in March. Japan has tightened controls on sending money to the North, which was already under United Nations sanctions for nuclear testing.

Kim’s regime is “hungry” for foreign cash, according to Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation in Washington. “The economy is in a very difficult situation,” he added.

1,000-to-1 Chance

Ranked No. 105 in the world, North Korea takes on the Nike Inc.-clad Brazil, the record five-time world champion, in its opening game on June 15 in Johannesburg. Ladbrokes Plc, a U.K. oddsmaker, rates North Korea a 16-to-1 chance to defeat Brazil, meaning a $1 bet would yield $16 in profit.

The communist state is given a 1,000-to-1 chance of winning the tournament, according to Ladbrokes.

At the 1966 World Cup in England, when brand names were absent from even European team uniforms, North Korea wore plain red shirts when it upset Italy 1-0 to reach the quarterfinals and won the affection of the English, who “probably felt sorry for them,” Hoare said. England now commands about 34 million euros a year from Nike Inc.’s Umbro brand, making it the top earner of the 32 teams that will play at the World Cup in South Africa, according to Sport + Markt AG.

No Apparel Market

North Korea’s team is getting an amount similar to what might be paid to a low-ranking team in the English Premier League, the world’s richest soccer league, according to Simon Chadwick, a sports business professor at the U.K.’s Coventry University. Ri, in an interview in Tokyo last week, said it was hard to find a jersey sponsor as there’s “no market” for sports apparel in North Korea.

“If it doesn’t result in sales, there’s no point” for some sporting-goods companies, Ri said.

Legea will provide North Korea with branded World Cup jerseys and training gear, Nastro said. That will help raise the Italian brand’s international profile, although the marketing bet could backfire, Chadwick said.

Legea “will be working overtime to put clear blue water between the team and the regime,” Chadwick said. “It could get to the stage when people stop buying the brand if they’re being seen as propping up a dictatorship.”

While not breaking trade sanctions, Legea is “swimming against the tide” with its sponsorship because of the perception of North Korea, Snyder said. “It’s a bit like sponsoring Tiger Woods at the moment,” he said.

Nastro said he isn’t worried. “In the World Cup, politics will be out,” he said by telephone from Pompeii.

Rival Chinese Bid

North Korea received other bids. It declined an offer by China Hongxing Sports Ltd., the Singapore-listed company that provided its jerseys for qualifying games, according to Kelvin Yeung, chief financial officer of the Chinese company.

European brands might have bid more, Yeung said, without saying how much China Hongxing offered. Ri said the agreement with the Quanzhou, China-based company had expired and declined to comment on why it wasn’t renewed.

North Korea rejected Legea’s first design for its shirts as too modern, frowning upon a white line across a red shirt, Nastro said.

“As a people, we don’t like flashy designs,” Ri said. “For home games, the jerseys are white, which we regard as noble, and it reflects our spirit. For away games, we go with red, which is used in our national flag. It also symbolizes our passion and heart. A simple design expresses that more purely.”

As part of the shirt deal agreed in March, there is a kicker for North Korea: it will get a 10 million euro bonus if it wins the World Cup, Nastro said.

“That’s probably not going to happen,” he added.

UPDATE 3 (Date N/A): You can see the DPRK men’s 2010 football kit here.

UPDATE 2(2010-6-3): Apprarently Italian sports apparel firm Legea snagged the DPRK men’s and women’s football contracts. According to the Economist:

Bloomberg reports that North Korea has signed a four year – 4 million-euro Legea kit deal, according to Daniele Nastro, marketing director of Pompeii, Italy-based sports apparel maker Legea.

North Korean football association assistant general secretary Ri Kang Hong confirmed the deal with Legea, without giving financial details.

North Korea received other bids. It declined an offer by China Hongxing Sports Ltd., the Singapore-listed company that provided its jerseys for qualifying games, according to Kelvin Yeung, chief financial officer of the Chinese company.

European brands might have bid more, Yeung said, without saying how much China Hongxing offered. Ri said the agreement with the Quanzhou, China-based company had expired and declined to comment on why it wasn’t renewed.

North Korea rejected Legea’s first design for its shirts as too modern, frowning upon a white line across a red shirt, Nastro said.

“As a people, we don’t like flashy designs,” Ri said. “For home games, the jerseys are white, which we regard as noble, and it reflects our spirit. For away games, we go with red, which is used in our national flag. It also symbolizes our passion and heart. A simple design expresses that more purely.”

It should be pointed out that Italy is a World Cup football rival with both Koreas following the DPRK’s victory over Itlay in 1966 and the ROK’s victory over Italy in 2002.

UPDATE 1 (2009-6-21): The Western media has picked up on this story and added a few details.  According to the Los Angeles Times:

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

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

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

Read the additional stories here:
North Korean Soccer Unfazed by Sanctions
Radio Free Asia
Borah Jung
3/28/2011

North Korea Profits From Brazil World Cup Game With Jersey Deal
Bloomberg/Businessweek
Alex Duff and Makiko Kitamura
6/2/2010

North Korean soccer brings success to Chinese apparel company
Los Angeles Times
Chi-Chi Zha
6/19/2008

ORIGINAL POST (2010-4-4): Chinese sportswear firm to sponsor DPRK team at football World Cup, by Michael Rank

The Chinese sporting goods company Hongxing, which sponsored the North Korean Olympics team in Beijing (here and here), will do the same for the North Korean squad at the football World Cup in South Africa in June, a Chinese website reported.

The Singapore-listed company, which markets its products under the brand Erke , sponsored the North Koreans to the tune of $3 million at the Olympics, which resulted in “very good publicity results”, the website added. The company has over 3,000 shops in China, it said.

The firm will kit the team out in clothes, boots and luggage as well as providing training, but the report did not give a value for the World Cup sponsorship.

A company official was quoted as saying: “Ever since [North] Korea qualified for the World Cup in South Africa, the fame of the brand on the Chinese mainland has gradually reached a peak. We expect the publicity results of the [North] Korean team will help promote a rise in sales.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that the North Koreans refused to wear Erke’s logo at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies for fear it would compete with their country’s flag.

It quoted Wu Rongzhao, deputy chief executive of China Hongxing Sports, as saying sponsorship of the North Korean team was “a very painful process.” Erke had to scrub plans for a marketing event timed to the Games’ opening because of red tape and bureaucracy. For instance, Pyongyang’s Olympic officials would communicate only by email, not by phone, the paper added.

Wu said sponsorship of the North Korean team was aimed at the domestic Chinese market. It “will allow us to capture a bigger share of the growing PRC sporting goods market in the run-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics.”

Asked to comment on the latest report, an Erke spokesman told North Korean Economy Watch in an email that “we are unable to confirm the content from the link provided by you at this moment. Please check our official press release regarding all sponsorship issues.” Hongxing is based in the coastal city of Quanzhou in Fujian province.

Apart from sponsoring the North Korean Olympics team, Hongxing also sponsored the country’s women’s football team in the FIFA Women’s World Cup held in China in 2007. North Korea were knocked out in the quarterfinals to Germany, who went on the win the tournament.

North Korea will be making their second-ever appearance at the World Cup this summer, after unexpectedly making it into the tournament in Britain in 1966, when it shocked the world by defeating Italy en route to the quarterfinals.

Drawn in a fearsome-looking Group G in South Africa alongside five-time world champions Brazil, European heavyweights Portugal and African powerhouses Côte d’Ivoire, the North Korean Chollima  squad kick off their campaign against Brazil on 15 June in Johannesburg.

Assistant coach Jo Tong-Sop said in January after winning the International Friendship Football Tournament in Qatar: “Given the teams we’ve been drawn against, we face a difficult task at South Africa 2010, though I hope that this win will boost our confidence.”

“Our group will be very tough as it includes some of the highest-ranked teams in the world. They have some fantastic individual players, not to mention their teamwork and tactical ability, all of which will make life very hard for us in South Africa,” Jo told FIFA.com.

There’s a North Korea World Cup blog here and football kit fetishists may enjoy the discussion of the North Korean World Cup shirts here .

North Korea’s chances in the World Cup seem slim and it is a footballing minnow compared with the South. South Korea is the only Asian team to have qualified for the World Cup for seven times consecutively and currently holds the best FIFA World Cup record in Asia, according to Wikipedia.

South Korea and Japan co-hosted the World Cup in 2002, the first time the championships had been held in Asia and the first time the tournament had been hosted by more than one country.

UPDATE: From Timeout (Vietnamese English publication):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the Press Release below:

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