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Trendy London welcomes North Korean art

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Asia Times
Michael Rank
8/1/2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Art, Mansudae creative Company (art studio), United Kingdom, Zimbabwe | Comments Closed

Cinema Offers Look Inside North Korea’s Evolution

Friday, July 27th, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Animation, Art, Civil society, Film, International trade, Music | Comments Closed

Pyongyang accent best!

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Cultured Language, Pride of Korea
KCNA
7/25/2007

The Korean people are proud of having the Pyongyang cultured language and are embodying in their linguistic life thoroughly.

The Pyongyang cultured language is the standard one of the nation, which is fully reflecting the national characteristics and constantly developing in accordance with the requirements of the times.

The Koreans are a nation of one and the same blood who have lived in a territory with same culture down through history. They have developed the Korean language into the Pyongyang cultured language, centering around Pyongyang, the hub of the politics, economy and culture, since the liberation of the country from the Japanese colonial rule.

The Korean language, with abundant vocabularies, can correctly distinguish the differences between various objects and their meanings and clearly express people’s feelings and emotion, color, taste and etiquette.

Its pronunciations are fluent, intonations soft and sounds beautiful.

The Pyongyang cultured language comprehends the superior linguistic factors of the national language.

In particular, all the words of foreign origin which are difficult to understand have been removed and a vocabulary system has been established on the basis of home-grown words. As a result, the Pyongyang cultured language protects the purity of the Korean language on a high level.

Chinese and Japanese words had been brought into the Korean language in the past owing to the flunkeyism of feudal rulers and the Japanese imperialists’ moves to obliterate the Korean language. Foreign words including them have been arranged into Korean ones.

Posted in Civil society | Comments Closed

Drivers Employ Guards to Prevent Theft

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
7/25/2007

More and more North Korean delivery drivers have been employing guards in preparation for theft by soldiers.

On the 24th, Kim Kyung Min (pseudonym) a defector who entered Korea in February said, “Lately, there have been many incidents where the military get into brawls with young kids employed by delivery drivers and chauffeurs” and added, “This was something unthinkable in the past, but delivery drivers who transport wholesale goods are now hiring guards in order to protect their goods.”

As Jangmadang (markets) revitalized and more drivers began to load cargo onto their trucks to deliver goods to rural districts via road, protective measures such as guards have been employed as the number of theft by the military becomes more common.

Kim said, “In the past, drivers used government cars and so they were always attacked. However, things have changed now. Drivers bring their cars registering them at factories and businesses, and as a result, 2~3 guards are hired as a proactive way to protect themselves.”

According to Kim, these “bodyguards” employed by drivers were once militants who served in the army. Hence, they are trained in martial arts and fighting skills so that it is possible for a person to combat 2~3 people on his own.

Kim said, “Last year, soldiers put their baggage in the middle of the road on Pyongyang-Hyangsan Highway and wanted for a delivery truck. Thinking that the goods had fallen from a passing truck, the driver stopped his vehicle when three to four soldiers came and threatened him to hand over the goods. At that moment, the kids hired by the driver who were in hiding came and took care of the situation. Businessmen and drivers felt refreshed on hearing this story.”

Secretary general Lee Hae Young of the Association of North Korean Defectors said, “Since the past, soldiers would frequently steal household goods and corn from the country” and explained, “It seems that people have become conscious of protecting their assets.”

This kind of response by the people is a reflection of the real decline in power by the People’s Army.

Following the food crisis in North Korea, corruption amidst governmental officials worsened and soldiers increasingly stole goods from homes. People are widely recognizing the People’s Army as a violent group which steals goods.

Last year August, one Japanese broadcast captured and exposed a footage where a driver and security agent got into a fight in the vicinity of Sariwon, North Hwanghae, after the security agent had smashed a car window. This is what the majority of defectors mean when they respond, “This was something unthinkable in the past.”

These incidents may be a result of increasing individualism and property awareness as the distribution system collapsed. North Korean people analyze that different to the past, people are now increasingly asserting their own authority and not following the ways of the government or military.

Posted in Automobiles, Civil society, Military, Transportation | Comments Closed

North Korea Concentrates Energy on Regulating Citizens during Provincial Elections

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Daily NK
Kim Young Jin
7/24/2007

The North Korean government, with the approaching Provincial People’s Assembly delegate elections on the 29th of this month, stepped-up one level the management of citizens and regulation of cell phones.

Kang Ki Ok (pseudonym), a civilian of Hyesan in Yangkang Provicne, said in a phone conversation with the reporter on the 20th, “Nowadays, I am afraid to turn on my cell phone. The People Safety agents and the National Security agents inspect us with fury in their eyes. People who use cell phones during the election season are punished, so there are people who bury their phones by putting them into jars.”

The North Korean government, when the People’s Assembly election season comes around every four or five years, concentrates on regulating the society by observing the movement of citizens and examining the registration cards.

The members of the elections preparations committee, composed of National Security agents, chairmen of People’s Units, and head officials of each provincial unit, are ordered to strictly investigate illegal acts occurring in their regions and to control them. Illegal acts are punished at the end of the elections.

According to Mr. Kang, the outflow of information has been secured at the border region with the upcoming delegate elections, so concentrated cell phone regulation were carried out. Further, the control of the border has been toughened recently, so the escape fee has skyrocked to the North Korean currency of 1 million won (approx. US$1,075).

Another source relayed, “Safeguarding Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il statues and research offices have been toughened by inspection units composed of each organ and enterprise farming laborers. Further, they are making sure that historic places and vestiges of battle are not destroyed.”

This source said, “Youth Leagues have also organized inspection units and are regulating unemployed persons and are strictly making sure that juveniles do not watch South Korean dramas and listen to illegal CDs and South Korean songs.”

On one hand, related to election preparation, each city, district, and county candidates were posted at the election site and citizens over 17 have gone into preparations such as conducting voter registrations through the election committee.

The source also relayed that the People’s Safety Agency have actively stepped up inspections by summoning civilians who have gone out to foreign sites to catch clam and mine gold for survival.

When the movement of the North Korean authorities to strengthen the solidarity of the regime was presented through this election, the citizens, in fear of being punished as trial cases, have produced a cautious atmosphere.”

At the time of the Supreme People’s Assembly elections in 2003, when thefts or acts of violence occurred, perpetrators were stringently punished regardless of whether or not they were members of the Workers’ Party. Further, in the case that teenagers got into fist fights, the parents were disciplined and jointly held responsible.

Mr. Kim, who defected in 2006, said, “At the time of the 1991 provincial elections, in the province where we were living, teenagers got into a fist fight. One of the gangs who started the fight accused the opponent of “stirring a political event destroying elections” and went to the parents and got compensation for damages by threatening them.”

Posted in Cell phones, Civil society, Communications, Ministry of State Security (MPSS, NSA, SSD), Political economy, Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

DPRK Emphasizes Training International Financial Experts

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Banking, Domestic publication, Education, Finance, Foreign Trade Bank, Insurance | Comments Closed

N. Korea keeps South Koreans away from downtown Kaesong

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

Yonhap
Sohn Suk-joo
7/18/2007

North Korea Wednesday banned a tour of downtown Kaesong by South Koreans in an apparent protest against Seoul’s decision to scale down a Buddhist pilgrimage program to an ancient temple there, sources here said.

North Korea closed off downtown Kaesong to South Koreans in retaliation for the South’s refusal in July 2006 to allow the North to change its South Korean business partner for tours of the city. But since January, it has opened the main street of the medieval capital city to South Korean officials and tourists off and on.

On Wednesday morning, North Korean authorities did not allow some 60 Woori Bank officials to tour the heart of the city, and canceled a scheduled trip by South Korean financial supervisory officials to Kaesong the following day, according to the sources.

“According to industry sources, the North’s measure comes as a result of the South’s limiting of a pilgrimage program to Yongtong Temple,” said Kim Kyu-cheol, president of the South-North Forum, a civic group for inter-Korean economic cooperation.

The South’s Unification Ministry limited the number of pilgrimages to once a month, even though the North agreed to an unconditional number of pilgrimages to the restored temple as long as it could charge each tourist US$50.

Cheongtaejong, one of South Korea’s major Buddhist orders, also protested the decision, saying it would limit freedom of religion as many Buddhists are waiting to make a visit.

The government decision was made after North Korea requested a new deal on its tour business in 2005. The North wanted an agreement with Lotte Tours Co. despite having exclusive contract with Hyundai Asan, operator of the Mount Geumgang tours.

The South Korean government rejected the North’s request, saying the change could happen only if Hyundai Asan voluntarily pulls out of the business.

Posted in Religion, Tourism | Comments Closed

North Korean Elections Slogan “Everyone vote in agreement” Still the Same

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

Daily NK
Shin Joo Hyun
7/18/2007

Chosun (North Korea) Central TV, with the Local People’s Assembly representative elections ahead on the 29th of the month, reported on the 14th that a poster with the election slogan, “Let everyone vote in agreement,” has been produced.

North Korean Local People’s Assembly elections is a process of electing People’s Assembly representative at the province and the city under the direct control of the central government, and general cities, gun (county levels) and districts. At the election held in August 2003, 26,650 delegates were elected to the local People’s Assembly representative.

All elections at each unit of North Korea take place by each sole candidate coming forth and people voting for or against him or her. The nomination of candidates takes place by the elections party committee, who selects the candidates before the fact, and each level of organizations.

When the election date is publicly announced, events or meetings are held to encourage the approval votes of each People’s unit, civil organizations, or organs. Not only election slogans to encourage votes, but political slogans also emerge, such as “Let’s shine the military-first politics even more through participation of the populous.”

Mr. Lee, who defected to South Korea in 2004, said, “The National Security Agency tries to instill fear among the citizens by spreading rumors such as ‘So and so of a certain region voted in disagreement, so the entire family was banished. If one does not vote, he or she becomes special object of inspections.’ I did not know this there, but when I came here, I realized they were groundless acts of propagation to encourage approval votes.”

On the day of elections, if one enters the voting place, the citizens registration card is confirmed and people form lines to enter the voting area. Failure to participate in the voting is the same as being classified as anti-revolutionary persons.

In the case that one votes in agreement with the candidate, he or she can drop the voting paper in the voting box. Only in the case of disapproval can one enter the polling booth and mark X with a pencil. In reality, it is a public vote without the assurance of secrecy because the person in disagreement can be identified right away.

At the time of a vote of disagreement, the person is taken to the National Security Agency and undergo severe interrogations and is classified as a anti-revolutionary person, so no one dares to disagree. In the view of South Korean, we can become incensed about the fact that and ask ‘how can elections be so undemocratic?’ but to North Korea citizens, this is such a natural fact.”

As a result, North Korean elections are an election in words, but has a different dimension from our elections. In North Korea, the dimension of testing political character and understanding civilian population is much stronger than the meaning of electing representatives. In actuality, it is a political event to seize citizens.

With this year’s elections approaching, the inspections of North Korean borders and maritime has become much more strict and the issuance of permits for relocation has become more difficult. By doing so, means to restrain relocations have actually been implemented.

When elections end in the North, there is no special announcement on the result. Korean Central TV only reports the expected results in a lump, such as a 99.9% voting rate and a 100% approval rate.

Election slogans such as “Let everyone vote in agreement” cannot be abrupt to North Korean. However, such undemocratic election campaigns cannot continue forever by the North Korean authorities. When North Korean citizens realize that slogans to encourage votes of approval is the starting point for a dictatorship and anti-humanitarian politics, North Korea’s quality will change.

Posted in Civil society, Political economy | Comments Closed

Foreign Sales of Drugs Decline, North Korean Citizens Surface as Consumers

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Daily NK
Kim Min Se
7/17/2007

Only six, seven years ago, drugs inside North Korea secretly circulated among a portion of the upper-level officials and the specially affluent class, such as Chinese emigrants. Opium or heroine, produced in North Korea, were sold abroad to make foreign currency.

North Korea produces and exports drugs at the national level. Events where North Korean vessels and diplomats, through drug transport or charges of sales, are prosecuted by third-party countries is common. South Korean government, in the midst of North Korea’s breakdown in foreign currency supply in 1998, has deduced at one point that foreign-currency earners through illicit drug sales and illegal activities had amassed 100 million dollars.

From year 1970, North Korea’s drug sales, which secretly began on a small-scale, by the decree of Chairperson Kim Jong Il, rose in reality as a national enterprise and began official productions. In the August of same year, Chairperson Kim named the opium seed cultivation work as “White Bellflower Business.”

Further, he bestowed the appellation, “White Bellflower Hero,” to the person who sold over 1 million dollars of drugs, and ordered, “For the acquisition of foreign currency, export opium on a large scale (information reported by the National Intelligence Service, Lee Jong Chan former Chair at the inspection of National Intelligence Service on November 6, 1998).” As for North Korea’s drug production factories, the Nanam Pharmaceutical Factory in Chongjin and Hamheung’s Heungnam Pharmaceutical Factory are well-known.

Drugs, which are costly to average civilians preoccupied with making a living, were considered as a portion of the special class’ acts of aberration. The North Korean government, besides the foreign-currency earners, strictly inspected acts of drug circulations, so one could not even dream about this as a means of making money.

After the collapse of national provisions, drug sales also increase.

However, the food shortage brought a huge change to North Korea’s drug production and circulation. When the planned-economy system, where the nation was in charge of the provisions, broke down, the citizens started doing sales for survival. In North Korea where means of making money are not abundant, the place where one can smell money is at the market.

The revitalization of the jangmadang (black market) and general markets gave citizens in the cities a certain of opportunity to make a living. Further, they learned the mentality that money is best for survival. The custom began to spread where the citizens went through thick and thin if it meant working at a money-making job. Drugs infiltrated this opening.

Drugs that are most highly circulated in North Korea are philopon and heroine. The center of philipon productions is in Hamheung, South Hamkyung.

Hamheung is considered as a chemical industry synthesis base within North Korea where companies related to the chemistry branch can be abundantly found.

The representative place is the 2.8 Vinyl Chemical Complexes. Besides this, there are Hamheung Chemical Industry College (in its 5th year), the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory, and the Heungnam Pharmaceutical Factory, which are the providers of North Korea’s top chemical researchers.

The reason why Hamheung became the main place of philopon production

The raw materials for the vinyl complex are limestones of the Ounpo Mine in Hongwon-gun and the raw materials of the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory are ramrods of Huhcheon-gun and emulsified steel of the Manduk Mine.

For this reason, many chemistry-related researchers and workers are residing in Hamheung. The problem is that after the food provisions were cut off, they turned their eyes to Philopon production when making a living became difficult.

They can produce high-quality philopon, if they just have a good laboratory and raw materials. In particular, outside demand for Philopon was explosive in early 2000, when there were no huge restraints in the North Korea-Japanese trade and when the North Korea-Chinese trade became active.

Hamheung citizen Choi Myung Gil (pseudonym) said, “In the initial stage, if the businessmen provided raw materials and funds to researchers, they made high-quality Philipon and kept half of the profit. Do poor researchers have any money? They made them because businessmen received orders from China and Japan and sold them. Also, there was nothing to fear because bribes kept the mouths of the National Security Agency and the Social Safety Agency shut. There is nothing one cannot do with money, so what kind of a researcher would crush such a money-making scheme?”

Mr. Choi said, “The cost of production of philopon is no more than 3,000 dollars per kilogram in North Korea. If one sells this, he or she can receive 6,000 dollars on the spot. Manufactured Philopon can be handed over to middlemen or if it directly enters Shinuiju and is given to dealers, it can bring in from 9,000 to 10,000 dollars.”

He said, “My friend, who worked as a researcher in the Hamheung Branch Laboratory, also lived poorly, but became wealthy overnight by making philopon. I also am benefitting from him. There are many people who have become wealthy in Hamheung by making philopon.”

Ultimately, when the North Korea-Chinese traders bring the raw materials from China, the Hamheung chemical researchers make the philopon and the merchants take these to China for sale. In this process, the Chinese crime syndicate have also intervened.

Posted in Black markets, China, Civil society, Economic reform, Heung Nam Pharmaceutical Company, International trade, Nanam Pharmaceutical Factory, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

The Keyword for the Best Husbands Is “Foreign”

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Daily NK
Park Choel Yong
7/16/2007

In Chosun (North Korea), free dating between male and female students is prevented during middle school years and even in college. If an unmarried man and woman are walking down the street arm in arm, then they have to worry about the glare of passersby. However, marriage from dating is a gradually increasing trend, but most of the time, people marry through arranged marriages.

Before the period of the food shortage before 1990, the best husband material was males who “had joined a party, performed military service, and graduated from college.” However, since 2000, a huge shift has taken place in the mentality of people.

Lately, three levels of husbands have been common. The first level is males who are included in the following three categories: those who frequently go abroad, those attend foreign-currency earning companies, and those who have high possibility of going abroad.

The second level is those who have parents who are high-ranked leaders or come from a wealthy background. The third level is those whose parents do not have power, but as individuals, are smart enough to finish military service, join the party, are able to support themselves through college.

Males, who are not classified in these categories, select as spouses females who belong to similar categories. However, even if the classes are divided as such, males who earn a lot of money are inevitably the most popular.

The candidates for No.5 Department of the Party are special-grade women

If one looks at the basis for which brides are chosen in Pyongyang, the first level are those whose parents have power and come from an affluent family. Nowadays, there are provincial men who, thanks to the spouses’ family, who succeed by achieving the status of a Pyongyang citizen.

The second level is female college graduates, whose parents may not have authority, but the individual is smart and can make a living by herself. Of course, a woman cannot do better than graduate from Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang Foreign Language University, or Pyongyang Medical College. Historically and now, women who graduate from the College of Education can work as a teacher is still an admirable bride material.

The third level is those whose parents do not have power, the household is not too affluent, and the woman did not graduate from college, but she has a strong will of survival so can conduct business well. In Chosun nowadays, women who cannot do business are not popular among the men.

However, above power, education level, and money, is a class which is counted as a special level of women among all the men. They are those whose appearances are superior that they are selected into the No.5 Department of the Party, or are actors, dancers, or singers. The No.5 Department’s females work as phone operators or as Gippeumjo (pleasure-givers, special entertainers just for high-ranking officials) of high-level leaders and should quit once they reach 25. Afterwards, they are acceded to the party, are married to military commanders of the Escort Bureau or party leaders, and enter married life and a house which have been prepared for them.

The No.5 Department of the Party is a division, which is charge of Kim Il Sung’s food, clothing, and shelter and every aspect of his private life.

A refined marriage of mutual exchange of vows and pouring drinks at home

Once the marriage partner is selected, the parents select the date of the engagement ceremony. There are differences by province, but as a whole, the groom’s side of the family prepare deok (rice cakes) and food on the day of the ceremony and go to the bride’s home. On engagement day, the parents choose the wedding date.

The wedding clothes do not require a large sum of money. The men wear suits and women can prepare traditional Chosun dresses.

Japanese-Koreans who have returned to Pyongyang wear Western-style wedding clothes, which are rarely seen, and marry. In the past, Chosun period receptions and wedding attires, invoking the national tradition, were popular, but recently, they have completely disappeared.

The wedding is first conducted at the bride’s house. The wedding itself is the exchange of Korean drink glasses at the feast table and after the exchange of bows, the ceremony ends by pouring the drinks to both sides of parents and giving bows. Then, on the next day, the party leaves for the groom’s house. There, the same ceremony is conducted. Three days later, food is prepared and the bribe’s house visits take place.

In big cities such as Pyongyang, large-scale weddings can take place. First of all, cars that are brought to the wedding vary. In Chosun, it is not easy to acquire cars, but people choose high-scale cars anyways. In the house of upper-level leaders, several cars are mobilized.

For wedding photos, the Mansudae Arts Theater is the Best

Post the wedding ceremony, people ride rented cars and offer flowers and take ceremonial photos at the Kim Il Sung statue. They ride the car once more and take photos at various places and of statues in Pyongyang City.

The Party Foundation Commemorative Tower, the 5.1 Stadium, the Juche Ideology Tower, etc. are the major photo sites. There are political reasons for seeking out these sites, but they are also the most-decorated facilities in Pyongyang, so the pictures come out beautifully.

When one has a wedding, they have to report the marriage, carrying citizen registration cards, within a set time at the police station of jurisdiction. The bride and the groom, at this time, have to simultaneously read aloud the wedding oath.

The wedding oath pledges devotion to Kim Jong Il and as a cell of society, diligent leadership of the family, trust and reliance on each other, and walking the single path of revolution together.

In agricultural districts, the farmers do not even properly receive crops, so since they do not have anything to eat, they do not like going to the farm to work. However, the unmarried women, once they are engaged, are freed from going to the farm to work. Once there is an engagement ceremony, the woman is classified as a housewife who can receive 300 grams of provisions per day, so they are no longer required to go out to the farms and can wholly go into selling.

Thus, the young women in rural villages do not pay too much attention to the appearance or background of the grooms and in many cases, they become engaged as soon as they meet a man. Consequently, in the rural region, 19 or 20-year old married females are common. To them, marriage, which should be built on mutual love and faith, are considered as asylums for being freed from difficult labor.

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