The GOOD Guide to North Korea

GOOD Guide: to Daily Life in North Korea

Paul French — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:30:00 PST

Traffic Lights

Despite having only about 300,000 cars, North Korea takes traffic control seriously. It is unique in having four-color traffic lights (the fourth--for turning right-is blue) and in Pyongyang, a corps of female traffic directors-reportedly hand-picked by Kim Jong Il for their beauty-step in during the power outages.

Not so Wired

Don't expect to send or receive too many emails from North Korea-the internet is for the senior elite only. Cell phones are rare, too-even if you're politically trusted enough to have one, call charges of 7.5 cents per minute plus a hefty $825 registration fee put them beyond just about everyone's reach.

Spotty Electricity

At times, Pyongyang operates an "alternate suspension of electricity supply" system, meaning that buildings are blacked out only on one side of each street. Children plan their TV-watching accordingly, rushing across the street to catch the end of a show when the power switches. It's less fun for the elderly, who rarely leave their apartments for fear of being trapped in an elevator with no power. Officially these power (and gas) shortages don't exist; people in Pyongyang walk to work because it's healthy. That's why Sunday is officially a "walking day" with curtailed public transportation, and a "walking campaign" urges students and citizens to pursue bipedal locomotion for "health reasons."

Two Leaders

Portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are everywhere-in every home, school, workplace, swimming pool, car on the Pyongyang subway, and on the universally worn lapel badges.

Afraid to Leave

As many as 300,000 North Korean refugees may be hiding in China, Why doesn't everyone just leave? The logistics of leaving are not that difficult-the border with China is porous, poorly guarded on the D.P.R.K. side, and 880 miles long. But then there is yongoje, the North Korean policy of "family purging," whereby any individual crime-including fleeing the country-leads to discrimination against the family and close colleagues of the transgressor. Knowing that you can never return, write a letter to your family, or call old friends is too much for many people. They simply put their heads down and survive. Even for those who do leave, life outside the bubble of the D.P.R.K. can be tough-women fall into the Asian sex trade, or are sold as "brides" to single Chinese farmers. Even those that make it to South Korea encounter severe difficulties adjusting. They are rarely prepared for the outside world and suffer from excessively high rates of depression and alcoholism. Yongoje and the Chinese policy of repatriating any Koreans found in China are powerful deterrents. Without them it is quite possible that virtually the entire country would leave, telling the last person to switch off the lights-if the electricity happened to be on that day.

Two Flowers

Like many countries, the D.P.R.K. has a national flower—two, in fact: specially developed orchid-begonia hybrids, the violet-colored Kimilsungia, and the red Kimjongilia. Every year the Korean Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Committee rewards the gardeners of North Korea who grow the finest examples of these flowers.

Government TV

TV is a government business in North Korea. The primary channel is called D.P.R.K. Central Television, but might as well be called Kim TV-all "news" is positive, all citizens would willingly sacrifice themselves for the leader, the country has never suffered famine or poverty, and Americans are bad people. Don't bother channel surfing-TVs are locked to government frequencies.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, The Porcupine Strategy vs. The Nuclear Gambit (sec. 10 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:41:08 PDT

If all else fails, the D.P.R.K. Army still has artillery dug in deep and close to the DMZ, a constant reminder of Seoul's vulnerability; if anyone attacks, all North Korea has to do is implement its "Porcupine Strategy" and pull the trigger. According to Pentagon estimates, a conflict in Korea would lead to 52,000 U.S. and 490,000 R.O.K. casualties within the first 90 days, and the former CIA director James Woolsey has argued that 4,000 daily air strikes over a period of 30 to 60 days would be required to annihilate Pyongyang's extensive nuclear program.

1 to 1.2 million soldiers (including 46,000 in the navy, 110,000 in the air force, and 60,000 special forces)

300,000 assorted military noncombat personnel

600,000 reserves

Three armed citizen groups: the Militia of Worker-Peasant Red Guards, Red Guard Youth, and College Training Units (TOTAL: 4.7 MILLION CITIZENS)

5,000 tanks, 1,700 aircraft, 800 ships, 2,000 Armored Personnel Carriers, 2,400 multiple rocket launchers, and 13,000 artillery pieces

Possibly one nuclear warhead

The army's minimum height requirement is now 4 FEET 2 INCHES, the shortest in the world

Reports suggest malnourishment and low morale

Hungry and disaffected troops have been reported crossing into China to raid shops and banks

Intelligence suggests that conventional military supplies are dwindling as money runs out

Fuel shortages mean that D.P.R.K. pilots fly 80 percent less than their R.O.K. and U.S. counterparts; ships rarely venture far from shore and tanks mostly stand idle

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, All Your Currency Are Belong to Us (sec. 9 of 10)

Zach Frechette — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:32:29 PDT

Division 39 is a closely guarded Pyongyang-run network of trading companies set up in the 1970s. Established specifically to procure hard currency (the need for which has only increased with the disintegration of the economy), Division 39 does so through a web of legitimate and luridly nefarious schemes.

Division 39 exports ginseng and exotic mushrooms; it also smuggles ivory, runs a lucrative trade in opium, methamphetamine, counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes, and home-made Viagra; directs North Korea's arms trading activities; and, perhaps most brazenly, produces and circulates their own U.S. $50 and $100 bills. These so-called "Super Notes" are the best forgeries in the world. The money supplements Pyongyang's purchase of nuclear equipment and funds Kim Jong Il's supply-line of luxury goods (Mercedes, Rolexes, Hennessy Cognac).

Coordinating its activities with Division 38 (which manages the money Division 39 brings in) and Division 35 (which oversees state-sponsored kidnappings and assassinations), Division 39 is said to have earned North Korea more than $5 billion over the years; the United States discovery of the Super Note led to the recent redesigns of our currency.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, The "Capital of Revolution" Tour (sec. 8 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:29:23 PDT

A tour of the city starts with the nearly 500-foot white granite Juche Tower, capped with a 65-foot torch symbolizing the "rays of Juche." It was erected in 1982 to celebrate Kim Il Sung's 70th birthday. From there, head to the 200-foot Arch of Triumph (slightly taller than Paris's Arc de Triomphe) erected to glorify Kim Il Sung's exploits. Then it's but a short hop to the Grand People's Study House, which can house 30 million books (though it doesn't) and is supposedly a "center for the project of intellectualizing the whole of society and a sanctuary of learning for the entire people." Next it's off to Kim Il Sung Stadium, which can hold 150,000 spectators and opened with an "international marathon" featuring runners from just seven countries. Finally, head to the wide-open spaces of Kim Il Sung Square, rivaled in size only by Beijing's Tiananmen. Nearby is the final stop on the tour, the ultimate must-see attraction-the Mansudae Grand Monument, a 65-foot statue of Kim Il Sung. When the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the statue he noted with disgust that it was coated in gold. The North Koreans recoated it in less ostentatious bronze shortly thereafter.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, There Ain't No "D" in the DMZ (sec. 7 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:24:52 PDT

It is the division drawn across the Korean peninsula at the end of the Korean War in 1953. Military planners in Seoul, Pyongyang, and the Pentagon all know the stats-the DMZ separating the two Koreas is 37 miles north of Seoul and 83 miles south of Pyongyang. There, one million D.P.R.K. troops face down 700,000 R.O.K. and 37,000 U.S. soldiers. It is anything but "demilitarized."

On the southern side, the edge of the DMZ is a tourist attraction, a day out for visitors from Seoul. On the northern side there is, unsurprisingly, a propaganda theme park where visitors get a lesson in both American imperialism and the venality and corruption of the South Korean leaders who have kept the Korean people separated despite the ardent and heartfelt wishes of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. You know this because as you head south from Pyongyang on the Reunification Expressway to the border town of Panmunjom, you pass a gigantic billboard featuring a giant index finger and the words "One Korea."

Panmunjom itself can be a disappointment. It is basically a collection of 1950s-era huts where the truce negotiations occurred. Through the middle of the huts runs a thick white chalk line-the border. It all looks innocuous enough-but step across that line and you stand a good chance of starting World War III.

Of all the frequent clashes and disputes across the DMZ, the weirdest was perhaps the 1979 discovery of D.P.R.K.-built infiltration tunnels under the DMZ. Not small tunnels either-they were big enough for tanks. Still, it's not all guns and conflict. One side effect of the DMZ's existence is that the area is now an ornithologist's dream, one of the most pristine pieces of land in all of Asia-though men in camouflage with high-powered binoculars crawling through the undergrowth might not find a very warm welcome from either side.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, Nuclear Ambitions Realized (sec. 6 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:20:54 PDT

In July 1950, President Truman authorized 10 nuclear-configured B-52 bombers to be deployed within striking range of the North to take "whatever steps are necessary" to prevent the triumph of Northern forces. In the winter of 1950, General Douglas MacArthur sought permission to drop "between 30 and 50 atomic bombs" on the North, which would have laid a belt of radioactivity across the peninsula. Fortunately, this never happened. But as the war ended, Kim Il Sung ordered work to start on a nuclear-weapons program, feeling he needed "equivalence" with America should hostilities resume.

Kim forged relationships with nuclear scientists in both the U.S.S.R. and China. The nuclear facility at Yongbyon (60 miles north of Pyongyang), which has attracted so much interest of late, was originally established in 1964. Reports of the early days of the North's nuclear program are sketchy at best, although defectors have reported many deaths from radiation sickness among the physicists who worked at Yongbyon. By the late 1980s, Western intelligence agencies believed that the D.P.R.K. had advanced to reprocessing plutonium, turning it into weapons-grade material. At the same time, Pyongyang's missile technology was improving. The notion that the D.P.R.K. could build a bomb and devise a delivery technology seemed close to reality.

In 1994 the United States and North Korea reached the Agreed Framework, whereby Pyongyang would decommission its nuclear program and allow weapons inspections in return for civilian use of reactors to generate power and aid in the form of oil. The situation seemed stable. Then, in October 2002, James Kelly, America's assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was told in a whisper from a North Korean official that the country was in breach of the 1994 Framework and was again refining plutonium in service of its nuclear ambitions. North Korea swiftly moved back up the American political agenda-though not quite as high as Iraq and Afghanistan. Beijing brokered Six-Party Talks featuring China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan as well as the United States, and the D.P.R.K. Though several years of talks followed, few tangible results were achieved.

Then, in October 2006, the four-year game of show-and-tell ended with the dramatic detonation of a warhead-North Korea had joined the nuclear club. The initial response was a sanctions package proposed by Washington and supported by the U.N. targeting a slightly bizarre range of luxury goods including Segways, crystal ornaments, silk scarves, and rare stamps. The aim was to isolate and economically strangle the North's "elite." But a larger question loomed over the sanctions package-how do you isolate a regime that has effectively spent the last half-century isolating itself?

February of 2007 saw a breakthrough. A road map of sorts was agreed upon, similar to that of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Pyongyang desperately needs the fuel aid, and Washington certainly doesn't need a conflict in Korea.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, Politics for Breakfast, Politics for Supper (sec. 5 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:15:05 PDT

North Koreans awake to state radio exhorting them to begin another day building the revolution. The working day starts around 7:30 a.m. with a 30-minute reading session that includes studying the daily editorial in the party papers. At lunch, the radio is back on and the walls of the company cafeteria are covered in more party newspapers. Most people are required to remain at the office after work for the daily "Community Session" and "Learning Session." At the Community Session there is a discussion of the results of the day's work, an evaluation of progress, and an anticipation of the next day's tasks. The Learning Session is more overtly political and can include a "Political Ideology Learning Session" to outline and disseminate party policy.

Younger citizens get no reprieve-the school day starts with morning exercises to revolutionary songs before finishing with a session of marching and saluting the image of Kim Jong Il. The curriculum is based around Kim Il Sung's "Thesis on Socialist Education," emphasizing the political role of education in developing revolutionary spirit. All children study Kim Il Sung's life closely. There's no break in college, either-even the most advanced university courses require that 20 percent of the curriculum be devoted to Juche theory.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, Food for the Masses (sec. 4 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:02:26 PDT

In 1994, North Korea was struck with a devastating famine. How many starved to death? We simply don't know for sure-it may have been as many as 2 million. Pyongyang denied the problem for months, and it wasn't until late in 1995 that the government, now blaming the problem on flooding, allowed international aid agencies access to the country.

The result of continued food shortages is severe rationing, with the vast majority of food supplies being handed out through a nationwide system known as the Public Distribution System. Everyone must produce coupons (yanggwon) when they buy food. Most people, even in privileged Pyongyang, see fresh meat rarely and fish only occasionally; they subsist on a basic diet of rice, grains, and cabbage.

Despite this, Pyongyang has done little to change the agricultural system that has proved to be such a failure. Farming is still done on large and inefficient collective farms, poor logistics lead to massive waste, and harvest yields are low by international standards. Many fear the scenario, suggested by USAID's Andrew Natsios, of a possible "second apocalypse"-continued poor harvests along with severe flooding and a lack of international food aid from China could combine to trigger another tragic famine.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, The North's Economy: The Arduous March (sec. 3 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:59:22 PDT

Estimating the extent of the D.P.R.K.'s economic decline is problematic-Pyongyang is simply not very generous with statistics. What we do know is that many hungry people are willing to risk their lives to try to cross the Yalu River, which separates China and the D.P.R.K.

There are also more measurable indicators that show how bad things are. North Korea's 2006 national budget was just $2.9 billion-an estimated 16 percent of which was spent on the military. And in South Korea, where average incomes are now 15 times higher than in their northern neighbor, the 2005 GDP was $1.18 trillion, while the North's was, at best, $40 billion. In fact, the gap between the two Koreas is widening in just about every applicable category-life expectancy, caloric intake, incidence of disease, and even average height.

Now the job of propping up the D.P.R.K. has fallen to China, which is the country's largest donor of coal, electricity, gasoline, and grain. The D.P.R.K. now accounts for more than one-third of China's international aid budget. China hopes that if it keeps North Koreans alive, they will stay in North Korea; a flood of millions of refugees is just too horrible for Beijing to contemplate.

GOOD Guide: to North Korea, A North Korean Civics Lesson (sec. 2 of 10)

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:55:08 PDT

Juche ("self-reliance") is a political theory combining a little bit of Marxism-Leninism, a dash of Maoism, quite a bit of Confucianism, and some traditional Korean philosophy. No other country has ever adopted Juche, despite a concerted campaign by Pyongyang in the 1970s to export the theory. Actually, no other country showed any interest at all, except the brutal regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia-even the Albanians described North Korea as "an unbelievably closed society." Despite the poor reviews, Pyongyang describes Juche as superior to all other systems of human thought.

Juche is the means of achieving true chaju ("independence"). Thus, the ultimate goal of North Korea is not to achieve a perfect communist society, but rather to reach chaju by following the twin goals of charip, the development of an independent and self-sufficient economy, and chawi, the development of a military capable of defending the country. When these two goals are achieved, you have chaju.

The concept of chawi is especially important, as it is the theoretical root of Songun thought. Songun, or "Military-First," is Pyongyang's most significant break with traditional Marxism, as it highlights the army as the most important aspect of society, above both the working class and the peasantry.

GOOD Guide: to The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea

Paul French — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:19:05 PDT

There is no other country on earth as inaccessible as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. This is no accident-the D.P.R.K. has largely shunned the outside world and pursued its own path for the last half a century.

Consequently, few people visit, trade is almost nonexistent, and even images of the country's capital, Pyongyang, are rare. This has led to an excess of qualifying terms to describe the North; the country is invariably "sclerotic," "schizophrenic," "Orwellian," "Kafkaesque," "anachronistic," "a pariah," or "a suicide state." In Pyongyang they prefer other terms; "paradise" was often used in the heady days of the 1960s and early 1970s, before economic stagnation, starvation, and isolation set in for a prolonged period. Nowadays, the North seems to prefer to define itself by a sort of theatrical victimhood-a country hounded by the imperialist forces of America and other assorted "bandits."

I have lived and worked in China for more than 15 years, and arriving in Pyongyang is still a shock-the cacophony of noise, traffic, and bustle that characterizes a typical Chinese city is almost totally absent in Pyongyang. It is a city of 2.5 million people that goes to bed early and, after 9 p.m., is as silent and dark as a remote country village. The level of isolation is also unparalleled-the outside world is by and large an unknown thing. It's a cheap throwaway line but I can't think of another country where the names Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley elicit little more than blank stares. When you land in Pyongyang you have truly reached the end of the line.

The fascination with North Korea is the desire to know the answer to a simple but complex question-why does it still exist in spite of the sweep of history? Predictions of the D.P.R.K.'s demise have been legion and, so far, always wrong. Many thought the country couldn't survive the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the Eastern Bloc-but it did. Others predicted that the regime would collapse after its founding father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994-it didn't, and power transferred to his son Kim Jong Il, creating the world's first Communist monarchy. Later that decade, a famine resulted in an estimated 2 million deaths, and again people predicted the regime would fall-it didn't, and if anything it became more entrenched. And all this time the country has survived with an economy that barely functions, severe power and fuel shortages, virtually no international trade, and virtually no outside contact. The D.P.R.K. is a historical relic, an anomaly in a world of globalization-it's the last hermit kingdom, and its borders remain tightly sealed.

Never forget that the D.P.R.K. is a country at war. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South and civil war ensued. United Nations forces (the bulk of them American) became involved on the side of Seoul, fighting Pyongyang. It became a prototypical conflict of the Cold War-the South fighting with help from more than 20 U.N. countries, including the United States, against the North (assisted by advisers from the U.S.S.R. and China). Fighting raged up and down the peninsula and threatened to explode into a full-blown world war when Chairman Mao launched his Chinese People's Volunteers across the border between China and Korea, and Chinese soldiers fought American GIs in Korea. In 1953 an armistice was declared, and a border between North and South was set, but no peace treaty was ever signed. Technically, the Korean War never ended-the last 54 years have been one tense, drawn out cease-fire.

IN BRIEF

NAME:

Democratic People's Republic of Korea , North Korea

SIZE:

About the size of Kentucky. It comprises 51 percent of the Korean peninsula.

CAPITAL:

Pyongyang (population 2.5 million)

OTHER MAJOR CITIES:

Kaesong, Sinuiju, Chongjin, Hamhung, Wonsan

POPULATION:

23 million (Republic of Korea, South Korea, has 49 million)

PERCENT OF ARABLE LAND:

22.4 percent (similar percentage as Israel and the Netherlands)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:

71 years (R.O.K.: 77; U.S.: 78)

INFANT MORTALITY:

23.29 deaths/1,000 live births (R.O.K.: 6.16; USA: 6.43)

MANPOWER FIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE:

5 million

LI'L KIM

THE TWO LIVES OF JONG-IL

The Myth Born on Mount Paektu, Korea's most sacred mountain. A swallow flew overhead to foretell his birth. As he came into the world a new star and a double rainbow appeared, an iceberg on a nearby lake cracked, and lights filled the sky.

The Reality Born in Siberia in February, 1942, after his father had fled across Manchuria to the Soviet border while pursued by the Japanese. Spent his youth in the U.S.S.R., known by the Russian name Yura.

FACTS

• Kim has a degree in political economy from Kim Il Sung University, class of '64. According to state media, he was so

smart that he corrected his professors' errors

• He has sired an estimated eight children out of wedlock

• He has a profound fear of flying; he travels by luxury train

• He has 20,000 videos in his collection; his favorites include the Rambo series, James Bond films, and slasher flicks

• He kidnapped a South Korean film director and his actor girlfriend to help jump start the North Korean film industry

• He has allegedly composed six operas

• He is rumored to wear platform shoes