Rare footage of daily life in North Korea

[fish&chips]

Recently I found an article in the German "GEO" magazine which I found really interesting. A team of a photographer and a reporter got permission to travel the "Beloved Leader's" country for two weeks. What came out of this is a depressing report on a land where people have no ideas of their own but are seemingly happy to live in a universe parallel to the rest of the world.

Here's a link to a photo gallery. I'll translate the captions below:
http://www.geo.de/GEO/kultur/gesellschaft/51937.html?t=img

Captions:

1) Kim Jong-il is shaded by Kim Il-sung (on the right: the mother of the current dictator). To let a bit of the former's glamour reflect on the son, the two Kims are becoming more and more similar to each other on pictures. The son, although only 1.58m of height, reaches his tall father's figure.

2) Cadence, the subduction of the individual to collective and leader forms the core of the "Yuche" philosophy of Kim Il-sung. His son Kim Jong-il, in power since 1994, drives on militarisation, as seen here in the "Mangyongdae" Pupils' Palace. In Panmunjom at the border to South Korea.

3) Energy is rare, even in the capital. Sufficient light is only granted to the "Party of Labour". Its monument with hammer, sickle and paintbrush is illuminated at night. On the red neon banner the regime praises "Hundredfold Victory!"

4) Women sell cigarettes and mugs of drinking water on the roadside. Since more than a million North Koreans have starved to death during the 1990ies, the socialist party has reluctantly allowed private trade.

5) Map

6) Profession: "Cheer-up Musician". Four brass musicians urge construction workers who renovate multi-storey buildings in Pjongyang. In North Korea music and work belong together. Factories will have their own symphonic orchestras playing.

[Ivan le Fou]

Really scary...

[Jobu]

Zheng, a North Korean collective farm worker caught a big fish in the river. He yelled in excitement to his wife when he returned home,
"Look, we can have deep fried fish!"
"But we don't have any oil"
"Then we can cook it!"
"We don't have a pot."
"We can roast it!"
"We don't have any firewood."

Zheng was furious. He ran down to the river and threw the fish back into the river.
The fish circled back around in the water, stuck his body out of the water, raised his right fin and yelled "Long Live Kim Jong Il!"

[fish&chips]

Zheng, a North Korean collective farm worker caught a big fish in the river. He yelled in excitement to his wife when he returned home,
"Look, we can have deep fried fish!"
"But we don't have any oil"
"Then we can cook it!"
"We don't have a pot."
"We can roast it!"
"We don't have any firewood."

Zheng was furious. He ran down to the river and threw the fish back into the river.
The fish circled back around in the water, stuck his body out of the water, raised his right fin and yelled "Long Live Kim Jong Il!"

From the article:
"So this is a life agreeable to God [Kim Il-sung]: Yun Chang-guk, born in 1965, his father a brigade leader, the mother a farmhand. Aged 15 he celebrates his coming of age with fellows at the community hall. He swears to dedicate his life to the people and the Leader. Maybe he still sleeps in his parents' bed at the time; Koreans become adults very late. After that he joins the army, lives among soldiers for five years, may never visit his family. He becomes a member of the Party. As he returns, the marriage broker offers a wife to him. Yun Chang-guk marries, fathers three children, graduates from the School of Agriculture and is therefore awarded a TV set by the Great Leader. It sits in the living room.

What can Yun Chang-guk remember from his childhood, apart of his coming of age? An event which happened years before his birth. Because the village elders used to tell it so often, that is seems to him as if he had witnessed it. In 1952, on a sunny September day, the Great Leader visited the Chonsam cooperative: 500 hectars, 500 families, a riverine plain framed by hills. The rice was standing a bit shabbily, but He saw a tree from which were hanging ripe, orange coloured persimmons. He must have said something like: The persimmons look good, why don't you plant more of those? He spoke to you, miserables, whispered the secretaries of the Great Leader, be kind and appreciate it.

And the peasants made a garden wherein never a single sear flower would stand. They brought up a seven meters high wall on which the best artists laid a mosaic which depicts the Great Leader, in a clearing of persimmon trees. Next to the tree they put a boulder into which they engraved that the Lord had estimated the number of fruit on the tree an approximate 800. When the peasants harvested the tree it were exactly 803. After that they planted hundreds of new persimmon trees."

[Switek]

Mates take a lok at this North Korea (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755&page=3&highlight=North+Korea) thread. I think this one should be merged.

btw. great footage

[fish&chips]

I knew there had to be something similar on here, just couldn't find it. :)
Mods, please merge the two.

[williamoforange]

Goddamn Commies. When in the hell are we onna be able to get some democracy in there?

[asch]

do they need it?

[signatory]

:| Heh yea

Watched a Swedish TV-report from NK just after the floodings earlier this year... they could talk to villagers only with a 'translator'

TV: "So when the floods came you had to leave your homes.. did anyone get hurt?"

Translator: "These people say everyone in the village survived"

TV: "Did they manage to salvage anything at all?"

Translator: "They say they could salvage only their jewlery and portraits of our great leader" (!)

...riiiiiight.. those poor villagers looked s*it-scared and clearly didn't speak as many words as the translator.