Posted on 11/21/2007 1:25:52 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Illicit TV gives lie to Kim's paradise
By Anna Fifield
Published: November 21 2007 02:00 | Last updated:
November 21 2007 02:00
At night, after hanging around doing little at work all day, Oh Man-bok would often go home and do what many television viewers around Asia do - switch on one of the South Korean -dramas that in recent years have swept across the region as part of a "Korean wave".
But Mr Oh was watching them in North Korea, where Kim Jong-il has for years restricted access to outside information as part of his efforts to convince the -reclusive state's 23m people that they live in a socialist paradise.
North Koreans are increasingly discovering that this is far from the truth.
"Yeah, I've watched so many South Korean DVDs - they're great," says Mr Oh, who fled the North Korean city of Rajin two months ago and is now hiding in China. "They are smuggled in and we secretly circulate them among our friends."
Watching, copying or distributing South Korean films is a political crime and "offenders" make up as many as 10 per cent of inmates in North Korean prisons, according to escapees from the country.
So Mr Oh and a friend - never more than one, for fear of attracting attention - would keep the volume low and use a special battery pack so that he could take the disk out of his player during power cuts, when police often mount raids to catch people watching illicit programmes.
The hard line is ironic in a country run by a film buff. Mr Kim's fondness for South Korean movies is so well-known that his Southern counterpart, Roh Moo-hyun, presented him with a box set of one of South Korea's most popular TV dramas, Jewel in the Palace , at last month's inter-Korean summit.
To try to keep North Korea isolated from the outside world, Mr Kim's regime bans anything other than state TV and radio and tries to jam South Korean broadcasts. Foreign newspapers are illegal and the internet is simply unavailable to all but a handful of the elite.
However, news has seeped around the restriction and into North Korea for years.
In recent interviews with the Financial Times along the border with China, North Koreans who have fled the country indicated the flow of information is becoming significantly stronger as economic hardships force Mr Kim's regime to tolerate more trade with the outside world.
The interviewees' names have been changed to protect their identity. The increasing trade between China and North Korea is landing not only clothes and goods in North Korean markets but also DVDs from South Korea and news about vibrant China.
The southern films are particularly threatening for Mr Kim's regime. Pyong-yang's propaganda machine insists life is better in the North, where hunger is widespread and citizens think themselves lucky if they have electricity for a few hours a day.
The dramas make a mockery of such claims. They feature well-dressed Koreans living in high-rise apartments and shopping at department stores selling everything from Louis Vuitton dog carriers to talking rice cookers.
South Korean culture is also permeating the demilitarised zone separating North Korea from the South.
"There were some songs that we used to sing but it wasn't until I came out that I realised they were South Korean," says Kim Sook, another North Korean escapee now secretly living in northern China. "The soldiers who serve near the DMZ hear South Korean music and then they keep singing them when they move to other parts of the country."
This alternative "Korean wave" is beginning to change attitudes, says Song Mi-ok, a Korean-Chinese who has visited the North Korean border city of Hoeryong several times in the last year. "There used to be a lot of hostility towards South Korea but now that's gone," she says. "People now know that South Korea is a very rich country and they hope that South Korea can help them."
This concerns Mr Kim's regime. "North Korea is not ready for political change," says Gao Jingzhu, professor of Korean studies at Yanbian University, near the Chinese border with North Korea.
After last month's summit, Mr Gao says, the North's leaders convened a ruling Workers' Party conference in Pyongyang to discuss how to stem South Korea's growing influence while pursuing economic co-operation. "They want South Korea's money but the new closeness is a challenge."
North Koreans also surreptitiously watch -Chinese programmes.
Chinese television, which itself is tightly controlled by the communist regime in Beijing, used to offer subtitled broadcasts in North Korea. With western-style capitalism gaining ground in China, these days even Chinese programmes are too dangerous for North Korea's liking and have been banned.
Ping!
Those poor folks live worse than most people in Africa, while their relatives in the South are a First World country, with more broadband Internet penetration than all but three other nations on Earth! There is no more stark contrast of capitalism and communism side-by-side in the world.
Sounds like Lil Kim should attack China. Stop all those evil DVD’s from spreading. LOL
HOW IRONIC that the very gift given to Kim Jong il last month, by appeasing, groveling, visiting South Korean President Roh, was a SET OF DVDs OF SOUTH KOREAN TV DRAMAS.
I will bet KCNA/Pyongyang TV/Workers Daily did the best not to show THAT gift to KIM, in front of all its viewers and readers.
Were you a Freeper before?
Last I heard was that 90% of the homes in S.Korea are wired for BroadBand.
Thanks! Nope. Was there another one with my handle?
We need po re-establish diplonmatic relations with them, remove them from our List of International sponsors of terror list, and give them MFN status.
We need to forget that about a month ago, the Israelis provided the World with post -op intelligence data that proved that N/ Korea was building a breeder reactor for the Syrians, Why those poor innocent Korean people, its not their fault, they don't get to watch cool DVDs or get the latest products from the electronics industry.
We shouldn't notice that only hard nosed politics and trade sanctions that cut off Kim Jong Il's supply of Hennesy Cognac is what brought Kim to the negotiating table on his knees.
Think about those nice ,poor everyday North Koreans, and then cave in to a North Korean government that has 100% of its character in conformity with Idi Amin's former government in Uganda.If anything Kim Jong Il will forget every agreement he ever made with the USA as soon as he can get a guaranteed uninterupted supply of Hennesey from his new Iranian and Syrian Allies.
Put everyone of those North Korean SOBs officials in the streets with an order to walk through Pyong Yang without armed escort, individually. Topple that government like we did to Idi Amins.And then worry about the people. We would have their everlasting gratitude.
The way things are now with US Stae and the North Korean government, we have caved, the poor people will have decades more of the same treatment they have always had at the tender mercies of Kim Jong Il.
And in recognizing N. Korea, we will lose Japan as an ally.
This article is a liberal-socialist, cave-to-the-commies article. It stinks to high liberal-socialist heaven, if they even have one.
During my first tour in Korea, the Korean CIA (KCIA) director decided to assasinate President Park Chung Hee (whom I had met while driving for LTG Ross). I was the hotline operator (early-warning Intelligence Analyst) at I Corps G-2 the night it happened. What a cluster-f**k! We thought for sure that the North Koreans had done it (until the facts came in) and went to an immediate wartime footing. I was working with the ROKs, G-3 and the Air Force on patrols, airstrikes, recon, etc. Thagt’s a night I’ll never forget. I’m surprised the North didn’t take advantage of the confusion.
I’m sure the country has changed quite a bit since I was last there in 1982.
Some might be wondering how to power the dvd with a battery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rA-zhTJuFU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fbnShPcw
WARNING: don’t blame me if you can’t replicate this.
he’s got a pran....a very compricated pran!!
he must secure the S border to keep out all the illegal S Korean immigrants from his peoples paradise!!
wait...um...uh
You not watch South Korean dog DVDs. If you do, I jail u and u watch North Korean DVD Featuring Me, fearless leader, 24 by 7. I think Hirrary would like that.
/Sarcasm OFF
I have stayed at hotels in South Korea. Even a modest hotel room has a PC on the desk with at least a 17" plasma screen and a high speed connection - all included with the price of the room.
Oh, and the maids do your laundry for you too - and fold it.
Well Tiger remember Tamar said she claim that Roh gave Chia Pet BJ movies on dvd
Would that be funny if somebody score copy of Team America OMG that be funny inside the govt
There is saying among Freepers who in the know
That if you see white light coming from North Korea that might Be Chia Pet one of his homes
MANN SKYPILOT are you serious
That good customer service
Maids folding your laundry WHOA
The picture of North Korea at night never ceases to amaze me.
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