Beyond satire

I was intrigued to discover, via the advert on my Gmail sidebar, the official page of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, available in 17 languages (including Esperanto).

I suspected it might be a spoof, like Kim Jong-il’s blog, also advertised in my Gmail sidebar. (Yes, we all know the Dear Leader is an internet addict.)

But no. It’s real. Or, at least, it’s alternatively real. Here's a song I bet you don't hear much in Seoul.

In easily navigable little chunks of information, it depicts a land of completely liberated people, wearing elegant clothes and accessories, eating delicious exotic food, and playing tug o’war or singing folk songs after a hard day’s work with explosives:

The peasant’s music folk games like the ‘kangangsuale’ were also very favourites in Korea. This kind of dancing games where usually made during the rest times in the harvesting or when returning home after work. Also during collective work like bridge construction or excavation.

It might only be accident that casts that passage in the past tense. They obviously didn’t ask Charles Jenkins to run an eye over the English. I’ve endeavoured to copy accurately in transcribing sections here. More web-savvy readers than me will have something to say about the reasons for the jpg page construction.

The site aims to give an overview of North Korean culture, history, geography and politics. For example we are told about traditional dwellings, by comparison with which

The new and modern buildings of today have an average surface of 150 square meters fully equipped with furniture, heaters, fridge, colour TV, etc. and they’re provided totally free from the government to each family in the country, so in North Korea there’s not just a single person poor or homeless.

Certainly I've heard that the DPRK houses up to 200,000 political dissidents in gulags, but I doubt somehow that they have colour television.

And in a country where an estimated 2 million people have starved to death since the mid-nineties, the section under Drinks is from another world:

The liquors are extracted from the cereals like the ‘Kamjongro’ (high alcoholic grade, it has red colour and it’s sweet and slightly hot, distilled from honey) or the ‘jukrioko’ (made from giant bamboo and ginger).

In the soft drinks you can find the ‘Sujongkua’ (made from cinnamon, ginger and pears, peach or other fruits) Since long time ago this one is a traditional New Year drink. ‘Juache’ is another drink made from ‘Schizandra water’ where sugared fruits are mixed with pine nuts and ice cubes, perfect for summer time.

With the high development of the nutritional industry, today a great variety of the traditional food can be produced in big amounts.

Don’t get me started on the sections on history and politics.

Today The DPRK is a genuine worker’s state where all the people are completely liberated from the exploitation and oppression. The workers, peasants, soldiers and intellectuals are the real owners of the power and defend their interests.

For just 12 Euros inclusive of handling and shipping, I could buy a Kimjongilia badge!

Do read the whole thing if you've the stomach for it. There are more nauseating distortions. It's interesting, though, to see things from another perspective. Like The Wall, for instance.

The Wall

Only a few people in the world know that Korea is divided by a big concrete wall in the Parallel 38 that was built by the United States of America when the Korean War finished. This wall is hundreds of times bigger than the one that existed in Germany

and allegedly divides not only the nation but cuts across rivers, mountains, and paths of migrating animals.

Never heard of it? Digging around online produced a host of references, split predictably into two camps. The official South Korean line is that the wall is imaginary. The US say it’s only a series of tank barriers, but I’m not sure how long your defences against tanks can be before they are a wall. The "combined length of 44.6 km" acknowledged by Yonhap News (the ROK news agency) is quite a barrier, even if it doesn't run the full 240 km from coast to coast. The North Koreans claim that the wall is camouflaged from the South and therefore invisible.

Ever have the feeling that you don't know what to believe?

By the way, I'd be interested to know if the DPRK site is easily accessible from South Korea.

More western propaganda about North Korea here:
BBC North Korea: On the Face of it (18 September 2004)
BBC Country Profile: North Korea
Guardian Special Report
NKZone (academic blogzone)