Texting in North Korea
An Asahi TV reporter visits North Korea and films some surprising things:
The report mostly focuses on luxuries offered to foreign tourists and the technological and economic development of North Korea. We are shown:
- A facial massage that is popular among Chinese tourists.
- A North Korean waitress texting somebody on her mobile phone. In addition to text messages and photos, her phone can send and receive video calls. There are now 530,000 mobile phones being used in North Korea, enough for about 2% of the country’s population.
- Prepaid foreign currency cash cards can be used at some shops in Pyongyang.
- They visit a huge ostrich farm. Ostriches are being raised as a food source, but their egg shells and skin are also used to make products for export. The farm is a big deal in North Korea, and Kim Jong-il even took Chinese leaders on a special tour of it so he could show off the DPRK’s economic prosperity. (During the early days of the farm project, they thought that osriches needed to wear clothing in winter, but now they realize that the birds have no problem with cold weather.)
- At a new luxury hotel built for Chinese tourists, the employees are kind of shy.
- There is a special train that travels between Beijing and Pyongyang four times a week. The journey takes 26 hours. From the window of the train, one can observe propaganda signs praising Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un.
This news report gives us a picture of the comfortable lives enjoyed by North Korea’s small elite, but it doesn’t mention how the situation faced by the rest of the population. The rich are enjoying mobile phones and cash cards in restaurants full of food, but people in the countryside are on the verge of starvation. According to the AFP, the North Korean government has recently cut rice rations for the poor:
“The lowest I heard was 150 grammes per person per day, and I even heard that in Pyongyang the rations are cut to 200 grammes per person per day.”
Diplomats say the rations have been halved over the past 18 months. One hundred grammes of rice produces about 250-350 calories a day, experts said.
Zellweger said she had seen “a lot more malnourished children” on recent travels around the country.
“You see more people out in the fields and on the hillsides digging roots, cutting grass or herbs. So there are signs that there is going to be a crisis.”
Video footage filmed in secret and recently smuggled out of North Korea shows malnourished soldiers and young children caked in filth begging in markets.
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