SOUTH KOREANS LOVE THEIR SAUNAS. It is therefore surprising to learn that public baths, now so ubiquitous in South Korea and attracting even foreign tourists, were first introduced only in the 1920s. What about the North? Does Northern poverty mean that North Koreans have never heard about saunas?
Surprisingly, this is not the case. The North boasts a huge public bathing facility which probably exceeds anything one can find in the South in size and is not much inferior in service quality. This is Ch’anggwangwon, a mammoth bathing complex which opened for the public in March 1980. In early 2001 the North Korean media reported that over the first two decades of it existence Ch’anggwangwon had seen some 37 million visitors.
Ch’anggwangwon can be described as a “super-bathhouse.” This granite and marble structure is complete with a swimming pool, an impressive array of spas and showers, saunas and the like. It has its own bars and tearooms. And it is open to the general public, not only to currency-paying foreigners or well-connected cadres and their offspring.
However, it does not mean that anybody can walk in: one has to have a ticket which allows a stay of a limited time only. Actually, the Ch’anggwangwon complex serves some 5,000 patrons a day, but it is not enough: many more people would like to get in. Thus people wait in the early morning from 4:00 A.M. in a long queue or, alternatively, get tickets via their work unit and/or neighborhood people’s group. Foreigners are luckier: they have a special day (Saturdays) when the entire complex is reserved for their exclusive use—much to the dismay of the common people. However, foreigners pay hard currency for the privilege.
Palatial Ch’anggwangwon is unique—or almost unique. In the 1980s a handful of other top-class bathing houses were built in Pyongyang. These are modest compared to Ch’anggwangwon, but quite impressive by the standards of the “normal” North Korean public bathhouses. However, a visit to Ch’anggwangwon is a relatively rare event even for the inhabitants of privileged Pyongyang, while humble public bathhouses are for daily use.
In the countryside, a number of smaller bathing complexes were built throughout the 1980s, so every major city has its own scaled-down version of Ch’anggwangon—like, say, Ŭndŏkwon in the border city of Sinuiju.
And what about private bathing facilities? These are nearly absent. Almost all houses in the countryside have no bathing facilities whatsoever. This is often the case even with multi-story buildings, especially outside Pyongyang: a tap in the kitchen at best. Only a minority of North Koreans can wash themselves in their houses and then very seldom in a private bathroom. Some better apartment complexes have small bathhouses for the exclusive use of the residents, but only a handful of the best apartments in Pyongyang are equipped with their own bathrooms, and these luxurious dwellings are reserved for the elite alone.
Thus, the common North Koreans have a choice: either wash themselves at home, usually using a tank of hot water, or go to a public bathhouse or to a small bathing facility at the work unit. Most prefer the second option, since even a moderate public bathhouse provides more comfort than one’s own kitchen. In cities, every ward (tong) is supposed to have its own bathhouse, and larger plants and factories also have their own bathing facilities attached to change rooms.
Once upon a time the North Korean authorities did their best to ensure that people would wash regularly. This was a part of a hygiene promotion campaign of the 1950s and 1960s. Those campaigns were successful but, by the standards of developed countries, North Koreans do not wash themselves too frequently: once every two weeks is seen as the norm. I would not criticize them for this neglect of personal cleanliness: it is easy to keep oneself clean when all it takes is the turn of a tap, and it is much more difficult when bathing requires a rather time-consuming visit to a bathing house.
A typical bathhouse is a large room with a small pool of heated water. People squat on the tiles or the cement floor around the pool and use small buckets to wash themselves with hot water. In better times, they were issued some better quality soap for personal use, with the products of the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory being the best. In recent years, when the public distribution system ceased to function, people have to buy soap on the black market or use low quality soap, initially produced for washing clothes. There is another novelty: shampoo, once completely unknown. Nowadays, it is gaining popularity among the affluent families in Pyongyang, but the average North Korean still uses soap to wash his or her hair.
But one has to have hot water. Even in the more affluent times of the 1970s, the hot water supply was unreliable at best, and bathing facilities could use only cold water in summertime. In large North Korean cities they used the Soviet system of hot water supply: the water was not heated by small boilers attached to every house but by large thermal centers, each serving a large district and, ideally, combined with a thermal power plant. The heated water was pumped to the houses through a network of insulated pipes. This reliance on a centralized system made Korean urban dwellings particularly vulnerable in times of crisis.
The fuel crisis of the mid–1990s greatly aggravated the situation. Most public bathhouses are now open only a few days a month or before major holidays (like Kim Jong Il’s birthday). In the late 1990s, when the crisis was at its height, the hot water was provided only for a few hours a day even in Pyongyang’s best hotels, reserved exclusively for foreign visitors. Common people had to wash themselves in their homes, if they could afford to spend fuel on such niceties.
And, of course, there is the problem of washing clothes. Needless to say, a washing machine is a rare and exotic commodity—perhaps as rare as a private plane in an affluent Western country. Hence, most washing is done by hand with low quality soap instead of detergent, which is difficult to get even in the best of times. This means that North Koreans cannot afford to change their clothes too often: once a week seems to be the norm in the cities.
But then again, historians have long known that cleanliness does not come cheaply.
*****
SOMETHING THAT IMPRESSES FOREIGNERS in Seoul is the physical security of this huge city. The crime level in Korea is indeed very low by the standards of most Western societies. This is especially true in regard to violent street crime. South Korea has its fair share of official corruption, fraud and embezzlement, but mugging or armed robbery remain rare occurrences in Seoul, and homicides are nearly non-existent. Vandalism, such a problem in Western cities, is also nearly absent from South Korea, and teenage gangs, while existent, are few in number.
However, the North is different. No criminal statistics have ever issued forth from the Kims’ hermit kingdom, but anecdotal evidence leaves no doubt that violent street crime in the North is more common than in the South. Perhaps Pyongyang is a safe place by the standards of the urban West, but youth gangs are a part of life there.
Indeed, Northerners are different from the Southerners in their willingness to resort to force in confrontation. For a long time, I thought that it was my subjectivist and probably unreliable impression, but in recent years, as Southerners have been exposed to the defectors from the North on a much greater scale, a number of them have developed the same feeling.
Over the last few years North Korean defectors have been required to undergo a mandatory crash course in the Southern way of life. This course is run by a special training center known as Hanawon. This center acquired a notorious reputation due to violent fights between the students. In some cases staff members were attacked as well—something unthinkable in the South, with its ingrained reverence to teachers and social superiors! When I heard about it I was not surprised. Nowadays, defectors usually do not come from the elite as was the case until the mid–1990s. They represent a cross-section of the North Korean population, including commoners, and these people are ready to use their fists when they deem necessary.
The hoodlum subculture has been a part of the North Korean tradition from the 1970s, and a large number of young men from underprivileged households were members of such gangs before they went into the military (typically, at the age of 18).
The gangs are especially prominent in large provincial cities. Some of these cities are reportedly divided into zones, so nobody ventures into the turf of a rival gang. Such an incursion can lead to a violent fight with unpredictable results.
The gangs are engaged in criminal activities of various kinds. They pick pockets, steal food from food stalls, and take bicycles and household belongings left in yards. In recent years the hoodlums have been provided with new options and chances. There were some reports of muggings, although gang members are obviously afraid to attack foreigners. If they did they would attract the attention of the secret police, an organization that far exceeds the criminal police in resources, determination, and ferocity.
However, criminal activity is probably not the major part of a gang member’s life. Group fights with “enemies” from other neighborhoods, daring escapes from the police patrols, and other risky undertakings provide the young Koreans with the thrill of adventure. In this regard, they are very different from their South Korean counterparts, who are too busy preparing for the college entrance exam to do silly things in their teenage years. Young North Koreans do not need to care that much about the future. With few exceptions, college admission and careers are determined by one’s family origin, known as s15ngbun. This leaves a lot of free time, and less educated youth use this time in their own peculiar way....
The authorities generally turn a blind eye to the gangs, as long as their activities do not lead to social disruption. It is correctly assumed that most of their members will soon join the army and come back home as reliable members of North Korean society.
In the former Soviet Union and some other post–Communist countries these street gangs profited enormously from the social transformation, being involved in the protection racket and quasi-legal market activities. In the 1990s these hoodlums-turned-mobsters controlled many small and medium-size businesses in the post–Soviet states—at least, outside the capital cities. The North might follow the same scenario in the future, but so far it seems that the street toughs know their place, and that protection payments are more likely to be extorted by police, not by criminals.
However, the economic crisis resulted in a remarkable growth of crime, including robbery and theft. People are desperate, and they are ready to do what it takes in order to survive. What makes things worse is that the military is increasingly involved with violent crime—soldiers stealing food and fighting with civilians became quite commonplace in the recent decade.
Widespread participation in gang activity has begotten a school of violence and camaraderie which has few, if any, analogues in the South. I often wonder how the South Korean police, used to an obedient and soft type of criminal, would deal with the Northern toughs? But I am an optimist: sooner or later a piecemeal solution will be found. Koreans are good at solving seemingly impossible problems, and the fates of earlier generations of refugees from the North confirm this once again.
*****
THE KOREANS CONSIDER THEMSELVES heavy drinkers. Is it really the case? Well, somebody with Russian (and Australian) experience might be of a different opinion, but it is impossible to deny that Koreans do drink alcohol and sometimes do so to excess. This is applicable both to South and North Korea, but the drinking traditions of the two parts of what was once the same country have become vastly different during the six decades of separation.
The most common types of alcoholic beverages in the North are soju and beer. The North also produces grape wine, but they are of inferior quality and do not enjoy much popularity. The traditional tastes are also conspiring against grape wine, which is either “too sweet” or “too sour” to the Korean palates. In South Korea, wine began to win some mass popularity only in 1990s, but even now South Koreans have not yet completely accustomed themselves to Western-style grape wine (and it does not help that most locally produced wine is, frankly, bad). In the North, Western-style grape wine remains a rare exotic, not much appreciated by many. Of course, there are great connoisseurs in the upper crust of the society, long used to foreign exotics, but those people form a tiny fraction of entire population.
On the other hand, North Korean beer is of relatively good or, at least, drinkable quality. Until the recent economic crisis, Pyongyang and some other major cities boasted beer halls which were run by the government—like all other retail and service outlets. Nowadays, one can easily order beer in numerous private eateries which have spread across the North over the last decade. But in general, beer is not well known in the North-traditional strong liquors are the drink of choice.
The best North Korean liquor is produced exclusively for export or for consumption by the country’s tiny elite. It is somewhat of a paradox that many of these spirits are seen in the North as inaccessible symbols of luxury but, from the late 1990s, can be easily purchased in Seoul where they are neither particularly expensive nor particularly popular. Beverages of lesser quality are available for the North Korean secondary elite, while the worst ones are reserved for the general public.
Some of the North Korean spirits are very exotic indeed—for instance, “snake liquor” which is made with real snakes: the poor reptiles are placed in a bottle of strong spirit, the alcohol content of which is 60%. “Ant liquor” is produced in a similar way, with ants being the victims. In the North, “snake liquor” is seen as a symbol of utter luxury, and is available only for the cream of the elite (or for the hard currency earners). Needless to say, it is believed to be “good for men”—North Korean culture shares the unending quest for virility with cultures of the entire East Asia. But it is only a handful of the top cadres who can afford to enhance their libido by consuming such exotic beverages.
Ginseng liquor is slightly more affordable but is still clearly a luxury, beyond the normal reach of common people. Other expensive sorts of booze include Pyongyang and Taegŭkjang (“Great Theater,” after a landmark building of early postwar Pyongyang) liquors.
The spirits for the masses were once produced from maize, but in 1984 the Beloved Leader Kim Jong Il decided that it would be an inappropriate waste of edible grain. Therefore, from that time on the mass-produced spirits were made from acorns. In some cases it is even allowed to barter acorns for the spirits: a person who presents a certain amount of acorns to a local liquor factory could exchange this for a bottle of the local spirit!
Like everything else in the North, liquor is subjected to rationing. Every North Korean, depending on his or her position within the official hierarchy, is entitled to a certain amount of liquor of a certain quality. Only the lucky top bureaucrats are allowed to consume as much as they want. In order to enjoy this privilege, one has to belong to the “group of daily rationing distribution” or, in other words, be a Politburo member, Central Committee department chief (more or less equal to a Cabinet minister) or a general with the elite units. Lesser mortals—even the Cabinet deputy ministers—have to deal with some limitation.
Until the collapse of the state-run rationing system in the mid–1990s a common North Korean was entitled to have booze a few times a year, before the major official holidays (the most important ones, needless to say, are Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s birthdays). On the eve of an official holiday, commoners were issued rationing coupons which entitled them to buy one bottle of soju and three bottles of beer.
In case of some family event, like a wedding or a funeral, people had to go to a local office where they were issued some “special liquor.” In order to prove their eligibility, they had to produce an official certificate which confirmed that their family was indeed having a wedding or a funeral. The norm was five bottles per family. In most cases this was not enough, and people had to resort to other means of acquiring alcohol. In recent years, when the public distribution system does not really function any more, spirits have to be acquired through alternative channels.
The easiest way to purchase booze is to go to a local market. For years, the North Korean authorities tried to stamp out the trade in home-brewed liquors, but eventually they had to give up this uphill struggle, and from the 1980s, the lively trade in homemade liquors became an essential part of North Korean markets’ life. No statistics are known, but it seems that the privately produced liquors form an overwhelming part of all booze consumed in North Korea these days. They are made of all kinds of grain, including maize, acorns, potato and kaoliang, and are typically some 20% strong.
In recent years, when the nearly total control of the economy collapsed, small private drinking establishments appeared. Usually, these are simple and unpretentious places, somewhat reminiscent of South Korea’s drinking tents. However, there are more expensive eateries which cater to the tastes of the expats or those Koreans who can pay in currency. Recently, there were reports about a microbrewery which probably operates with some involvement of the cadres and produces a quality dark beer for those who can pay a hefty price there.
Alcohol in North Korea serves as a social lubricant—pretty much as everywhere. A bottle of liquor might serve as a payment for some service, and it is advisable to keep a bottle while hitchhiking on the countryside roads. However—unlike South Koreans—people of the North have a strong resentment of female drinking. A glass or two might be OK for older women, but in most cases a decent woman should not drink at all.
Those lucky North Koreans who have access to foreign currency might prefer to go to a hard-currency shop. In the Rakwon (“Paradise”) supermarket in Pyongyang or in its numerous local branches the lucky owner of hard currency can buy all the world-famous brands—but for a price which might be double the internationally accepted one.
Fortunately, booze and tobacco are the only addictive substances available for the North Koreans. Illegal drugs are not a major problem in the North. The DPRK is actively engaged in opium production, but this specific “product” targets overseas markets exclusively. It is not for the locals: this addictive substance is produced to poison outsiders only.
*****
FOR SOME REASON COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS tended to neglect communication infrastructure. While the importance of steel mills, power plants, and even textile factories was well understood, most Communist governments perceived phone connections or efficient individual transportation as luxuries that could be safely ignored.
Alas, North Korea is typical in this regard. In the late 1940s it inherited the Japanese communications network, quite developed by the Asian standards of that era, and it relied on this for quite a long time. The growth in communications was very sluggish even in the best of the times when the country’s heavy industry was developing with impressive speed and efficiency.
Indeed, the phone at home has always been and still remains a sign of unusual privilege. A recent estimate suggests that there are roughly 5.2 phone lines per every hundred North Koreans. However, this figure includes the office phones that form the overwhelming majority. Only 20% of all phones are installed in private houses.
The situation is exacerbated by the poor conditions of the existent network. Until the mid–1990s only Pyongyang had automatic phone exchanges. Over the last decade, the automatic exchanges were introduced to all major cities, but in smaller towns and in the countryside the connections are made manually, through a phone operator—a form of technology that disappeared from the developed world in the 1930s! The connections are unreliable, and calling outside the city is both expensive and time-consuming (it sometimes takes hours to get a connection).
The public phone became common in Pyongyang around 2000. Photograph by Andrei Lankov.
Until recently a private phone was a sign of having a privileged position within the approved hierarchy: party cadres, police officers, and top management alone were eligible for this mark of distinction. However, in recent years the situation has changed. Now it is possible to purchase a phone line from the state-run phone company. One only has to pay an equivalent of some $200–$300. Such a sum is well beyond the reach of the average wage-earner, but for a successful black market operator it is quite affordable. The calls are charged per minute and are quite expensive—another reason why the phone is not for the average citizen.
There are some public phones as well, introduced only in the 1980s. They are located in but a few major cities, and their number is very small. Thus, if there is a need to make an urgent inter-city call, North Koreans normally go to a post office where the service is provided. In recent years of crisis and growing crime, one has to produce an ID and also pay a deposit in order to use the service. This is necessary since many people just disappear after they make the call.
International phone calls are expensive—$5 or more per minute. In other words, one minute of talk is enough to spend the entire monthly official salary of the average North Korean! In addition, not all countries can be called from within the DPRK. For example, most phones cannot be used to call the U.S., although major hotels provide such a service. South Korea is definitely off-limits. Incidentally, it is also impossible to call the North from the South directly (but one can use re-routing services through Hong Kong or other third parties).
Another peculiarity of the North Korean situation is the absence of phone books. Phone books are considered classified documents, not for use by common people. A limited number of such books have been smuggled from the North to be scrutinized by experts in the South and overseas: such books provide important data about the otherwise hidden structure of the North Korean bureaucracy.
Nonetheless, there are phone numbers known to everybody. One has to dial 110 to contact the police, 113 is for medical emergencies, and 119 connects to the fire brigade.
Many Pyongyang watchers believe that the present-day North Korean leaders understand the importance of modern communication much better than their predecessors, but the shortage of funds and the ongoing political crisis prevent them from implementing any substantive improvement.
Optimists hailed the growth of mobile communications as one of the signs of the North Korean changes. This service was introduced in the summer of 2002. Initially access was limited to top officials, and police and security personnel, but eventually commoners were also allowed to acquire mobile phones—as long as they were able and willing to pay $750 for the handset and initial connection fee, plus the high rates charged for every call. In summer 2002, there were an estimated 3,000 subscribers in Pyongyang.
However, this freedom did not last. In 2004 all mobile phones were confiscated by the authorities, and only a handful of the top officials probably use them under strict control. The reasons for such drastic measures are not clear, but there are persistent rumors that the crackdown on the phones was somehow related to the mysterious explosion on the Yongch’ŏn station in April 2004. A train loaded with explosive material was blown up, wiping out an entire neighborhood and killing hundreds of the local residents.
In a rare bout of openness, the North Korean authorities admitted that the explosion took place (normally, the North Korean press never mentions any disasters which happen in the country). The official reports insisted that the explosion was a result of some accident, but from the very beginning there were also persistent rumors that it actually was an assassination attempt: the heavily armored train of the Dear Leader had passed the Yongch’ŏn station a few hours before the incident. According to the rumors, the explosion, which was meant to crush the Dear Leader and his entourage, was triggered by a device which was activated using a mobile phone.
We are unlikely to learn the truth in the near future. But one thing is clear: in summer 2004 the North Koreans (a very small privileged fraction of them, actually) lost their right to use mobile phones. In late 2004, some foreign residents were allowed to re-connect, but as of July 2005 there were merely a hundred subscribers in all of North Korea.
The only exception is in the borderland areas where rich people widely use mobile phones which are connected to the Chinese networks. It became possible when the Chinese mobile companies built a number of new relay stations on the Chinese side of the border. This was ostensibly done to serve the local population, but the providers got some clients on the other side of the border as well.
Chinese mobile phones are smuggled from China where a friend, partner or relative makes all the necessary payments to the Chinese service provider. These phones are indispensable for the traders and smugglers who are so numerous in the area: they exchange information on prices, demand for goods, ways of smuggling and even movement of border guards.
These phones can be operated only near the border. The exact range depends on terrain and location of the nearest Chinese relay station, but as a rule such phones only work within a short distance of the border—maybe up to 10 or 15 km.
In some cases these smuggled phones are used to talk to relatives in China and even in South Korea. This worries authorities, who are used to controlling all exchanges over the phone, so there have been some reports about attempts to locate those using the Chinese phones. But obviously the efforts were not successful.
From the North Korean point of view, the development of a phone system presents a serious challenge. No modern economy is possible without a developed, accessible and reliable communications network, but the same network provides common people with ample opportunities to self-organize and exchange unauthorized information. The government correctly believes that such exchanges are dangerous for its political survival. Thus, they try hard to have the best of both worlds. To no avail, actually: apart from military technologies, Stalinism and high-tech do not really mix, and this is probably good.
*****
TOBACCO WAS INTRODUCED TO KOREA in the 1610s from Japan, and became an instant hit: in a matter of a few decades, all Koreans of both sexes smoked, and a long and thin smoking pipe became the powerful status symbol of the Korean gentry elite.
In the South, an anti-smoking campaign began to have an impact in the early 1990s, but South Korea still remains one of the world’s most smoke-addicted cultures. In the North, the situation is even more dramatic: essentially, the North is every anti-tobacco campaigner’s nightmare come true.
At least 90% of North Korean males smoke—and most of them are chain-smokers. It is not really that they are unaware of the associated dangers. North Korean schools teach their students that tobacco is dangerous and addictive, and this fact is occasionally mentioned in the press—but the message somehow does not get through. North Korean males take up smoking in their late teens, and do not quit until their death.
In contrast, smoking is an absolute taboo for young and middle-aged women. Women who smoke in the South are much disapproved of, but in the North the approach to the transgression is much tougher. As one defector put it: “A North Korean woman must be crazy to take up smoking.” Only older women in their 50s and 60s are exempted, and many North Korean women who do smoke begin when they are in their late 40s.
The negative effects are aggravated by the North Koreans’ fondness for truly strong tobacco. Filter cigarettes are almost unknown—they are reserved for the elite only.
The acute shortage of tobacco and the nearly universal demand for it has turned cigarettes into the product of choice for various gifts and bribes. Black market dealers know very well that a pack of cigarettes is the best way to persuade the soldiers at a checkpoint not to waste too much time on the papers of a traveling vendor and a couple of packs will usually make them look the other way when necessary.
North Korea produces some 30 types of cigarettes. Like all other consumer goods, they are subject to a strict and elaborate rationing regime. Every male is entitled to a certain amount of tobacco of a certain quality—depending on his position within the officially established hierarchical order. The tobacco used by Kim Jong Il and his immediate family is produced by a special laboratory in the Longevity Institute, a special research facility which is responsible for the Kims’ precious health. Bureaucrats smoke “Ch’ilbosan” and “Rakwon”—filter cigarettes which are produced by the Taesǒng Tobacco Factory. This same factory produces tobacco for export—North Korean brands have recently also been available in Seoul, and for decades they were sold quite cheaply in the former Communist bloc countries.
It is not known which factories are involved in producing counterfeited branded cigarettes—another activity used by Pyongyang to earn an additional dollar. In 1995, the Taiwanese police discovered 20 containers loaded with counterfeit cigarette packaging material which were to be shipped to North Korea. One of the tobacco companies whose products were being counterfeited said the seized materials could have been used to make cigarettes with a retail value of U.S. $1 billion.
Foreign cigarettes are very popular in Korea. The top cadres, when they have a choice, prefer Camel and Rothmans to any local brand, even the most prestigious ones. Chinese and Russian tobacco is also quite popular.
Lower quality “tobacco for the masses” is produced by the Pyongyang Tobacco Factory. These cigarettes lack filters, but they are divided into two groups: the more expensive cigarettes are made with imported paper, while the cheaper brands are rolled using the local product.
Hard currency holders once again find themselves in a very privileged position: they can easily buy imported tobacco products in the hard currency shops. American filter cigarettes are currently the most popular choice, and smoking such cigarettes in public is the perfect way to show off one’s wealth.
Since the officially allocated tobacco allowance is not enough for many smokers, the common people prefer to smoke leaf tobacco, which is easily and cheaply obtainable at the markets. Many farmers produce low-quality leaf tobacco in their plots while others sell the tobacco which they steal from the cooperatives’ fields. Most popular are the tobacco leaves produced in the northern part of the country, in the mountainous areas adjacent to the Chinese border. This tobacco is especially strong, and thus it costs twice as much as the milder brands produced in the southern provinces. In the North, the approach is straightforward: the more nicotine, the better. The private vendors advertise their product accordingly: “strong tobacco,” “very strong tobacco” and “so strong that you feel breathless!”
Apart from leaf tobacco, cigarettes can also be purchased in the markets. However, prices are exorbitant: a pack of locally produced filter cigarettes can easily cost half of the average monthly salary.
For the tobacco leaf users, the major problem is paper. The best quality paper is that of the Nodong sinmun daily newspaper, but it is difficult to obtain since this major North Korean daily may only be subscribed to by a secretary of a party cell. People who are not on friendly terms with the secretary have to use other newspapers—and they must also be careful not to tear up any pictures of the Great Leader! This would be seen as a serious transgression, perhaps even a political crime.
And another transgression is female smoking. Once upon a time, until around 1880, both women and men in Korea smoked, but towards the end of the colonial era, smoking came to be seen as an activity unbecoming for a decent woman—at least, a woman below a certain age. In the South it remains normal for the older aunties in their 50s and 60s to puff on a cigarette, but in the North, female smoking among women 50 or 45 or younger has been eradicated completely. There have been reports (somewhat doubtful I will admit) about women being arrested and sent to prison camp for smoking in the 1960s. Even if these stories are not true, all my informants agree that a female nicotine addict would find herself in deep trouble in North Korea. Fortunately, few if any women take the risk. But North Korea’s chain smoking men certainly make up for them....
*****
“THEIRS IS A DIRTY RICH HOUSE. They have all seven contraptions!” One can sometimes hear this statement in the North. It might appear enigmatic, but every North Korean knows what the “seven contraptions” or ch’il gi stands for. These seven gadgets are the major status symbols in the North. The list has changed, but now, in the early 2000s, it comprises the following: a TV set, a refrigerator, a washing machine, an electric fan, a sewing machine, a videotape recorder and a camera.
Only a tiny fraction of all North Korean households owns all of these “contraptions.” In the mid–1990s, the average black market cost of the entire package was 30,000 won or, roughly, some 30 (!) times the annual salary of an average worker. Measured against South Korean criteria, this would be roughly equivalent to 600 million won! Nowadays, the figures have changed, but the ratio has remained essentially the same.
Of all these gadgets, TV sets are by far the most common. Nowadays, TV sets can be found in approximately 40% of North Korean households, even if they are spread across the country quite unevenly.
VCRs were at one time not included in the established list of the “seven contraptions,” but it seems that the situation is changing. Until a few years ago, VCR ownership remained low, being merely a few percent. However, the situation recently underwent a dramatic change: the spread of DVD players in China led to a sharp drop in the price of used VCRs which are smuggled to North Korea. From around 2001-2002, VCRs became quite common with one house out of ten reputedly boasting one in Pyongyang. The machines are used largely for watching South Korean shows, illegally imported through China.
Cameras are owned by roughly 20 percent of all North Korean families. A vast majority of them are old Soviet-made manual cameras. While possessing fairly good optics, they are difficult for amateurs to operate. To take a good picture one has to possess the knowledge and skill which in advanced countries is to be found only among professional photographers. To obtain a picture of themselves for bureaucratic purposes, North Koreans usually go to special shops where pictures are taken and developed by professional photographers.
Electric fans are relatively common. Of course, air conditioning is unheard of, but even a simple fan helps to make the hot and humid Korean summer more bearable.
Meanwhile, washing machines and refrigerators remain luxuries. Washing machines have been locally produced since the 1970s, but even in Pyongyang few houses can boast such an appliance.
Sewing machines are important in the North since people still normally sew their clothes themselves. The situation there is akin to that of the West before the rise of the ready-to-wear industry in the early 1900s. When the rationing system still functioned properly, the North Koreans received their allotment in pieces of cloth which then had to be tailored. Thus, a sewing machine was very handy.
TV sets and some of the other “seven contraptions” were once distributed through government shops where prices were low, although one had to wait years for permission to buy a particular item, without which no shop would sell the item. However, neither washing machines nor fridges could be bought officially, even in the best of times. They had to be acquired via the black market. In recent years the distribution system has collapsed completely, and this market provides the only means of becoming an owner of the “seven contraptions”—if you can afford to spend some 30 average annual salaries, that is....
*****
COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS LOVE TO SEE their citizens in uniform, or so the common perception runs. No doubt, this perception is a stereotype—but most stereotypes do contain more than a grain of truth, and uniforms are not an exception. Indeed, the proportion of the population in uniform in most Communist countries is quite impressive.
Traffic lights were introduced in Pyongyang, but only briefly, and now the famous “traffic girls” have made a comeback. Photograph by Christopher Morris.
However, even amongst such august company, North Korea stands above all others. The number of uniformed people on the streets of North Korean cities is astonishing: sometimes up to a quarter of the people around you at any one time would be sporting some kind of military-style wear. I suspect that North Korea is currently the world’s most uniformed country.
And who are these people in uniform? First of all, naturally, are the military personnel. North Korea maintains a very impressive army which numbers at least 1.2 million soldiers. No Communist government has ever been able to resist the temptation to use its army as an unpaid labor force, but North Korea went to extremes. The majority of the North Korean soldiers are perhaps more used to shovels than to rifles. Every spring, soldiers are sent to the countryside where they plant rice or maize seedlings, and these “operations” take at least two months. In autumn they participate in the harvest, and all year around they can be dispatched to construction sites across the nation.
The soldiers can be assigned a number of stunningly unmilitary tasks, like collecting medical herbs in the mountains or trucking civilian goods across the country. The armed forces are even expected to produce a large part of their own food. The KPA has its own large network of farms which is staffed by the conscripts.
Most projects where soldiers are involved are essentially of a civilian nature. To name just a few, in the 1970s military units built the Pyongyang subway. In the 1980s, several infantry divisions were building the West Sea Barrage at Nampo. In the early 1990s, the soldiers laid the tracks of the Pyongyang trams. It is not an exaggeration to say that the KPA often plays the role of a large state-run building company.
It is estimated that the average North Korean soldier spends between one third and one half of armed service engaged in agricultural or construction activity. Only a few elite units, including those stationed near the DMZ, are excluded from this duty. KPA officers are soldiers, but they are farmers and builders too.
One can point at gross inefficiencies in the soldiers’ work, but the same is true of most North Korean undertakings. In his Pyongyang memoirs, Andrew Holloway once cited his friend, a regular visitor to Pyongyang in the 1980s: “I have never known a people who work so hard or achieve so little. It doesn’t matter whether it’s handicrafts or bridges.”
Pyongyang also has a number of soldiers on active duty. Many of them guard major government agencies or other places deemed important. For example, downtown Pyongyang boasts a large fenced-off area which is home to the members of the North Korean elite. The gates to this “small paradise” are zealously guarded by serious-looking stocky girls (for some reason, many of these guards are women) in military uniform, equipped with their Kalashnikovs. Many soldiers also staff the batteries of anti-aircraft guns which dot every hill in and around Pyongyang
Pyongyang also has its fair share of police men and women. Among other things, the policewomen direct traffic, an important duty in a city where there were no traffic lights until the early 2000s. Then traffic lights appeared on major crossroads, and the girls disappeared for a while. However, soon the traffic lights were switched off—obviously, the girls handled the traffic situation better, and their pay was too meager to worry about. A Pyongyang traffic controller, with her highly choreographed moves, has long been a source of inspiration for foreign photographers and North Korean official painters alike. Indeed, those girls are obviously selected for their looks and fitness!
At the same time, “normal” police who deal with criminals are not seen in Pyongyang too often. In Korea, both North and South, the level of violent street crime is quite low, and this makes the deterring presence of police on the streets largely unnecessary.
However, not all uniformed people are soldiers or policemen, since many other groups in the North are required to wear a uniform as well. First of all there are the members of the “shock detachments” or tolkyŏktae. These young men and women work mostly on construction sites and sometimes do unskilled work in factories.
In the subway. Photograph by Christopher Morris.
Young people are conscripted into these units after they graduate from high school. In fact, depending on one’s academic success and family background, school graduates are assigned their careers: the best connected and/or most brilliant go on to colleges, the vast majority are shipped off to the army, and the less fortunate ones are allocated to the “shock detachments.” There are several kinds of detachments, with the “high-speed battle youth shock detachments” or soktojŏn ch’ŏngnyŏn tolkyŏktae seen as more prestigious, more or less equal to respectable military units. Their personnel are involved in politically important construction projects, like, for example, erecting statues of the Great Leader or building monuments to his glory. But the majority of the conscripts are not so lucky and are consigned to far less prestigious tolkyŏktae units.
The “shock detachments” are organized in a military fashion, with a “brigade” considered the largest unit. Personnel of the “shock detachments” live in barracks, and receive some basic military training; in other words, their lives are very similar to those of the military draftees, but their supplies and social standing are generally much lower. The “shock detachments” personnel have military ranks and wear green uniforms with military-style insignia—but in the form of badges rather than epaulets.
Another uniformed group are the subway and railway workers. All subway staff are dressed in a dark-blue military-style uniform and wear signs signifying their ranks. Some subway staff members are enlisted into subway service as if into the army. Over their several years of service they too live in barracks and are subjected to military discipline. Most of them are women, young round-faced girls, obviously from the countryside. Although it includes a lot of hard manual labor, this is a quite prestigious occupation. But by any measure, any position whatsoever in Pyongyang is great by definition.
There are a number of other uniformed people as well. Miners, for example, wear uniforms (though they are rarely seen in Pyongyang). In the DPRK, miners are organized into “companies” and “battalions” and are subjected to military-style discipline.
Finally, of course, a uniform is required by all schools, including colleges and universities. In earlier times, students were expected to wear uniforms both in class and outside the school, but since around 1990 this requirement is not enforced with the same zeal, and nowadays uniforms are largely for school classes only. Students of the primary and middle schools are even required to go to school in formation, singing some marching song about the greatness of the Dear Leader!
All these uniforms create the impression of a highly regimented and controlled society. To some extent this is true, but only to some extent. The North Koreans are not robots, even if their government often tries hard to present them in a machine-like, individuality-free way.