Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2015, and its figures and situation are as of that year, including 1,024 IP addresses and Kim Jong-un described as the current leader.
North Korea is a curious place: it is very hard to get news of what happens there, because the dictatorship is such that its people are cut off from the outside world. North Koreans do not have the internet, only an intranet, so they can only visit the pages the government decides are not harmful to the regime.
In fact, in the whole of North Korea there are only 1,024 IP addresses. That is not the same as saying 1,024 people have internet access, since those IPs could easily belong to a few dozen users. But those users with internet access belong to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and his trusted inner circle.
Just as news from abroad does not get in, it does not get out either, except through a few dissidents who have dared to speak. But they do so outside Korea, with no chance of returning to their country. That is why much of the news that reaches us from this country is very hard to verify.
Take Kim Jong-un, the current leader of North Korea. At first sight, with that face of a spoilt, gluttonous child in need of exercise, he might give the wrong impression, because we are talking about one of the greatest intellectuals on the planet. Not to mention that he has certain gifts impossible to find in any other human being. At least, that is how North Koreans see him from childhood.
Eric Lafforgue, reporting for the Daily Mail, managed to talk to Kim, a 20-year-old North Korean student. He knew she would not speak ill of the regime, but he also knew she would give him her view of what North Koreans believe.
1. Biologically, North Korean women cannot get pregnant before they marry.
According to Kim, the North Korean student, there is not a single known case of pregnancy outside marriage, nor of HIV. In fact, some even believe that, for some reason, a woman really could not get pregnant if she had not married first. Not because it is frowned upon, but because it would be biologically impossible.
2. Cars are banned.
The government does not want lazy citizens, so the only people allowed to use cars as a means of transport are the leader and his immediate subordinates. Everyone else has to exercise on foot or by bicycle. And so that every North Korean approves of the measure, they have been bombarded with all kinds of studies about the dangers of cars to health.
3. Kim Jong-il invented the hamburger in 2009.
If you tell a North Korean that the hamburger existed before 2009, they will probably look at you the same way as if you told them you had breakfast with aliens. I suppose they would not want to include in their diet a product so typical of the country they hate so much, the US, so if they claim it was Kim Jong-il who had the brilliant idea, it goes down differently.
4. Lady Gaga is a man.
In North Korea they do not listen to American artists, but they do know Lady Gaga, although they believe she is a man, a reflection of the hatred they are taught towards the land of Uncle Sam. Hatred of everything American is instilled from school, and North Koreans do not like pop. They prefer Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.
5. South Koreans will shoot any North Korean who tries to enter their country.
North Koreans have been told that Kim Jong-un is such a good person that he would kindly welcome any South Korean who entered North Korea, even though the South Koreans would shoot any North Korean who set foot in South Korea.
6. Nobody dyes their hair in North Korea.
Women must respect the hair regulations, so hair-dye companies cannot be doing much business in North Korea. In fact, the leader made a type of haircut with very few variations compulsory, for both men and women. Men must wear the same haircut as their leader.
7. Kim Jong-un has no bodily needs.
The late former leader of North Korea had no need to defecate or urinate like the rest of us mortals. Children learned this from an early age in their school textbooks. It is a divine power or gift that Kim Jong-un has inherited.
8. Punishment by kinship.
North Korea has a curious sense of justice. If a North Korean commits a crime, not only is he jailed, but so are all his close relatives, because it is believed that “the stain of the crime can persist for three more generations”. In other words, if your grandfather commits a crime, they would jail even his grandson.
9. The best golfer in the world is North Korean.
The best golfer, to be precise, was Kim Jong-il: the first time he picked up a golf club, he hit a hole in one. According to North Korea’s official press, he set a record by finishing 38 under par, 24 strokes better than the best result ever seen in a professional golf tournament.
10. North Korea is the second happiest country in the world.
According to a report by North Korean researchers, North Korea would be the happiest country in the world, surpassed only by China, while the United States came last. Clearly the research was completely objective and impartial, and not manipulated in the slightest.
11. Licking stamps with the leaders’ faces is forbidden.
Running your tongue over a stamp bearing the North Korean leader’s face is considered a huge sign of disrespect, just as it is forbidden to fold a banknote with the leader’s face on it.
And these are just some of the many things we could mention. Some people think that, deep down, North Koreans do not believe most of the lies the dictatorship tries to put into their heads. But the truth is that when you have no contact of any kind with the outside world and certain ideas have been drilled into you since birth, you do not even begin to question what is perfectly obvious to you.
And if anyone did have doubts, they would risk being eliminated by the regime immediately.
That, basically, is the situation in North Korea, a situation that shows an enormous difference from its neighbour South Korea.
Further reading
- 14 crazy things that only happen in China
- 12 crazy things that only happen in Argentina
- 14 crazy things that only happen in Spain
Featured image: Jan Engelhardt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
