Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2018. It describes the situation as of then, with Kim Jong-un as current leader and talk of a possible reunification of the two Koreas after that year’s summits; the 1,024 IP addresses figure comes from a 2014 article.
Before getting to the curious things that only happen in North Korea, I think we should take a brief look back to understand how this dictatorship, or totalitarian regime, came about and how the Kim dynasty rose to power. All of it based on Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick’s book, which reviews the history of North Korea.
And to understand where the Kim dynasty comes from, and where hell began for North Koreans, we have to go back to the Second World War.
How North Korea was born
Korea was a Japanese colony with little influence over other nations, until the peninsula became caught up in a power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. To appease the Soviet Union and keep the world powers stable, the United States divided the peninsula into two halves, which led to the emergence of two republics in 1948.
Kim Il-sung, a resistance fighter who became famous during the Japanese occupation, founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and in 1950 tensions between the two sides led to the Korean War, which lasted three years and cost 3 million lives.
The start of the dictatorship
Once the Korean War was over, Kim Il-sung set up a communist government with himself in charge. He took power as a dictator, rewarding his followers and persecuting those who opposed him.
He divided society into three categories based on political loyalty
Those who were loyal to the regime occupied the highest level and had access to better goods and services. Those who opposed the regime had fewer freedoms; let’s just say things were pretty hard for them. And to make matters worse, a citizen’s status was considered hereditary, so it was impossible for anyone to rise above their rank.
When Kim Il-sung began rebuilding post-war North Korea, he envisioned a new era of self-reliance based on the communist philosophies of Marx and Lenin. The leader insisted that the world outside Korea had nothing of value, and he ordered officials to instil this philosophy in citizens’ minds and in schools.
The government began manipulating the media while trying to portray Kim Il-sung as an all-powerful saviour and hero. Children are raised with that message from an early age.
The collapse of communism
When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, North Korea’s economy collapsed. There were electricity shortages and problems with water and heating. Despite this situation, the North Korean government insisted on developing nuclear weapons, withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993.
Famine would then kill millions of North Koreans.
A change of heart in North Korea’s new leader?
Kim Jong-il died in 2012, and that was when Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s current leader, took power. At first it was thought that the third Kim, a young man descended from two previous dictators, would want to improve people’s well-being. However, the situation for North Koreans only got worse, with a dictatorship as bad as or worse than those of his predecessors.
Although diplomatic relations with the United States didn’t get off to a good start, there is now talk that North Korea’s current leader might be considering the possibility of reuniting the two Koreas. Could the dictator’s heart have softened?
And after this look back at Korea’s history, let’s move on to the next topic.
11 curiosities and crazy things that only happen in North Korea
North Korea is a curious place: it’s 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 don’t 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’s 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 doesn’t get in, it doesn’t 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’s why much of the news that reaches us from this country is very hard to verify.
Take Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s current leader. At first sight, with that face of a spoilt, gluttonous child in need of exercise, he might give the wrong impression, because we’re 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’s 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 wouldn’t 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 can’t get pregnant before they marry
According to Kim, the North Korean student, there isn’t a single known case of pregnancy outside marriage, nor of HIV. In fact, some even believe that, for some reason, a woman really couldn’t get pregnant if she hadn’t married first. Not because it’s frowned upon, but because it would be biologically impossible.
2. Cars are banned in North Korea
The government doesn’t 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’ve 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’ll probably look at you the same way as if you told them you’d had breakfast with aliens. I suppose they wouldn’t 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 don’t listen to American artists, but they do know Lady Gaga, although they believe she’s a man, a reflection of the hatred they’re taught towards the land of Uncle Sam. Hatred of everything American is instilled from school, and North Koreans don’t 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 can’t 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’s 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’s 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 faces of North Korea’s leaders 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’s 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 don’t 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 don’t 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: Clay Gilliland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
