The Hidden People of North Korea Read Online Free Page B

its members around for a few days. To illustrate the difficulty of penetrating North Korean society, as well as to provide a further preview of the themes we will be presenting later in the book, some of the high points of the film are worth reviewing.
    This model family consists of a husband and wife, their daughter, and two grandparents who share their apartment. The father seems to be studying English, the mother works at a small coat factory, and the daughter is in nursery school. The family lives in a gray apartment building on a street with other gray apartment buildings.
    In the opening scene, the grandmother is preparing breakfast while the son carefully cleans the three framed photos of Kim Il-sung, his wife Kim Jong-suk, and Kim Jong-il that are required to be hung on the most prominent wall in every North Korean dwelling and workplace. The rooms are small and full of furniture. After a hearty breakfast of the sort most North Koreans could only dream of, the mother walks her daughter to kindergarten, first singing a children’s song about trees and then urging the daughter to accompany her in a song that goes, “Our powerful people’s army, that shakes heaven and earth, the pathetic Americans kneel on the ground, and beg for their lives” (actually, the lyrics translate to “the jackal-like American bastards”—but these words do not appear in the film’s subtitles). Few cars are seen on the streets, just pedestrians and the occasional bicycle, but the camera does catch three large posters, two depicting North Korean soldiers ready for battle and the third depicting a large American and a small Japanese skewered on the end of a North Korean bayonet.
    As the children file into the school, each child bows to a large painting of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il surrounded by happy children. In the classroom the children sit on benches around the edge of the room as the teacher plays a taped morning message: “Flowers need the sun in order to blossom, and the children of our country need the love of our great general Kim Jongil in order to grow.” On the wall is a child’s drawing of two North Korean fighter jets shooting down an American jet. In the hallway is a poster of little children dressed as soldiers attacking an American—or rather, an American’s head, which seems to have been separated from his body.
    A kindergarten lesson is presented in a room built around an elaborate model of the “secret camp” on Mt. Paektu where Kim Jong-il is supposed to have been born. A similar room has been described by a foreign tourist who was taken to Pyongyang’s “model” kindergarten, suggesting that the film crew happens to be in this same school and raising the question of why this “typical” child in a city of three million would be attending such a prestigious school. The teacher tells the Story of the Returned Boots: “Sit up straight. Little comrades, when you have heard my story, you will know that our general is the most praiseworthy man on earth. When he was young, he was a child just like you. Comrades, do you know what boots are?” She holds up a pair of red-and-white rubber boots. “Have any of you ever played in the snow?” One child offers that he likes to throw “snow grenades.” The teacher then explains that Kim Jong-il’s mother gave him a pair of rubber boots. “The great leader was so happy with his boots he put them on right away, and he ran straight to his comrades. But suddenly our great leader Kim Jongil stopped running. Do you know why?” One child, who has undoubtedly heard the story many times, answers, “Because he was sad?” “Yes, because he saw his friends were still wearing wet sneakers. That’s why our thoughtful general ran right back home, and when he came back outside, he was wearing wet sneakers.”
    Meanwhile, the mother is on her way to the coat factory. Military music is playing on the subway public address system, and the obligatory photos of the two Kims