#north korea facts

[ranjith11]

10 Weird Things That Only Exist In North Korea

An enthralling journey into the reclusive nation of North Korea, unveiling a myriad of bizarre and unique phenomena that can't be found anywhere else on the globe. From eccentric architectural marvels and peculiar customs to mind-boggling rules and traditions deeply rooted in the nation's culture and regime, this video dives deep into the enigmatic world of North Korean oddities. Narrated with insightful commentary, striking visuals, and firsthand accounts, this exploration provides a rare window into the unusual and often misunderstood facets of North Korean life. Strap in for a captivating exploration that's as educational as it is astonishing!

[thelifeofjord]

9 North Korea Facts That You Won't Believe

[rpfisfine]

[i-bring-crack]

HMMM

The woozhi be looking REALLY GOOD now with the latest chapter.

Spoilers in the tags

[circulating-eel]

5 won, 1978 North Korea

Denomination: Second Won (demonetised)

Composition: paper

Another beautifully designed note, this celebrates the North Korean factory and farming industries.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Kim Jong-un’s vile ‘Pleasure Squad’ where virgin schoolgirls are selected to ‘entertain’ North Korean rulers

Within the walls of his ultra-protected palaces that his Pleasure Squad provide entertainment for high-ranking North Korean officials. The 2,000-strong harem is said to be made to sing and dance for the nation's elite — but also take part in bizarre sexual games and orgies. It's made even more disturbing by the fact that some members of the Pleasure Squad are said to have been as young as 13, taken directly out of school into sex work. Defectors from North Korea even say the girls have to undergo invasive medical examinations to prove they're virgins before they can join.

Here's the disturbing story of how the Pleasure Squad was founded — and was brought back on the orders of Kim Jong-un.

The Pleasure Squad or Kippumjo began during the reign of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, who is still considered the country's Eternal President, despite dying in 1994. In the late 1970s, at the height of his power, he sent out his officials to scour the nation for its most attractive young women and girls to act as singers and dancers. Some of them also began working as maids, but the most sexually attractive were ordered to become "comfort women" for powerful officials. Many were aged around 13 and 14, and were sometimes even recommended for the sick service by their schools. Kim Il-sung targeted virgins specifically because he believed having sex with them allowed him to absorb a girl's "ki" or life-force.

Authorities would tell the girls' parents their daughters were being taken on an important mission to serve Kim Il-sung, and they had no say in the matter. The girls would then be kept in party leaders' mansions and were expected to do whatever they were told. Officers in the North Korean military often took the women as wives after they were "retired" from their sexual duties in their 20s. 

Once they're taken into the Pleasure Squad, girls are then sorted into different units. Some are expected to sing and dance, while others primarily give massages and are sometimes even sent overseas for their training. But a third strand of the Pleasure Squad, the Manjokjo, are explicitly tasked with providing sexual services.

After Kim Il-sung's death, his son, Kim Jong-il, maintained the Pleasure Squad and had a string of mistresses to boot. And other members of the Kim dynasty were said to exploit the girls too.

Kenji Fujimoto, a sushi chef who worked for the Kims between 1989 and 2001, claimed that Kim Jong-il's brother, Jang Song Thaek, would "audition" girls for the dictator during his reign.

Only a few details of the Pleasure Squad's activities has been made known to anyone outside North Korea's cloistered communist regime. In 2010, a woman known as Mi Hyang defected to South Korea, claiming to have been in Kim Il-sung's Pleasure Squad for two years. She said she was recruited aged 15 while in school.

"They inspected all the female students and put aside some of them, including me, and made a detailed record of my family history and school record," she wrote on a blog. "I was asked whether I ever slept with a boy. I felt so ashamed to hear such a question."

Lee Il-nam, Kim Il-sung's nephew, mentioned the Pleasure Squad in a memoir he published while living in exile before being murdered in 1997. Lee painted a picture of wild parties at Kim's resident in Pyongyang which would last until the early hours of the morning focusing on booze and sex.

“The routine at the parties included eating, drinking and dancing, but usually ended with erotic games,” Lee wrote. “A favourite was a game in which the losers had to take off clothes one by one. It was enforced, regardless of men or women. "If they got heavily drunk, the also played a hair-shaving game. If men lost, part of their head hair was shaved, as if it was mown. For women, their pubic hair was shaved.” He added that some parties were solely devoted to sex when Kim was in a "particularly good mood".

The Pleasure Squad that was started in the 1970s disbanded when Kim Jong-il died in 2011 and his son Kim Jong-un came to power.

That's thought to be because Kim Jong-un was said to trust no one in his father's administration — including the women and girls of the Pleasure Squad.

"The women who entertained his father knew many secrets and they have now been ordered to promise not to reveal any information before being sent back to their hometowns", said Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura, a North Korea expert at Tokyo's Waseda University, The Telegraph reports.

Each of the women was thought to have been given pay-offs of around $4,000, which is a staggeringly large amount of cash in poverty-riddled North Korea.

They were also given electrical appliances to buy their discretion.

For four years, the Pleasure Squad was completely discontinued.

But then in 2015, reports emerged in South Korea that Kim Jong-un was on the hunt to recruit new girls and women for a Pleasure Squad entirely of his own.

[57sfinest]

Are there any flaws in the story of Disco Elysium that you would change if you could?

honestly in terms of narrative and structure? no, not really!

i think a popular answer to this question would be to say "make them not be cops!" but that feels to me like something you'd say to try to absolve yourself of the "guilt" (or whatever you want to call it) of liking characters that are cops, because the fact that they're cops is an intentional and meaningful part of the narrative, not just a lazy or convenient character decision.

however i will say that i would definitely change the inherent racism in just... everything about seol. yes the isolas are not a 1-to-1 copy of earth continents/countries but many of them are meant to be strong representations, and seol- which is both an isola and a nation, somehow- is just, like, all of asia. so not only does *every asian country* just get thrown into the same basket, it also happens to be a racist-isolationist culture that's Mysterious and Fascist and Closed-Off and Hostile and Exotic etc etc. it feels like they couldn't be bothered to be even the tiniest bit more culturally aware in that regard, didn't feel like talking to any asian people about how to go about things, and just took the western view of north korea and threw "asia" into it and called it a day. it's a really disappointing thing to see in a game that seems otherwise aware of those kinds of issues.

[holyvirgilscriptures]

WTF is up with all these takes like “[extremely horrible and totalitarian fascist dictator/regime] dislikes the conception of Israel, therefore I believe that all their previous actions are actually defensible.” Do you guys actually care about marginalized folks, or is your activism purely selective and comprised of “facts” and “opinions” that conveniently fit into your narrow-minded world view? Because some of you genuinely seem to believe that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an actual moral political stance to take. Guess what? It’s not. A government opposing something that you also oppose in doesn’t suddenly mean that you get to claim that they’re “misunderstood” or you were “lied to about them” or they're “actually right”. Your performative activism directly comes at the expense of oppressed people.

[goat-riocht27]

nothing is more indicative to a person’s susceptibility to media propaganda campaigns than their view on the DPRK imo

[2022dirt]

Street Scenes From North Korea, captured by Luke Gram.

[man4jiro]

hate to get ~political~ but if youre a communist/support communism get the fuck off my page and i hope you burn in hell ♡

[factoidfactory]

Random Fact #6,446

"Korea" is a relatively new name for the countries we know as North & South Korea.

Before that, it was known as Joseon for 505 years (1392 to 1897)

Joseon's flag (adopted in 1883)

[noblesixofhalo]

Random Cowboy Bebop facts already talked about

Couldn't think of a good title but here it is.

I had brought this up with someone on AO3 a few months about but interesting fact I learned from rewatching CB over the last few months since the beginning of 2022, their fictional currency used in the Bebop universe as well as in other animes by Shinichiro Watanabe, the Woolong uses the same symbol as the Korean Won. Used by both North and South Korea. In the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) it is called the Korean People's Won or Choson-in-won, while in the ROK (Republic of Korea) it is called the Korean Republic Won. The Woolong is also on par with the 1998 Japanese Yen making 1 Woolong less than 1 USD. This is why for example in Mushroom Samba 1,000 Woolongs for a piece of watermelon makes sense as that would be around 7ish dollars if we used 2022 1000 yen to USD currency conversion. Pretty cheap which explains why a 50,000 Woolong award for example is chump change if we assume that the Woolong is partial to the Japanese Yen in the 1990s. This is can all be found on the Cowboy Bebop wikia so this is not some stunning revelation. I just found it to be interesting since I find the history of Asia both its political as well as its economic history to be fascinating.

I also mentioned this to someone on A03 that it would be funny if someone attempted to pay with an obsolete Korean Won (Both Koreas would be screwed from the Astral Gate Incident, no more KPOP and no more Juche for Best Korea lol) either from South Korea or Best Korea because their currency symbol is similar to the Woolong.

[kingoftieland]

Should you watch Money Heist: Korea? 👺

[homo-house]

seeing some usamerican election discourse in the tl but i don't want to interact directly with it so i will just say here as an outsider that you guys will never get anywhere near real progress before you get rid of that absolutely ridiculous two party system. i am saying this genuinely and not trying to take the piss or anything. most election systems around the world are broken but damn if the USA's isn't one of the worst. this maybe is common sense but i wanted to elaborate on why i think it is beyond repair and needs at the very least a reform or to be revolutionized

the basic premise of a state is that different sectors of society with differing or competing interests have a mediator (not necessarily a single person) and in modern societies usually the 'mediator' spot is disputed by different classes trying to elect their respective representatives, and we find this nice because we think it's nice to have the ability to be represented by someone in a position of power (the state is really centralized, articulated power). but that goes down the drain when the mechanics of the state itself make it so that certain parts of society cannot dispute for positions within the state, can't elect people who really represent them.

as it is what you have is a state that essentially is built so that only the elite can take part in it, and then there is a slight divide among that elite that they infight about and sell that fight as something everyone else should care about, while what people actually care about is not any of the things they propose. if the only two parties you can vote for want to continue going to war while the people want nothing to do with war and it is near impossible to elect someone from a different party or independent, how is that representative democracy? note that i am saying elect and not vote. the whole thing is built so that you can vote for anyone you want, but you cannot elect anyone you want - the ones who can possibly get elected and stay in office are predetermined because of how the system is built, and it has been shaped over the years so that the group of people who already in power can continue there, essentially alienating itself from society, and those who were there when this alienation begun (maybe it even begun from day one, maybe sometime later) were people with some kind of power already (that's what made it easy for them to get there in the first place)

i think this segment of david harvey's (bear with me i know not everyone likes him) "the marxian theory of the state" puts it best:

(his sources are all in full in the linked file, it's free to access)

the state is a machine, a huge, well articulated, valuable instrument capable of making life better or of destroying it. maybe it was built with good intention, so that people could elect the ones who control the machine, but over the years, the people who got inside installed mechanisms inside the control room so that it is literally gatekept, locked with a heavy mechanical steel door which only opens from the inside, and since that was done, no one has been able to make burst through yet.

the way i see it, there are only three ways to get the machine to stop killing and be used for good: 1. destroy the machine and build it anew (difficult, and you will lose almost all it currently offers); 2. use brute force and burst through the door (you need absurd amounts of force to do that) 3. find a way to disable the mechanism holding the door closed and get fucking rid of it (essentially, hijacking, which requires a very good plan- and someone who manages to access it)

anyways thanks if you read this all the way. i know it's kinda weird for me as a brazilian to be talking about this but as a geography major and the nosiest person alive i have a lot of Thoughts and my friends are tired of me rambling already