The Real Face of North Korea

North Korea, the most improbable team in the World Cup, plays its first game tomorrow against Brazil. Very little is known about the North Korean squad except for their star striker, Jong Tae-Se, who is not your typical North Korean. For starters, Jong has never lived in North Korea. He was born and raised in Japan in a community of about 600,000 Koreans who live  there. He drives a silver hummer, reportedly likes to dress like Tupac Shakur, and travels with a laptop, ipod, Nintendo DS, and Sony Playstation. Dubbed “North Korea’s Wayne Rooney”, Jong will be the image of North Korea throughout the tournament.

But that image is very different from what life looks like inside North Korea. The New York Times recently provided a rare glimpse into daily life in the country through interviews of eight North Koreans residing in China. The full article is here and is worth a read. Their stories paint a picture of desperation in what is considered the last Stalinist state in the world.

As a Socialist country, everyone in North Korea (except for the minors, the elderly, and mothers with young children) works for the state. But with state enterprises floundering – based on aerial photos of plumeless smokestacks, economists estimate that only a quarter of North Korean factories are operating – many people eek out a living by trading in North Korea’s vast underground economy. One New York Times interviewee said that his state employer had not paid him in so long that he forgot his salary. In fact, he pays his boss $5 a month to be listed as a dummy worker so that he and his wife can sell small bags of detergent on the black market. “If you don’t trade, you die,” said another interviewee.

Because of the failing state enterprises and the growth of the informal economy, the cash strapped North Korean government drastically devalued the North Korean currency last November. The move was supposed to shut down the black market and send people back to work in state enterprises. The reality was that it wiped out the savings of those already in crushing poverty. One interviewee said that he denied his teenage daughter a $15 track suit that she wanted so that they could put food on the table, only to see his family’s life savings of $1,560 reduced to $30 overnight. “I cannot describe how terrible I feel that I didn’t buy that for her,” he said. “At that moment, I really wanted to kill myself.”

The reeling economy is only set to get worse as South Korea has suspended all trade with their Northern neighbor after the sinking of the Cheonan. But it’s difficult for average North Koreans to get a sense of perspective on the ongoing Cheonan incident or on their own economic and political tribulations. There is no internet and televisions and radios are soldered to government channels. Despite their heartbreaking stories, two of those interviewed by the New York Times stuck to official propaganda that North Korean poverty was a Western plot devised by die hard enemies. Others remain skeptical. Information will continue to seep in slowly, however, and that can only spell bad news for the North Korean government in the long run.

And that is where the unlikely North Korean striker might come in. Despite the fact that he is not your typical North Korean, perhaps Jong Tae-Se and the rest of North Korea’s World Cup Team will give some of these people hope. Perhaps North Koreans will see in their flashy star a glimpse of how things could be different and take a step toward demanding change. That is, of course, if the North Korean government decides to air the games.

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