According to the meandering “Evaluation Report of the Central Committee of the Party to the 5th Convention of the Workers’ Party,” published as part of Kim Il Sung’s Selected Works, Vol. 25 by the Chosun Workers’ Party Publishing House in 1983, “The socialist way of life means that everyone acts in accordance with socialist behavioral rules and lifestyle regulations in every field such as politics, economy, culture, morality and so on.”
Though almost 30 years have passed since then, some things have not really changed. The North Korean authorities continue to emphasize “socialist” ways of life in every field, and most of the time people comply with official edicts. That said, rare cases of westernization can occasionally be seen.
Take weddings, for example. Brides and grooms are both supposed to dress in the conservative, traditional style. In general, a groom should wear a suit and a soldier a uniform, while a bride should wear a Hanbok, the traditional Korean dress. These days, however, in the very highest classes, brides have been known, in secret, to wear western style wedding dresses.
One defector told this (pre-currency redenomination) story to The Daily NK. Her cousin is one half of a couple, Mr. Jeong and Ms. Kim. They live in a North Korean city which cannot be revealed for security reasons. The bride’s father is president of a company; he is rich as a result of some form of foreign currency-earning business.
Customarily, a wedding costing 500,000 North Korean won is considered luxurious. But this couple married in October, 2008 in a wedding costing an extraordinary 5 million North Korean won!
The groom’s father, who is also successful, got hold of a wedding dress costing the equivalent of 3,000 North Korean won for his son’s bride through a Chinese dealer.
However, this was no showy affair. For fear of being criticized for violating the tenets of the so-called “socialist” way of life, the ceremony was held indoors, quietly, with only close acquaintances in attendance. For those who were there, though, it was rare indeed to see a bride in a white dress.
Generally, after a wedding ceremony in a bride’s home, the bride and groom go around the city with their friends to take pictures and celebrate the wedding together. In Pyongyang, the prime sites for wedding photography are Mansudae Hill, Moranbong and the house where Kim Il Sung was born at Mankyungdae, while in local provinces, anywhere hosting a Kim Il Sung statue is popular.
However, the newly-married Jeong and Kim could not leave the house, over whose windows thick curtains had been draped so as to reveal nothing of the wedding and its anti-socialist nature.
“The wedding trend has not changed much since that time in 2008,” the defector told The Daily NK, “Even today there are no openly western style weddings in Pyongyang. Especially, when society is on its guard during inspections or yet another crackdown, officials tend to refrain from holding western style events.”
