The popularity of South Korean songs, particularly trot, an older genre of Korean pop music, and songs featured in popular South Korean dramas, is spreading among North Korean traders and officials with permission to travel to China for business purposes, Daily NK has learned.

“Recently North Korean traders that came to China go out to karaoke bars every evening,” Daily NK’s informed source in China reported on February 6th. “It was quite shocking to hear them just belt out these South Korean songs without the slightest hesitation.”

She added that while most of these traders favor trot music, some seem to be taking to singing numbers from South Korean drama soundtracks.  “Some of them were singing a song by the famous Trot singer Jang Yoon Jeong that I have never heard of; afterward I went home and did some research, discovering that the song was ‘Cho Hon’ from the Korean historical drama Wind of the Palace,” she said.

While viewing and/or possessing South Korean media content remains illegal under North Korean law, and the authorities execute exhaustive measures to implement these codes, Hallyu [Korean Wave] continues to penetrate the country’s borders,  popular among everyone from ordinary residents to Party cadres. However, it comes with potentially deadly repercussions. According to Daily NK’s sources within the country, in October of 2013 a total of eight people were executed by firing squad at Kim Il Sung Political University. The eight individuals reportedly included Ministry of Public Security branch heads from both Nampo and Suncheon.

Still, the popularity of this illicit media continues to spread. A propensity for singing songs originating below the border does not stop at these traders-- the same applies to Party cadres on official business in foreign countries. The state assigns State Security Department [SSD] agents to tail the officials and keep close watch over their activities while abroad; in areas frequented by North Korean officials for work, such as Dandong, surveillance is even tighter, with agents regularly patrolling the streets.

Despite such suffocating observation, the source asserted that the officials were able to engage in these activities by reaching a mutual agreement with the security agents. "They can simply say that going to karaoke was part of their business trip, bribing their way out if the authorities ever found out about them unabashedly singing songs from south of the border,’” she explained, adding that "SSD officials actively play the part out at bars, but often turn a blind eye when the Party cadres slip out to a karaoke venue.”

Interestingly, the source asserted that more likely than not, most are on some level unaware that the songs they sing with such enthusiasm are from South Korea. Openly belting out tunes from the South with complete knowledge of its origins would be considered too rash for even the boldest of officials; she explained that the songs playing in popular South Korean dramas seem to drift into their subconscious, given the frequency with which they are watched and their ubiquity among those in power, leading them to choose them as karaoke selections without being fully cognizant that they are doing so.

This lends more weight to speculation of the diminishing power of North Korea’s oppressive grip of control over the nation and its people.  “Occasionally, their deeds bubble up to the surface, but usually they don’t get caught easily,” the source said. “It’s common for Party cadres to evade repercussions by simply claiming their contact with South Korean media content to be because ‘they need to know what these songs and dramas are so that they can keep an eye on them.’”