Presents handed out by Kim Jong Un to attendees of the Workers’ Party Congress in May have made their way to the market, where they are being put up for sale. Additionally, word is getting around that the flat screen television sets distributed as gifts at the convention are of inferior quality, prompting cadres to repurpose them as wedding gifts for relatives.
Ever since the Congress convened in May, the glitzy gifts handed out to attendees have gathered a lot of attention from ordinary folks in North Korea. These high ticket items include LED TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cosmetics, and clothes. However, apart from the symbolic significance of receiving a present from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean cadres who received the gifts are acknowledging that the products are low quality compared to imports.
“LED televisions became a must-have item for cadres well before the Congress. So plenty of cadres have already purchased superior quality South Korean and Japanese models. These gifts are nothing new for them,” a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on July 14. “The electronics given as gifts are rumored to be made in China. This has caused the cadres and North Korea’s new wealthy class [known as the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, or ‘money masters’] to regard them as inferior.”
The source continued, “Although some of the cadres have indeed swapped out the televisions in their homes for the new ones they received at the Congress, some comment on the importance of ‘family loyalty’ [i.e. over the state] and pass them along to their children as wedding gifts. This is a roundabout expression that the cadres do not sincerely value the gifts received from Kim Jong Un. Transferring or selling gifts received from the leader is classified as disregarding the ‘Highest Dignity’ and is considered a political scandal. In the past, gift sellers have been punished for attempting to incite a rebellion.
Additional sources in Pyongyang and North Pyongan Province corroborated this news.
For example, around 2005, an Air Force Command cadre sold a television he had received as a gift from Kim Jong Il to an acquaintance. He then took the profits and purchased a Japanese model. The incident was filed with the Central Party, and the cadre was ultimately dismissed and exiled to the countryside as a result.
However, giving the gifts to family members is not considered problematic. Therefore, cadres who do not need the gifts are attempting to lower the chances that they will be punished by keeping the gifts in the family.
“Cadres who have already filled their homes with foreign products do not cherish the gifts but are still fearful [of potential repercussions], hence why some are just storing them in their home or giving them to family members. Others are selling things like Unhasu cosmetics and workout apparel on the black market,” he explained.
These gifts hold none of the symbolic meaning they once did in the past. “At this point, cadres and even ordinary folks do not consider Kim Jong Un to be a truly ‘great’ leader. That’s why they feel that gifts received from him carry no special meaning, and they evaluate the worth of the items with the same criteria that they evaluate the worth of goods found in the market. Although there are certainly some people who consider having such gifts in their home to be an honor, loyalty is withering away as time goes by.”
In contrast, most people during the Kim Il Sung era considered gifts from the leader to be a family treasure. However, that kind of political loyalty is fading away, the source said, noting, “They feel less pride in the leader, and so they consider gifts from him as worthless objects.”
