February 19th marks Lunar New Year’s Day,
Seol, a holiday celebrated not only in South Korea, but also in the North.
North Koreans consider January 1st to be the beginning of a new year, but Lunar
New Year’s
Day is the holiday most associated with welcoming their fate for the starting year. This concept is predicated on the book, Tojeong Bigyeol, written during the Chosun Dynasty and based on the lunar calendar to foretell one’s future for the year.
For women doing business at the markets and surrounding
areas, on top of managing their respective households, the day is rife with myriad worries, including the notion that the rice container must be full and the water tank brimming with water in
order to ring in a good year. They believe all the good and bad fortune of the year begins on this day and try to at least prepare an ample supply of puffed corn
as a means to pray for a year of abundance.
 Kim Yo Jong (left) and Kim Jong Eun (right) pictured on military horses. Image: KCTV |
Another ritual that takes place on Seol is sitting for a
family portrait. People flock to stations, squares, and scenic tourist spots on
this day, followed by a throngs of photographers trying to lure in more
customers. The most popular option though is having one’s photo taken on the back of army horses, which are rented out from the military specifically for the holiday.
“It costs about 50,000 KPW [the equivalent of approximately 10kg of rice
at the North Korean markets currently] to rent out a military horse from 10
a.m. to 5 p.m. on the day of Seol,” a source based in South Pyongan Province
told Daily NK in a telephone conversation. The horses are hard to come by, and
you need to know military cadres with some pull in order to rent a horse. This
is why photographers who manage to do so are all the rage among families. Regardless
of age and gender everyone seems to experience some type of ‘release’ upon
mounting the horse because it conjures up the image of being like the ‘General’ for a fleeting moment.”
For the past 60 years, North Korea has promoted images of
former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as being unchallenged heroes of
history, dashing by on a majestic white stallion. With the new leadership,
Kim Jong Eun and Kim Yo Jong were also placed on horseback and broadcast
through Chosun Central Television [KCTV] to the entire nation in order to underscore their place within the Mt. Baekdu
bloodline. Against this backdrop, North Koreans consider the horse as more of a symbol of heroism rather than just a simple animal.
As people in the North come to understand the basic
principles of capitalism and that money can buy you much of what you desire,
it is not difficult to imagine what goes through people’s heads when they mount the horse. This reporter, originally from the North, also had her son take a
color photo on one of those horses when he was 10, hoping he would one day
be able to become an important figure in society. People like to hang photographs of their
sons sitting on these horses at home and imagine what future the holds for
them. The price of the photo can range anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 KPW.
As a person who has many times contemplated what family and
society mean to an individual in the North, from the time my son was young, I had him memorize a poem from General Nami [a military official during the reign
of King Sejo during the Chosun Dynasty]:
I will grind away the white rocks of Mt. Baekdu with my
sword,
Dry out the Tumen River with a drink from my horse.
If a man cannot rule the country at twenty,
Who in the future will become a great man?
Caught within the harsh reality of three successive
generations of Kim leadership, the unique experience offered through a simple
photograph with a horse affords ordinary people across the country the chance—however
brief—to bridge the gap between the individual and the state. This reporter can
only hope that one day the horse Kim Jong Eun once rode will be available for
the public to rent and freely ride in the future.
