As expected, the North Korean authorities have distributed packs of candy
and other snacks to children nationwide to mark today’s birthday of Kim Jong
Eun, a source has confirmed. However, with the exception of the families of the military
and security forces, there has been no “public holiday” distribution for
the general public.
A source from Yangkang Province confirmed
to Daily NK by phone, “To mark the Marshal’s birthday, on the 7th around
a kilo of candies and snacks was provided to each child. As it is the birthday of
the General each military and security service family could also get a kilo of
snacks and a bottle of liquor each from state stores, but there has been no ‘public
holiday’ distribution for other ordinary people.”
“The price of snacks and a bottle of
alcohol is 1000 won, which is so cheap that it might as well be free. So even
though the targets of the distribution were smiling about it, ordinary people
were unimpressed,” she went on.
According to the source, many people had
hoped for more widespread distribution today.
However, the birthday has not been made a public holiday yet, meaning that nobody was able to rest, and because the general public was not even given a bottle of liquor,
the actual result was little more than annoyance.
“Those gifts were for children and there
was no distribution for New Year either, so the least they could have done would be to provide a bottle of alcohol or something like that for the Marshal’s birthday,”
the source added, offering an example of the public’s response to the lack of
general gifts.
“It looks as if people had hoped that there
would be something distributed for the Marshal’s birthday this year, even if it
was just a small amount, since last year had been a good harvest year and people
thought that the food situation had improved somewhat,” she mused. “Elderly
people round here like to say that the prosperous years of the 1970s and 1980s
will never come back.’”
The North Korean people went about their
workday as normal today, Daily NK has confirmed. This includes participation in an
annual drive to gather biological fertilizer for the year, and the group study and memorization of Kim
Jong Eun’s New Year’s Address.
