In an attempt to evade crackdowns while
still enjoying illegal foreign video content, North Korean Party cadres are
asking Chinese traders to bring in foreign films overlaid with the dramatic North Korean text subtitles instead of the more pervasive South Korean script,
Daily NK has learned.
“Up until now, foreign films have always
come with subtitles in the South Korean language, making them more vulnerable
to crackdowns,” a source from North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Monday.
“This is why cadres who have ties with Chinese traders have been asking them to
get their hands on foreign films with North Korean subtitles.”
Daily NK cross-checked this information
with two additional sources in the same province.
“Even if the content has no problem ideologically
and is simply based on everyday life, if it has South Korean-style subtitles it
becomes a problem,” the source said. “Under those conditions, they are punished
just as if they’ve watched South Korean videos, so people have come up with this
way around it.”
In the past, the population was unable to
view foreign films in their original format because the state dubbed them prior
to release. However, this changed in the Kim Jong Il era when the the authorities turned to subtitling over dubbing in order to facilitate foreign language study among privileged viewers.
“When the state began sanctioning foreign
movies with subtitles, that’s when a lot of content from South Korea flooded
in,”she asserted. “The problem is subtitles made in South Korea are easily
exposed and are at the center of clampdowns.”
This is why Party cadres, long accustomed to watching movies from other countries, have devised new
ways to get around restrictions. With North Korean subtitles, they believe
monitoring agents will not be able to properly verify where the content
originated from, the source said.
North Korean subtitles are usually created
at a foreign film translation office under the Ministry of Culture and so long
as the subtitles ostensibly appear North Korean, Party cadres believe that
verifying whether the video actually originated from that office or elsewhere
would be difficult, and, more importantly, too convoluted to warrant the effort.
“As long as the subtitles are North Korean,
even if people are caught, they can say they got it from ‘above,’” said the
source. “Since the State Security Department can’t just call the Central
Party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department for every potential problem, it won’t be able to
check.”
Upon hearing this news, a high-level North
Korean defector in the South, who declined to be identified, said there is the
need to protect people who are risking their lives to get a view of the outside
world through content smuggled in.
“I think it’s necessary to attempt getting
content with North Korean subtitles into the country for this reason; what’s more, it will distract and confuse the authorities,” the defector asserted.
