Hamhung’s education department recently instructed schools to give their students green tea, Daily NK has learned.
According to a Daily NK source in South Hamgyong Province on Monday, the city’s education department held a meeting of elementary, middle and high school principals on Sept. 10.
“Officials at the meeting ordered that schools boil and serve green tea to their students from Sept. 20, as per instructions from the provincial education department,” he said.
According to the source, the head of the city’s education department said at the meeting that the Workers’ Party desires that students be given green tea, which “boosts immunity and prevents colds,” when deaths and illnesses due to “virus variants” are on the rise throughout the world. He instructed that steps be taken to provide students with green tea at school, and that students be given the tea once every two days starting Sept. 20.
In fact, the cadre who led the meeting said that “our Supreme Leader [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] would be pleased to see our students grow healthy after we provide them with green tea.
“Let’s bring joy to our Supreme Leader, who works day and night to improve the lives of the people throughout the land, by reporting to him as soon as possible that all our students are growing up healthy since we regularly give them green tea,” he added.
One middle school in Hamhung’s Songchongang District convened an emergency meeting on Sept. 12 to convey the education department’s order and instruct homeroom teachers to take charge of acquiring the green tea to serve students in their classes.
However, some teachers complained that everyone already knows that it is good to serve students green tea, which improves their health and memory.
The teachers reportedly complained that “regularly providing green tea is not as simple as they say, and we don’t know where they want us to get the money for it.”
The source said some teachers also complained that without money, it makes no sense to tell them to supply children with green tea. Teachers are receiving neither rations nor living expenses, he added.
In the end, the teachers complained that they have no choice but to task students with non-tax burdens (quasi-taxes) to pay for the tea, and that these costs will fall entirely on school parents.
“Green tea is not important right now for teachers or school parents who are having a tough time making ends meet,” said the source. “Teachers and school parents say it’s absurd that [the leadership] keeps issuing instructions that sound nice but are in fact ridiculous.”
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea has continuously promoted scientifically unverified folk remedies to prevent infection, including ginseng and tea boiled from willow leaf, honey and pine needles.
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