The North Korean authorities have moved summer holidays forward by fifteen days for elementary schoolers to help them beat the summer heat, Daily NK has learned. The vacation used to start at the end of July, but a source has revealed that it now starts more than two weeks earlier, in a move initially made when Kim Jong Eun came to power last year.
“They handed down this order calling for school vacation to start on the 15th, fifteen days early ‘out of the care and consideration of General Kim Jong Eun,’” a source from Yangkang Province recalled to Daily NK on the 18th. “In schools they then teach the kids that ‘you must work hard for the Marshal, since he was kind enough to begin the vacation early because he worried about you getting too hot.’”
In a step that was absent from summer 2012, the source added that schools in the local area have also been quick to urge parents, ‘Don’t cause any incidents this vacation,’ and ‘since it would be improper to cause concern out of ingratitude at the care shown by the Marshal, be careful and, in particular, don’t let children go down to the banks of the Amnok [Yalu] River and cause accidents.’”
Analyzing the elementary school vacation change, the source said that it fits the framework of propaganda advertising Kim Jong Eun’s care and love for his people, with a particular focus on children and the young. However, the source added, “While students may universally appreciate the early start to summer vacation, parents find it problematic, since how can children with nowhere else to play be stopped from doing so by the river?”
As noted by the source, elementary school vacation has been starting fifteen days early since last year, although the emphasis on “incident prevention” is new this year. This appears to relate to the fact that children playing in the river during warm weather make the border guard process more complicated. Indeed, some children do also swim across the river to the Chinese side, and this can allows them to get involved in a wide range of smuggling and transit activities.
