Officials of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea prefer female instrumentalists as daughters-in-law, Daily NK has learned.
The number of engagements or marriages between the sons of Central Committee officials and female instrumentalists has soared this spring, a Daily NK source in Pyongyang said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Recently, it has become a trend among the officials of the Central Committee to invite female instrumentalists to their homes to perform and, if they take a liking to one of them, to investigate her background and set her up with their sons.
When the general public noticed the conspicuous increase in engagements and marriages between the sons of Central Committee officials and female instrumentalists, even the Central Committee itself quietly moved to crack down on the phenomenon, ordering officials to “take care not to start strange rumors.”
“In the past, artists usually married each other under the slogan ‘birds of a feather flock together,’ but now marriages between young, pretty instrumentalists and the sons of Central Committee officials are becoming more common,” the source said.
The source said that Central Committee officials – strongly protective of their upper-class, powerful status – have avoided admitting female instrumentalists, who belong to a relatively lower social class. Now, however, they value the instrumentalists because they maintain the family’s cultural and artistic sophistication.
A win-win for both sides
Of course, the female instrumentalists are using the interest and favor they now receive from the Central Committee officials as an opportunity for social advancement.
“After the instrumentalists of the Samjiyon Orchestra performed in Seoul in 2018, many of them married the sons of Central Committee officials,” the source said. “They earned opportunities for a new life through their marriages to Pyongyang’s powerful class.”
According to the source, North Korea is now preparing to send North Korean performers to China and Russia in exchange for recent performances in the North by Chinese and Russian ensembles. Central Committee officials with knowledge of the matter believe that more daughter-in-law material will emerge if the overseas performances take place.
“This is in line with the officials’ desire to raise their children to have a more refined international sensibility, and moreover, they want to give their grandchildren the potential to grow into more open, well-rounded people by combining politics and the arts,” the source said.
In other words, Central Committee officials are actively reaching out to people in the cultural and artistic fields to give their children and grandchildren a foundation for broader knowledge and sophistication.
“Central Committee officials are looking for daughters-in-law among members of the State Symphony Orchestra and other famous national art troupes with outstanding appearance, character, family background, or sophistication,” the source said. “There are also orchestra officials who are hard at work, seizing the opportunity to win promotions by establishing ties with Central Committee officials by providing information on individual instrumentalists or playing matchmaker.”
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