Although people say that North Korea has been facing a severe food crisis not seen since the March of Tribulation in mid-1990s, in which over 2 millions people died of hunger, the situation of a privileged minority looks quite different.
The weekly magazine the Economist reported that North Korean elites massively gathered at the Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair, held on May 12th-15th, to promote business-to-business contacts.
The magazine relayed that it was an opportunity for a few thousand of Pyongyang’s residents to buy or gawk at foreign products when “famine is gathering again and the state’s food distribution system is breaking down.”
It reported that “Chinese companies, together with some from Taiwan, Indonesia, Britain and North Korea itself, offered up everything from T-shirts to heavy machinery. … Duvets, refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, DVD players, cooking pots and cosmetics were the most popular items.” It also added that there was a $1,200 refrigerator from Haier, a Chinese company, and that “counterfeit iPods were also popular, even if downloading is illegal.”
North Korea has a well-defined status system. 10% of the residents live in the powerful privileged class, 40% get by smuggling or doing business and are in the general class, and the remaining half of the population is suffering from poverty.
In 1971, as the result of the Chosun Workers’ Party Concentrative Guidance and the Resident Registration Projects, all the residents of North Korea were classified into three classes: the Core Class (3.915 million), the Unstable Class (3.15 million) and the Hostile Class (7.935 million).
The minority elites in the Core Class were practicing luxury shopping while the other residents suffered from the food crisis. However, the luxurious life of the privileged elites is nothing compared to Kim Jong Il’s life. While the people live by eating grass roots porridge, Kim Jong Il ingests an emperor’s diet.
On Kim Jong Il’s table, many kinds of high-quality food from abroad are set up and he maintains his control over high officials by presenting expensive luxury goods to them. A gourmet, Kim Jong Il enjoys cognac, wine, caviar and shark’s fin.
In his private train, he is served living lobsters and pizzas cooked by an Italian chef. A former cook of Kim Jong Il’s, Kenji Fujimoto, said that “Kim Jong Il likes shark’s fin soup and keeps 10 thousand bottle of wine in his wine storage.”
It seems unreasonable to expect “Noblesse oblige” from North Korean high officials when the highest leader eats like that.
The Economist stated sarcastically “As the shopfest ended, however, some North Koreans refused to leave, demanding that the event’s organiser allow them to continue their buying spree. The dear leader’s love apparently wasn’t enough.”
Listening to the news on North Korean food crisis every day, we are sorry that the Dear Leader’s Love cannot reach all the people in North Korea.
