[imText1]There are eight national holidays and four traditional holidays. Among them, only five, which occasions the government of North Korea gives special food distribution to the people, are considered as the real holidays.
Worship Statues, Only Natural Flowers Allowed
Since I am from Hamheung, I do not know much about holiday culture in Pyongyang. My house was located at the entrance of Dongheung Mountain district, close to a statue of Kim Il Sung. On the mornings of holidays, the road to the statue crowded with the people who wanted to take flowers to the statue.
Flowers shops make the best business on the birthday or the death day of Kim Il Sung (July 8). The offering flower must be natural flower. This is because it must have devotion of the people making the offering. The flowers are not yet fully blossomed on the fields in April, so people have to go to the flower shops and buys blossomed flowers.
Those who live far from statues have to at least put natural flowers at the historical sites of Kim Il Sung or the pictures of Kim Il Sung hanging on the Revolution History Laboratories. Those who put the crowding people in order in front of the statues put the names of the visitors and put them into groups to mediate.
The people make food with the pork meat distributed from their workplaces. The cadres who can afford, make various kinds of food people, but who cannot, only eat at bit better than usual meals. At my house we used to make dumplings with port meat inside and made soup with them.
However, we could not even think about making food from the 1990s. Since the factories stopped working and the biggest concern for the factory workers was how to spend the holidays. In 1996, the government had nothing to spare to the people and told the people to celebrate on their own. I remember going out to the fields to look for some edible plants.
National institutions prepare special events on the special holidays. They used to show new movies or movies on Kim Il Sung and revolution for free. Although it was free, not many people to see them because the movies were show so many times before. Also, some of the state-run restaurants sold food at the state (fixed) price.
Dace Under Supervision
What impressed me the most was that they supplied electricity on those days and that I could watch TV. During such holidays they would supply electricity for two days nonstop. Recently, it is said “consideration electricity” because people say the electricity is supplied with Kim Jong Il’s consideration.
On TV, They introduced Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japan revolution history and broadcasted performances of the top artists awarded at the “Spring of April Friendship Art Festival.” Sometimes they showed the movie, “The Sun of the Minjok (people),” which is about Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japan struggle.
On the evenings of the holidays, there was a open dance ball. They played revolution songs or public songs where people repeated same movements over, so young people do not like to attend it. However, every workplace involve the young people.
The patrols from the young people’s organizations are present to supervise. If anyone dances “rare” dances, the patrols pull him out of the floor and make him write a statement of criticism. Sometimes they show scenes of the people dancing in Pyongyang on TV. Compare to the local balls, their dance is much more elegant. This is because foreigners are also involved and they dance to take picture, so it is more like an event.
After the holidays end, on the 17th, people gather for “Vow of Loyalty.” This gathering is to vow loyalty to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in remembrance of the happy holidays they spent and to show that they will be more devoted.
The secretary of the Party shout out the slogans holding a red book made of ten articles on one hand, the participants must raise their right fists and vow their loyalty in front of the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il portraits. The contents of the slogans are about absolute obedience to the commands and words of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
