{"id":53777,"date":"2023-01-17T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=53777"},"modified":"2023-01-17T17:39:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T08:39:35","slug":"north-korea-distributes-sweets-children-celebration-kim-jong-un-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-distributes-sweets-children-celebration-kim-jong-un-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"N. Korea distributes sweets to children in celebration of Kim Jong Un&#8217;s birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the runup to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s birthday on Jan. 8, the country&#8217;s government handed out gifts of sweets to infants and children at nursery and elementary schools, a source in the country told Daily NK recently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Having been convinced of the country\u2019s passage through a severe economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the North Korean government appears to have distributed the gifts of sweets to highlight Kim\u2019s \u201clove of children.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Jan. 6, a Daily NK source in Yanggang Province reported that \u201cstarting on Jan. 5, Hyesan began distributing gifts to commemorate the birthday of the leader [Kim Jong Un]. This was different from past years, and households with children were very happy to receive the gifts of sweets.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every year, North Korean authorities have handed out gifts of sweets to children to commemorate the birthdays of Kim and his predecessors. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il\u2019s birthdays are designated as national holidays; however, Kim Jong Un\u2019s birthday has not been officially designated a national holiday despite holding power for the past ten years. That being said, just like the national holidays of his other predecessors, Kim Jong Un has provided gifts of sweets to children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese brands of sweets circulated in the country\u2019s markets. At the time, North Koreans compared Chinese-made sweets with the inferior ones made domestically, criticizing the difference in quality. After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of North Korean sweets worsened even more, leading to further discontent among consumers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the source, families are happy about receiving the items this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cNowadays, every household is suffering from immense levels of poverty, and parents are feeling unhappy about being unable to feed their children enough and lacking enough money to buy their children snacks,\u201d said the source. \u201cNow that we\u2019ve entered the [school] vacation period, kids are staying home all day wailing for something to eat to fill their bellies and parents are having a tough time dealing with that.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amid this situation, parents have all eagerly been awaiting the possibility of their children receiving gifts of sweets for Kim Jong Un\u2019s birthday. Now, as the government has begun handing out the gifts, they are breathing sighs of relief.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the past, people turned a cold shoulder to gifts of candy because of their poor quality; now, as they are confronting extreme levels of poverty, North Koreans are welcoming the handouts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;In the past, North Koreans expressed dissatisfaction toward the gifts because of their quantity and quality, but these days it\u2019s so hard to feed one\u2019s family that everyone is saying, \u2018We\u2019re so grateful just to receive [the candy],\u2019\u201d the source said. \u201cPeople agree that while the latest handout of gifts are the same ones handed out as in the past, the feeling [of receiving them] is different [now].\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Translated by Robert Lauler.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/chinese\/%e6%9c%9d%e9%b2%9c%e8%bf%8e%e6%8e%a5%e9%87%91%e6%ad%a3%e6%81%a9%e7%94%9f%e6%97%a5%e5%90%91%e5%84%bf%e7%ab%a5%e4%be%9b%e5%ba%94%e7%b3%96%e6%9e%9c%e7%a4%bc%e7%89%a9%e9%83%bd%e8%a1%a8\/\"><i>Read in Chinese<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the runup to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s birthday on Jan. 8, the country&#8217;s government handed out gifts of sweets to infants and children at nursery and elementary schools, a source in the country told Daily NK recently.\u00a0 Having been convinced of the country\u2019s passage through a severe economic crisis caused by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":39340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,681,1360],"tags":[724],"class_list":["post-53777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics","category-society","tag-kim-jong-un"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>N. Korea distributes sweets to children in celebration of Kim Jong Un&#039;s birthday - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-distributes-sweets-children-celebration-kim-jong-un-birthday\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"N. 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