{"id":54497,"date":"2023-03-29T09:37:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T00:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=54497"},"modified":"2026-04-05T15:49:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:49:57","slug":"chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Chongjin kindergarten teachers cobble together lunches from students&#8217; lunchboxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kindergarten teachers who are struggling to make a living in Chongjin<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0have been cobbling together lunches with food taken from their students\u2019 lunch boxes, Daily NK has learned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cKindergarten teachers in Chongjin who can\u2019t afford to pack their own sack lunches have been filching food from their students, which is angering parents,\u201d a reporting partner in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Hamgyong Province <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">told Daily NK on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given the economic hardship and food shortage since the pandemic, some kindergarten teachers have been swiping a third of the food from their students\u2019 lunch boxes to make their own meals, the reporting partner explained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prior to the pandemic, kindergarten teachers supported themselves with 10-day food rations occasionally provided by the government, along with bribes from parents who wanted to ensure their children were getting plenty of attention. But since the pandemic began, rations have been suspended and parents have been facing financial pressures of their own, leaving teachers with little income.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given that situation, it has recently become routine for kindergarten teachers to carve out their own lunch from their students&#8217; lunch boxes, the reporting partner said. Some teachers have gone so far as to critique the lunch boxes and nag students to bring the teachers\u2019 preferred side dishes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>ANGRY PARENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parents were enraged when a kindergarten in the Sunam District of Chongjin held a monthly lunch box competition, the reporting partner said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In general, parents are angry that kindergarten teachers are critiquing their children\u2019s lunch boxes when packing lunch itself is hard enough, he said. The critiques have prompted some students to beg their parents for tastier side dishes, while others refuse to even attend kindergarten any more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cKindergartens are educational institutions that are responsible for the physical and mental development of preschool children, but at present, kindergartens are only impeding their development. Parents are deeply saddened that their kids have to learn how to humor and flatter their teachers at such a young age,\u201d the reporting partner said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSince these teachers aren\u2019t receiving rations from the government, parents are left with the responsibility for keeping the teachers fed. If children are to be truly treated like royalty and given a decent education, the authorities need to start by addressing the issue of the livelihoods of the teachers.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em>Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK\u2019s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/faq\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/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\/20230324-5\/\"><i>Read in Korean<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kindergarten teachers who are struggling to make a living in Chongjin\u00a0have been cobbling together lunches with food taken from their students\u2019 lunch boxes, Daily NK has learned. \u201cKindergarten teachers in Chongjin who can\u2019t afford to pack their own sack lunches have been filching food from their students, which is angering parents,\u201d a reporting partner in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":39552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,1360],"tags":[703],"class_list":["post-54497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-society","tag-education"],"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>Chongjin kindergarten teachers cobble together lunches from students&#039; lunchboxes - 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\/chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chongjin kindergarten teachers cobble together lunches from students&#039; lunchboxes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kindergarten teachers who are struggling to make a living in Chongjin\u00a0have been cobbling together lunches with food taken from their students\u2019 lunch boxes, Daily NK has learned. \u201cKindergarten teachers in Chongjin who can\u2019t afford to pack their own sack lunches have been filching food from their students, which is angering parents,\u201d a reporting partner in [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-29T00:37:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-05T06:49:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/pyungyang-students.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"486\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lee Chae Eun\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lee Chae Eun\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/chongjin-kindergarten-teachers-cobble-together-lunches-from-students-lunchboxes\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lee Chae Eun\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6c9f40b0a89c4a5354607f43756dbbe0\"},\"headline\":\"Chongjin kindergarten teachers cobble together lunches from students&#8217; 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