About Sanjay Babariya: 28 Facts About Life In North Korea That Will Make You Feel Grateful About Living In India

While we are fighting to make this country a better place every day, there are places in the world where people don’t even get the most basic of human rights. Of course, the first place that comes to mind is North Korea. Here are some harsh facts about life in North Korea that will make you feel blessed to have been living in India.

1. Hate your company for making you work on Saturdays too? Well, guess what, North Koreans have to not just work 6 days a week, but they have one day of enforced ‘volunteer’ work too. Yes, that makes it 7 working days a week.

2. While he was ruling, Kim Jong II released his own biography which stated some very bizarre facts about his life. It claimed that he was born under a double rainbow and his birth caused a new star to appear in the sky. Through that biography, he also wanted people to think of him as a God. He claimed that he had the power to control the weather.

3. It isn’t 2015 in North Korea. They follow the Juche calendar, which was coined in 1997. The year is 104, counted from the year Kim Il-Sung was born.

4. Every house in North Korea is fitted with a Government controlled radio and the citizens are not allowed to turn it off.

5. Some offences are so unforgivable in North Korea, they can cost you your life. If anyone is found possessing Bible or caught watching pornography or South Korean films, the punishment is death penalty. No mercy there.

6. Nobody is allowed to click photographs of the poor, especially the tourists. It is a punishable offence. North Korea believes photographing the poor will tarnish its image.

7. Talking of poor, almost all of North Korea’s population is living in extreme poverty.

8. There can be no celebrations on the 8th of July and 17th of December in North Korea, not even birthdays. The reason? Because Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong II died on these days, respectively.

9. Tourists aren’t allowed inside North Korea with mobile phones. They are confiscated at the airport itself and returned only when the tourist flies back home.

10. Not just that, tourists aren’t even allowed to speak to the locals. They are kept under constant supervision of the guide and aren’t allowed to move around and explore the place on their own.

11. North Korea has allowed only 3 channels on television. Wow, it really is the saddest place ever.

12. Nobody is allowed to own motor vehicles in North Korea, nobody except, of course, the government and military officials.

13. There’s no internet either. Only VIPs have the privilege to surf the internet. North Korea has even devised its own operational system called Red Star!

14. North Koreans are completely cut off from the rest of the world. The newspapers, magazine and news channels report nothing of the outside world, they only glorify North Korea. The citizens really are living a lie.

15. The whole of North Korea is dotted with public speakers set up on most roads. The propaganda can literally start at any time of the day and the citizens are expected to abide by it.

16. About 2.5 lakh North Koreans have been put in prison camps. These camps are surrounded by electric fencing!

17. Yes, North Korea literally controls what you wear. Take this for example, it is illegal to wear jeans in North Korea.

18. Kim Jon-Un killed his uncle by stripping him naked and feeding him to 120 starving dogs in a cage.

19. North Korea is the only necrocracy in the world. That basically means it still functions under a dead ruler.

20. North Korea has enlisted about 2000 women as a part of the ‘Pleasure Squad’. Yes, it is exactly what you think.

21. The only thing the children of North Korea are taught is about the history of North Korea and heroic tales of Kim Jong I and Kim Jong II.

22. There is a mandate that all buildings in North Korea shall be painted grey. They are also supposed to adorn pictures of the leaders.

23. Every house in North Korea is supposed to have idols and portraits of the much celebrated leaders of North Korea.

24. North Korea holds elections every 5 years but there’s only one candidate to vote for. If a citizen wishes to vote against the only participant, he/she needs to strike off the candidate’s name and that too, without any secrecy or anonymity.

25. The male citizens in North Korea are forced to get the Kim Jong-Un hairstyle. No, really!

26. North Korea built the enticing Kijong Dong city only to lure south Koreans in. It is a dummy city – nobody actually lives there. But North Korea makes special efforts to light it up at night to make it look real.

27. North Korea even has its own time zone now. They wound the clock back by 30 minutes to rebel against the wicked Japanese imperialists.

28. North Korea also imposes a 3 generation punishment law on its citizens, according to which, if a person commits a crime, his next two generations will bear the consequences too. This sometimes means, three generations of the same family spending their entire lives in the prison!

About Sanjay Babariya

Saturday 10 October 2015

28 Facts About Life In North Korea That Will Make You Feel Grateful About Living In India

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