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Cleaning out my mailbox, I came across a message from Maria Kim at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea reproducing the sad tale of the singing, dancing model farm workers originally published in the Daily NK. It seems that
““Every year in July, a number of people judged to be model workers from Sasoo Farm in Gyeongwon County take a field trip to Pyongyang to tour the Mt Keumsoo Memorial Palace as part of the ‘Red Spirit Triumph Campaign’. These women had waited three days outside Hoonyoong Station for the train to come, and because they were so bored they decided to sing and dance to pass the time; it just so happened that it was the date Kim Il Sung died….
There are a lot of people from mountainous provinces; North Hamgyung, Yangkang and Jagang, who have never been to Pyongyang. Joyful at the fact that they were going to Pyongyang, it appears that the women forgot for a moment that the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s death is a designated official period of mourning by the government.
Unluckily for them, a government inspector and People’s Army Party Secretary Seok Gil Ho, had been sent down by the Central Party to check on the harvests, and just so happened to see the scene as they were passing by the station. The women were severely rebuked on the spot, and in the afternoon the local Party secretary was summoned by the Army Party Secretary, where he too was first admonished and then dismissed.”
The source said many of the townspeople felt sorry for the local party secretary, pointing out, “A dead person is dead; living people have to keep on living.””
A crummy story all around.
However, it does give us an excuse, in honor of working people everywhere, to break out a video to which no People’s Army Party Secretary could possibly object:
Happy Labor Day.
