Posted
on July 27, 2015
Last
September, I wrote about North Korea on the day of one of its patriotic holidays. Well, as it turns out, it has various
patriotic holidays three months in a row: July, August, and
September. Today is considered “Victory Day” - the day to
celebrate the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The
Korean name for this holiday translates as “Day of Victory in the
Great Fatherland Liberation War.”
It's
interesting that North Korea claims victory – because of course
most historians say that the war ended in a stalemate—with Korea
returning to the way things were before the war—and a few say that
North Korea lost the war, as it was trying to expand and swallow up
South Korea, and was prevented from doing so.
But
that's North Korea for you: a place where propaganda about the
nation's and its leaders' supposed greatness is everywhere, where
MISinformation about the rest of the world abounds, where actual
information from reliable sources is hard to find. I read a few
articles that claim that most people know that the propaganda isn't
true—they sense that they are being lied to—but, still, the
people who have managed to get out of North Korea and see the world
for themselves are shocked to see HOW MUCH they've been lied to!
And cities and towns in North Korea looks a bit like ghost towns...
As
I wrote in my last post, North Korea is almost as dark, on nighttime
satellite photos, as the ocean that surrounds the Korean peninsula.
That makes South Korea look like an island!
And
every photo of North Korea shows almost-empty roads.
 |
| I think this is a Google Earth shot? |
 |
| Most photos of almost-empty roads are from surreptitious photos by rare visitors or journalists. |
 |
| I saw quite a few photos of traffic officers, but zero photos of traffic. |
 |
| 10 lanes wide...for what? |
Lest
you think that photographers took these photos during really
off-times, here is a video of sparsely-used street after
street. Most of the people using the roads are on bicycle or foot.
And remember that this video is of Pyongyang, the largest, most
populous city – and the capital city – of North Korea. If that
city seems like a ghost town, what must the other towns look like?
Here are some more photos that show city scenes that are decidedly under-populated:
Here are some more photos that show city scenes that are decidedly under-populated:
 |
| Notice that the playground ride is shaped like a ballistic missile! |
 |
| I found a few photos in which these monuments were surrounded by lots of people, but in general the squares are empty or practically empty. |
 |
| This was captioned "Children at a rural shop." So...this little stand is a "shop"? Yikes! |
 |
| See? Practically empty squares... |
 |
| ...and temples... |
 |
| This is a zoo. North Korea is one place in which it is NOT correct to say, "Wow, the zoo is a zoo today!" |
Some of the photos released by the North Korean government show PLENTY of people who participate in mass games and mass dances:
Also
on this date:
Guelaguetza Festival in Oaxaca
Plan
ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
.jpeg)
