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Text, Editor/Xu Chenyuan's study
For us Chinese, the DPRK is a country that is both familiar and strange, and it is familiar because it is adjacent to us, only across the Yalu River, and it is strange because few people know about the lives of the people in North Korea, and because of the long-term policy of "closing the country to the outside world", its image has always been mysterious.
Today, the editor will take you to gently unveil the mystery of North Korea and walk into this peninsula country known as the "three-no country".
1. What are the "three nos"?
"Three nos" actually refers to three important social phenomena in North Korea: no unemployed, no obese, no thieves, so it sounds like North Korea is a country and people, social harmony society, after all, these indicators are difficult to achieve in developed countries in Europe and the United States, so is North Korea really so good?
The DPRK's "three noes" have a great deal to do with its own national conditions; first of all, there are no unemployed people; specifically, it is the pattern of the state dividing work under the DPRK's unique economic system.
In the first 50 years of the last century, when the whole world was in a state of war and chaos, the Korean Peninsula was also coveted by the United States and the Soviet Union and other countries, and at the Yalta Conference held in early 1945, the international community decided that the United States and the Soviet Union jointly owned and managed the Korean Peninsula, and drew the 38th parallel for division and governance.
In this way, two regimes were formed on the Korean Peninsula, one with the People's Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south, and in the following decades, both sought to unify the Korean Peninsula by force, such as in 1950, when North Korean President Kim Il Sung, with the support of the Soviet Union, sent the Korean People's Army to cross the 38th parallel and start the Korean War.
In this war, the South Korean side received the support of the United States, and North Korea was weak and almost annihilated, and later North Korea asked for Chinese assistance, which is also known as the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Although the Chinese side joined the United Nations forces for a short time, the war was in a state of stalemate, and it was not until after many negotiations that an armistice agreement was finally signed in 1953, officially declaring that the Korean Peninsula would be divided into two countries along the 38th parallel.
In this war, the DPRK finally retained the country's political power, but it has offended the United States and other countries, and has also been hit by the economic blockade of Western countries, making it difficult for the DPRK to move forward in the international arena and make it difficult for the national economy to develop.
Under such circumstances, the DPRK chose to take refuge in the Soviet Union and emulate the planned economic model, which emphasizes the state's macroeconomic regulation and control of the distribution of resources, and one of the important policies is the cultivation of qualified personnel.
In 1975, the DPRK extended the length of compulsory education from the first few years to 12 years of compulsory education to the people, and distributed textbooks and stationery free of charge, and if it was found that school-age children did not go to school, their parents would receive corresponding punishments.
As a result of this compulsion, by the end of the eighties, almost all adults in the country had obtained a secondary school diploma, and the illiteracy rate had dropped from about 75 percent to 0 percent in 1990, which meant that all citizens had literacy at the secondary level.
After graduating from high school, students with excellent grades will be directly hired by universities to continue their studies, and after graduation, the state will also assign different jobs according to their own circumstances to become so-called "civil servants", while those with poor grades will enter factories and other national positions and directly work to build the country.
Due to the large population of the DPRK, there will naturally be a shortage of jobs provided by the society, and the surplus labor force at this time will be allocated to the rural areas to engage in agricultural production and planting activities, after all, agriculture is an important industry in the DPRK.
On the whole, this was similar to the situation in the planned economy of the mainland in the last century, and it was also a policy of package distribution, but it was said that in North Korea at that time, the competition for jobs was far greater than that of the mainland, and the employment rate of women in North Korea was very low, and it was said that only 30 out of 100,000 could be successfully employed, which was very difficult.
After the employment is guaranteed, the corresponding housing allocation is corresponding, and the North Korean people do not have to worry about not having a house to live in, nor will there be a phenomenon of taking out loans to buy a house, because there is a free housing distribution policy, and young North Koreans can also apply for a marriage house from the unit when they get married.
So the number of idle people in North Korea is very small, and almost everyone is able to find a job to do, "in the right place".
2. North Korea "has no obese people"?
Then let's talk about the second no, that is, there are no obese people, there are no obese people, is it true that the entire Korean people are in standard stature?
Nowadays, whether it is in American TV dramas, obese men eating hamburgers and fries, or overweight people around us can be seen everywhere, and people's material living standards have greatly improved in modern society, the number of obese people is increasing all over the world.
So why is there no obese people in the DPRK? In fact, this has a lot to do with the level of economic development of the DPRK -- the material living conditions of the DPRK people are poor.
As we mentioned earlier, the DPRK has been in an economically difficult situation and is very short of food and daily necessities as a result of the sanctions and blockade imposed by the international community on the DPRK.
After the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the last century, various countries in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have severed their economic and trade ties with the DPRK, and the DPRK's foreign trade has shrunk sharply, which has caused serious domestic energy problems and industrial problems, and there is no way to export heavy industrial products, and it is difficult to import light industrial products.
Coupled with frequent natural disasters, agriculture has been fatally hit, under the food crisis, the daily supply of the people has also become a problem, as far as the dietary structure of the Korean nation is concerned, they are Xi used to eating cereals, the common table is rice pasta with some kelp soup, the proportion of carbohydrates is very high, and fatty high-calorie food is less, so the energy obtained from daily food is difficult to make North Koreans excess calories and grow into big fat.
In addition, most of the North Korean people usually travel by bicycle or walk, and the daily exercise consumption is relatively large, but the absence of obesity is actually a "false" beautification statement, which truly reflects the fact that North Korea's backward material living standards and people cannot enjoy food to the fullest.
3. "No thieves"?
And then there is the last of the three nos, there are no thieves, this is actually an exaggeration, as long as there are people, there will be crimes, how can a country have no people who break the law and discipline at all? Isn't that a utopia that everyone yearns for, so no thieves means that in North Korea's criminal record, the proportion of stealing is very low, why is this?
This is also closely related to the national conditions of North Korea, we mentioned that North Korea has always implemented a high-intensity policy of seclusion and planned economy, and the state has a great degree of control and monitoring over the lives of its people.
In addition, the long-term practice of seclusion from the outside world has had a relatively small impact on the Korean people, and we must know how great the impact of the concept of money supremacy in Western capitalist countries is on socialist countries that have not practiced a market economy.
Therefore, the DPRK people are generally very simple, and there is no habit of blindly pursuing money and advocating consumption in society; in their view, it is their philosophy of life to work hard and reap what they reap, to honestly learn Xi life, to do their own work well in the jobs arranged by the state, and to dedicate their ability to the development of the country.
In addition to the reason for the simplicity of the people's customs, the state policy also plays a great role in the prevention of crime, and in the collectivist state, there is also a more significant feature, that is, the punishment for crime is relatively serious, for example, in China in the fifties and sixties of the last century, severe punishments were adopted for all kinds of violations of law and discipline in society.
In addition, the gap between the rich and the poor in North Korea is actually not large, people's living standards are about the same, and there is no particularly great pressure to survive, so there is naturally less risk to crime.
When tourists travel to North Korea, they will find that the local people are very friendly, soft-spoken, very polite, and it is very safe to walk on the streets of North Korea at night, so there is no need to worry about robbery and harassment.
But there is also an anecdote about theft in North Korea, when an American college student traveled to North Korea in 2017, he was curious about the hotel slogan and took it with him when he left, and when he was about to fly home, he was arrested by North Korean police and put in prison for theft.
You must know that the DPRK was very cautious about everything about the country, and in addition to the fact that the young man was an American citizen, at the time of the trial, the North Korean side even proposed that the man was guilty of conspiracy to subvert the country, and in the end he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Of course, in addition to these three nos, North Korea also has some "nos", such as no people in jeans, no beggars, no drug addicts, no prostitutes, and so on.
From the perspective of the history of the DPRK, the development of the whole country is full of twists and turns and difficulties, and the three noes are the external reflection of the country's economic backwardness and low living standards on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are also the practical results of the DPRK's planned economic policy.
For example, in recent years, tourists from other countries have traveled to the country, which has stimulated economic development, and perhaps in the near future, North Korea will find a suitable development path like China at the beginning, and become prosperous and powerful.