Will there be a name change in N Korea?

[killarney_sailor]

Originally Posted by SloopJonB

I noticed an amusing thing in all the footage of the wailing, breast beating and assorted hysteria in those crowd shots of North Korea after the announcement.

Not a SINGLE tear - not one. It didn't matter how much they had screwed up their faces, not one person managed to squeeze out a single tear.

Reading all the "accomplishments" of the Dear Leader was hilarious. Hard to believe that actual adult people wrote all that $hit no matter how backward they may be. I can't imagine a six year old doing it. VERY strange people and a VERY strange place. It makes the old Albania seem almost rational.

Why wife grew up in China and was in high school for the last years of the Cultural Revolution. She said that she completely understood the reaction of the people. You have to behave like this or your neighbor might report you to the police. She said that the only one of the Communist leaders who was universally mourned was Chou Enlai who highly respected and loved - Mao, people were pretty ambivalent but you did not show the ambivalence.

[bljones]

Bwahahahahahahahaha...snort!

[killarney_sailor]

We were kidding around about the phony-looking crying over Kim Jong-Il in NK. Just read a story saying that the govt there are sending people (likely in the thousands) to labour camps for six months either because they were not seen to be mourning enough or the mourning looked insincere. Labour camps there are not to taken lightly, many people die of malnutrition - the leadership get fed first (look at the new guy), then the army, then the populace. If there is anything left over for the prisoners ... People go to the camps already weak from crummy diets (the average South Korean is something like 2" taller) and many die of malnutrition there.

When we were talking about this I mentioned that my wife, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, said it was exactly the same situation when Mao died. You had to grieve in the right way or else. Now they are having riots over iPhones. Let hope that it will not be too many years before the North Koreans are worrying about such trivial things.