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Topics: Crime, Kim Jong-un, Korea, North Korea, Politics, Technology, Travel, World News
Liv Bridge
Topics: Crime, Kim Jong-un, Korea, North Korea, Politics, Technology, Travel, World News
Kim Jong Un has just 'banned' any mention of hamburgers, ice cream, and karaoke for a strange reason.
The North Korean leader has reportedly instructed tour guides in the country's new Wonsan beach-side resort to avoid using certain words when conversing with tourists.
The ban applies to so-called Westernised and Anglicised terms that are popular in the West and neighboring South Korea, including hamburgers, karaoke, and ice cream.
Instead, the guides, who are enrolled in a strict state-run training programmes, have been instructed to say 'dajin-gogi gyeopppang', translating to 'double bread with ground beef' for hamburgers, and eseukimo (eskimo) for ice cream, reports Daily Mail.
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As for karaoke, the team are tasked with quite a mouthful, reportedly ordered to call them 'on-screen accompaniment machines'.
Local press Daily NK reports that the guides have been presented with 'detailed instructions on handling and entertaining tourists, and must memorise slogans and phrases.'
"The goal is to teach tourism professionals to consciously use North Korean vocabulary while avoiding South Korean expressions and foreign loanwords," it adds.
The move comes as a new UN report published on September 12 claims human rights in the country have 'degraded' in the last decade since its last review in 2014, with 'even more suffering to the population'.
The organization cites the use of political prison camps, the liberal use of the death penalty, child labor and the disappearance of thousands of people, including abducted foreign nationals, as well as increased surveillance, control, isolation and a restricted access to food to its citizens.
It adds: "No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world."
The state, led by dictatorial supreme leader Kim Jong Un, has also ramped up severe new punishments including public executions for sharing foreign information and even media, like TV dramas, music and movies from so-called 'hostile' nations and 'linguistic expressions' that fail to follow 'socialist ideology and culture'.
A government task force continues to raid homes to inspect computers, radios and televisions without warrants in a bid to dig out 'anti-socialist materials'.
The report notes 'advanced surveillance technology' and a 'greater determination to prohibit the use or dissemination of foreign media' has emboldened authorities to clamp down on cases 'more rigorously'.
"The Government has organized public trials and public executions to instil fear in the population and as a deterrent."
All media in the state is currently controlled by the Government while any independent news or opinion pieces that fall short of toeing the state line is considered 'counter-revolutionary' and a crime punishable under its broadcasting and publishing laws.
Citizens are further tasked with joining an organization affiliated with the Workers' Party of Korea to propagate ideology, carry out surveillance or mobilize the public for government-initiated orders related to construction, farming and labour, with every person ordered to participate in weekly self-criticism sessions.
Still, the UN finds the population continues to consume prohibited information, despite the risks.