Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
May 2, 2022
Scholar uses trash as treasure to study life in North Korea
TREASURE TROVE OF TRASH. Kang Dong
Wan, 48, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A Univer-
sity, speaks about trash from North Korea during an
interview in Seoul, South Korea on April 4, 2022. Kang
has turned to a different way of collecting information
about secretive North Korea as pandemic restrictions
made it harder for outsiders to find out what life is like
for North Koreans. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
By Hyung-Jin Kim
The Associated Press
S
EOUL, South Korea — When the
waves wash trash onto the beaches
of frontline South Korean islands,
Kang Dong Wan can often be found
hunting for what he calls his “treasure” —
rubbish from North Korea that provides a
peek into a place that’s shut down to most
outsiders.
“This can be very important material
because we can learn what products are
manufactured in North Korea and what
goods people use there,” Kang, 48, a
professor at South Korea’s Dong-A
University, told The Associated Press in a
recent interview.
He was forced to turn to the delicate
information-gathering method because
COVID-19 has made it much harder for
outsiders to find out what’s going on inside
North Korea, one of the world’s most
cloistered nations, even without pandemic
border closures.
The variety, amount, and increasing
sophistication of the trash, he believes,
confirms North Korean state media
reports that leader Kim Jong Un is
pushing for the production of various kinds
of consumer goods and a bigger industrial
design sector to meet the demands of his
people and improve their livelihoods.
Kim, despite his authoritarian rule,
cannot ignore the tastes of consumers who
now buy products at capitalist-style
markets because the country’s socialist
public rationing system is broken and its
economic woes have worsened during the
pandemic.
“Current North Korean residents are a
generation of people who’ve come to realize
what the market and economy are. Kim
can’t win their support if he only
suppresses and controls them while
sticking to a nuclear development
program,” Kang said. “He needs to show
there are some changes in his era.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Kang
regularly visited Chinese border towns to
meet North Koreans staying there. He also
bought North Korean products and photo-
graphed North Korean villages across the
river border. He can’t go there anymore,
however, because China’s anti-virus
restrictions limit foreign travellers.
Since September 2020, Kang has visited
five South Korean border islands off the
country’s west coast and collected about
2,000 pieces of North Korean trash
including snack bags, juice pouches, candy
wrappers, and drink bottles.
Kang said he was amazed to see dozens
of different kinds of colorful packaging
materials, each for certain products like
seasonings, ice cream bars, snack cakes,
and milk and yogurt products. Many carry
a variety of graphic elements, cartoon
characters, and lettering fonts. Some still
can seem out of date by western standards
and are apparent copycats of South
Korean and Japanese designs.
Kang recently published a book based on
his work titled Picking up North Korean
Trash on the Five West Sea Islands. He
said he’s now also started to scour eastern
South Korean frontline beaches.
Other experts study the diversity of
goods and packaging designs in North
Korea through state media broadcasts and
publications, but Kang’s trash collection
allows a more thorough analysis, said Ahn
Kyung-su, head of dprkhealth.org, a
website focusing on health issues in North
Korea.
Kang’s work also opens up a fascinating
window into North Korea.
Ingredient information on some juice
pouches, for instance, shows North Korea
uses tree leaves as a sugar substitute.
Kang suspects that’s because of a lack of
sugar and sugar-processing equipment.
He said the discovery of more than 30
kinds of artificial flavor enhancer packets
could mean that North Korean households
cannot afford more expensive natural
ingredients like meat and fish to cook
Korean soups and stews. Many South
Koreans have stopped using them at home
over health concerns.
Plastic bags for detergents have phrases
like “the friend of housewives” or
“accommodating women.” Because the
assumption is that only women do such
work, it could be a reflection of the low
status of women in male-dominated North
Korean society.
Some wrappers display extremely
exaggerated claims. One says that a
walnut-flavored snack cake is a better
source of protein than meat. Another says
that collagen ice cream makes children
grow taller and enhances skin elasticity.
And yet another claims that a snack cake
made with a certain kind of microalgae
prevents diabetes, heart disease, and
aging.
Kang has been unable to verify the
quality of former contents inside his trash.
North Korean snacks and cookies have
generally become much softer and tastier
in recent years, though their quality still
lags behind that of South Korea’s
internationally competitive products,
according to Jeon Young-sun, a research
professor at Seoul’s Konkuk University.
Noh Hyun-jeong, a North Korean
defector, said she was “ecstatic” about the
South Korean bread and cakes that she ate
after her arrival here in 2007. She said the
confectionaries and candies she had in the
North were often bitter and “as hard as a
rock.”
Kang Mi-Jin, another defector who runs
a company analyzing North Korea’s
economy, said that when she had South
Koreans try new North Korean cookies
and candies in blind taste tests, they
thought they were South Korean. But Ahn,
the website head, said the North Korean
cookie he obtained in 2019 was “tasteless.”
Kang said his trash collection is an
attempt to better understand the North
Korean people and study how to bridge the
gap between the divided Koreas in the
event of future unification.
In 2019, Kang said he was denied entry
at Shanghai’s airport, apparently because
of his earlier, mostly unauthorized work
along the China-North Korea border.
During a previous period of inter-Korean
detente that ended in 2008, Kang said he
visited North Korea more than 10 times
but could only buy limited goods that
didn’t help him understand the country.
Picking up trash on the islands, about
2.5 to 12 miles from North Korean
territory, is a tough job. He most often
visits Yeonpyeong, an island shelled by
North Korea in an attack that killed four
South Koreans in 2010.
On some trips, South Korean marines
quizzed Kang because residents who saw
him collecting trash thought he was doing
something suspicious. He was sometimes
stranded when ferry services were can-
celled because of bad weather. Kang said
he occasionally cried in frustration on the
beach when he failed to find North Korean
trash or received calls from acquaintances
jeering or doubting his work.
“But I was heartened after collecting
more and more trash ... and I determined
that I must find out how many goods are in
a country where we can’t go and what we
can find from that trash,” Kang said.
“When the wind blew and the waves ran
high, something always washed ashore
and I was so happy because I could find
something new.”
Kim gives North Korea’s most famous newscaster a luxury home
By Hyung-Jin Kim
The Associated Press
S
EOUL, South Korea — Ri Chun Hi,
North Korea’s most famous state
TV anchor, has announced major
events for decades, including nuclear and
missile tests and the death of a leader,
with an instantly identifiable, passionate
voice.
The anchor, dubbed the “pink lady”
abroad for her bright traditional Korean
attire, became the topic of official North
Korean media herself after leader Kim
Jong Un gave her a luxurious residence
and asked her to continue to serve as the
voice of his ruling Workers’ Party.
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Experts say Kim is providing special
treatment to elite North Koreans to boost
their loyalty as he grapples with the
pandemic, a troubled economy, and a
stalemate in nuclear diplomacy with the
United States.
“(Kim) said it is the sincerity of the party
that it would spare nothing for a national
treasure like her, who has worked as a
revolutionary announcer for the party for
more than 50 years since her girlhood,” the
official Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) said. Kim expressed his
“expectation that she would as ever
vigorously continue her work in good
health as befitting a spokeswoman for the
party.”
Kim met Ri, who is about 79, after
inaugurating a newly built riverside
terraced residential district in Pyongyang,
the capital, KCNA said. It said houses in
the district were presented to Ri and other
people who have given distinguished
service to the state.
North
Korea
often
inaugurates
construction projects to mark key state
anniversaries. Friday, April 15 was the
110th birthday of Kim’s late grandfather,
state founder Kim Il Sung. It’s the most
important anniversary in North Korea,
which has been ruled by three generations
of the Kim family since its founding in
1948. The new housing area is where Kim
Il Sung’s official residence was located
until the 1970s.
Pyongyang is North Korea’s showcase
city, and its elite residents enjoy relatively
affluent lives compared with people in
remote rural areas where many still suffer
from poverty and malnutrition. A majority
of North Koreans who have fled the
country in the past two decades have come
from its northern regions close to the
border with China.
“By giving houses to those who have
been faithful to him, Kim Jong Un would
want to further bolster their loyalty and
internal unity,” said Moon Seong Mook, an
analyst with the Seoul-based Korea
Research Institute for National Strategy.
“Ri Chun Hi is a clear example of such
people as she’s strongly propagated his
nuclear and missile tests and served as a
sort of bugler for him.”
Kim toured Ri’s house with her and held
her hand as they descended the stairs. Ri
said she felt her new house is like a hotel
and that all her family members “stayed
up all night in tears of deep gratitude for
the party’s benevolence,” according to
KCNA. Ri later used her trademark
over-the-top speaking technique to
narrate a state TV video of Kim showing
her the house.
Ri joined state TV in the early 1970s
when the country was still governed by
Kim Il Sung, and she has gradually
become the face and voice of the country’s
propaganda-driven news broadcasts.
Her close ties to Kim were shown last
year at a government foundation anniver-
sary ceremony when she watched from an
elevated veranda right next to Kim, and at
one point put her hand on his shoulder and
whispered to him. At another event, she
was the first person to shake Kim’s hand
before holding his arm and posing for a
group photo.
Moon, the analyst, said Ri receives cabi-
net member-level treatment at home, ap-
pears healthy, and is expected to continue
to handle key televised announcements for
at least the next few years.
Ri’s passionate, effusive style has
sometimes generated laughter in other
countries. In 2011, a Taiwanese TV station
apologized after one of its newsreaders
mimicked the tone Ri used when she
announced the death of Kim’s father, Kim
Jong Il.
Since inheriting power upon his father’s
death, Kim Jong Un, 38, has led North
Korea with absolute authority. But he is
facing one of the toughest moments of his
rule after the coronavirus pandemic
shocked an economy already in dire shape
from mismanagement and U.S.-led
sanctions. Analysts say recent missile
tests were meant to advance his weapons
arsenal and pressure the U.S. into
recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state
and relaxing international sanctions.