Mick Hartley

From NK News – The cruel tales and emotional exhibitionalism of North Korean children’s shows:

The North Korean system strives to mold people throughout their life, and those efforts begin from the cradle.

Beyond just bringing up children as smart, hard-working members of society, DPRK education seeks to inculcate specific ideological values — hate the Americans and Japanese, worship the leaders and socialist collectivism.

Imbuing youngsters with these values is a crucial part of children’s culture. No children’s cartoon, TV show or fiction book serves purely to entertain. All must carry the necessary dose of important state propaganda, much in the way that religious education strives to impart the fundamentals of faith.

North Korean children’s culture accomplishes this not just through military games and marches but also in emotionally appealing formats, as seen in popular children’s shows like “Grandfather’s Old Tales (옛말 할아버지).” These programs are a far cry from their equivalents elsewhere in the world, featuring tales of cruelty, emotional displays and tedious didacticism all bent toward eliciting the requisite patriotic fervor.

Unlike on popular Western kids’ shows with overactive teenaged hosts, the presenter for “Grandfather’s Old Tales” is a bearded old man played by the actor So Yong Kwang. A similar character hosted the show’s 1980s predecessor “Quick-witted Old Man (척척할아버지).”

The host of another popular kid show, “Stories About the Childhood of Marshal Kim Jong Il (김정일대원수님의 어린시절이야기),” is an attractive kindergarten teacher named Kim Gyong He, a young lady with unhurried manners and a soft voice.

This practice of employing elders as children’s show hosts has parallels in Soviet traditions, which featured comfortable-looking grandmothers dressed in traditional clothes or polite, softly smiling “aunties.” The idea of entrusting education to fidgeting teenagers, in the mode of the “Wiggles” or an eccentric Steve Irwin-style host, did not fit the didactic format of socialist culture. The presenters were expected to be respectful members of society who would set good examples to young audiences. 

The kids who appear on North Korean shows to listen to these elders’ stories also differ from their counterparts on Western programs. Whereas shows in other countries include children of different races, weights and health conditions, North Korean shows feature only “perfect” kids from three to seven years old — cute, dressed in stylish clothes, able to speak confidently and read fluently, as well as impeccable singers and dancers….

The grandfather does not console the kids when they cry, but after a while, his voice turns optimistic, the tears dry and the children begin to smile.

This pattern appears again and again. In the episode “The Flag of the Republic,” the host brings his listeners to tears with the story of Korean children who died protecting the national flag from Americans. 

But soon the kids are laughing about silly enemies who lost their eyes trying to destroy the flag. The show concludes with a song about the North Korean flag performed by four cute little girls dressed in red frocks.

Another episode titled “Tears and Laughter” recounts the humiliations of a poor Korean boy living under Japanese colonial rule. His Japanese teacher berates him, the landlords’ son bullies him and his mother dies because she cannot afford doctors.

“Why did all this happen?” the narrator asks. “Because of the Japanese!” 

The grandfather then informs his listeners that Kim Il Sung won the country back from the Japanese and created the socialist system, which Kim Jong Il maintained and Kim Jong Un now protects.

This system allows children to go to school for free and receive free medical treatment. A cartoon depicts foreigners’  at the notion of free health care.

“You are liars! It cannot be!” one foreigner exclaims, prompting condescending laughter from the audience.

“In the past we only shed tears. Now, there is laughter because of socialism,” the grandfather says. “Kim Jong Un loves children and wants them to laugh. So we must love him as our blood father.”

Not unique to North Korea, of course. The children's TV shows put out by Hamas, for instance, rival anything the North Koreans can manage in terms of encouraging hatred – see here, or here.