Mick Hartley

Yes, it's New Year, North Korea style. From the official Rodong Sinmun:

Happy laugh and hopeful songs of the schoolchildren across the country, the might and joy of the dignified Workers’ Party of Korea and the powerful DPRK, are reverberating more sonorously in the first morning of the New Year.

A performance of schoolchildren for greeting the New Year was given with splendor at the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace on January 1.

The venue of the performance was filled with great excitement and joy of the schoolchildren to sing of the happiest New Year’s Day in the world on the significant stage in the presence of the respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, the tender-hearted father of the large family of the whole country.

When the respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un arrived at the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace, academic advisors and schoolchildren of the palace burst into cheers full of great excitement. […]

When the performance was over, all the audience raised stormy cheers of "Hurrah!" looking up to the benevolent father who defined the bright laughing of children as the symbol of the socialist system and the mightiness of Korean-style socialism, defends and glorifies their laughing and opened up a broad avenue to the cause of building a powerful state advancing by dint of love for the new generation.

Kim Jong Un wished good luck for all the children of the country on the New Year, waving back to the enthusiastic cheers of schoolchildren.

He had a photo session with schoolchildren to show profound loving care which they will always remember, affirming that days and months of our country will be eternal as ones of children’s laughing under the care of the Workers’ Party of Korea and that the song "We Are the Happiest in the World" will resound as the eternal theme song of the times of the Workers’ Party for all ages.

The happiest in the world? Or perhaps – click to enlarge – respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un's personal hygiene left a great deal to be desired. You be the judge.