Trains

Trains are the most common form of transport for long distance transport making them ideal for information dissemination. One woman who has the job of reading articles to passengers over the train’s loud speakers said the following:

“And it seems that the Workers’ Party papers that I read now are the same as the papers I read 20 years ago. On the first page and on the second page they deal with political issues about what’s happening with the Kim family, that’s dealt with in section 1 and section 2. Section 3 and section 4 of the paper talk about the development, about the economies and about some of the issues related to residents of North Korea. And section 5 and section 6 deal with other countries, such as South Korea and the United States. And so what’s dealt with in the paper, is the same right now as it was 20 years ago.”

Readers of the official guff are specifically trained at the Office of Speaking Guidance in the Workers’ Party of Korea on how to read the articles. There’s a manual on how to speak and enunciate correctly. For example, when saying the name of the Great Leader or the Dear Leader, there is a special slow and high pitch that has to be used to convey admiration and endearment. On the opposite side of the spectrum, when speaking about the Americans or the South Koreans, a suitably grating pitch is used.

When the electricity current on the train gets too low, the tape recording becomes distorted. That won’t do at all so the reader has to quickly take out the cassette to prevent the names of the Leaders from being broadcast in a slow mo and therefore unacceptable way.

And don’t think you can pick up any info about the world at large via magazines or papers…

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