 Park Jin-joo, who introduces herself as a student of Pyongyang Teachers’ University in a propaganda video clip circulating online, is seen in this photo captured from a website. |
Staff reporter
An online video clip featuring an attractive female university student from North Korea promoting the communist regime's propaganda, has been drawing attention among the Internet community here.
They are not interested in the content of the North's propaganda slogans that she speaks about. Instead they are making many comments about her looks, calling her North Korea's "eoljjang" or top beauty.
The young woman dressed in a modern outfit, introduces herself as Park Jin-joo and is a student of Pyongyang Teachers' University. She said in the video that her family had just moved to a new place, adding that the communist state gave them a bigger house. It then showed the whole family clapping their hands and singing together in great happiness.
"There are many people who do not own a house and kill themselves in a capitalistic society," Park said in a narration during the four-minute clip. The video then showed a group of homeless people in western countries and scenes from the confrontation between the riot police and tenants protesting redevelopment in central Seoul early last year,
The cut was initially posted on Youtube, under the title "North Korea, let me introduce my beloved country" in Japanese. At the end of the clip it credits 6.15 Production, an operator of North Korea's official website, 'Our People Only," which produced it in March 2009.
An ethic Korean journalist in the United States first posted the video on his blog (http://andocu.tistory.com) in June 5, saying it was made by the North's online media outlet. The journalist also said the laptop she used in the clip seemed to be made by Hewlett-Packard, commenting that it contradicts North's propaganda branding the United States as its main enemy.
Following the posting, a number of Netizens have been uploading it onto their websites, spreading it like wild fire.
The majority of Internet users are more interested in Park's looks than in the content of the video. But they also said the clip was entirely staged to fabricate the North as a heaven on earth for the working class, when it is actually a living hell.
Chang Jin-sung, a North Korean defector who became a poet, said on his blog that the video clip was made as propaganda for the communist state, adding that Park is not really a university student but an agent working for the North Korean regime. Chang also said Park's hairstyle is uncommon north of the border and that it was intended to make her resemble an ordinary female university student in the South.
The police here said the clip was made by the North Korea's online propaganda unit, stressing it has failed to achieve its purpose because of many contradictions in the content, as pointed out by many Internet users here. They say there is no need to investigate whether the video was made in the North and how it was spread in cyberspace.
