By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
Do you want to take a glance at North Korea online? Here's a little-known way.
Find a friend who can understand the Czech language, and visit www.mzv.cz/pyongyang, the Web site of the Czech Embassy in Pyongyang, which displays images of unthinkably normal life in North Korea.
One image depicts a Czech official and a North Korean official signing a document, seemingly an agreement on bilateral cooperation.
Another photo shows a group of people ― young and old. The girls are in bright blue skirts and jackets and the boys in suits. They're the winners of the Lidice competition 2008, a painting competition organized by the Czech government, having their pictures taken as part of the awards ceremony.
The same ceremony took place in South Korea in March with the presence of Czech Ambassador Jaroslove Olsa, Jr. The Czech ambassador to North Korea was nowhere to be found in the photo.
Another photo features three women in hanbok, traditional Korean costumes, and one relatively old-looking man chatting in front of several standing banners, holding glasses of what looks like wine.
The Czech ambassador said it's beer that they're drinking and the picture was taken during a Czech beer-promoting event last year.
One photo captures a table full of food ― tangerines, cheesecake, muffins, coke, etc ― and a Korean lady in the corner holding a half-eaten banana, showing no sign of the starvation the nation has been undergoing.
An image from April 3 shows an open apple farm. The explanation ― this time in Korean ― states that the Czech government has donated humanitarian aid in the form of 40,000 grafted apple trees and some skilled Czech farmers.
The Web site is available in three languages: Korean, Czech and English. The Korean version shows evident differences in Korean language between the two Koreas. For example, the North calls the Czech ``체스코,'' while the South calls it ``체코.''
The ambassador said the former is a translation from the Czech language into Korean, and the latter from English into Korean.
The Czech Web site is one of the only two out of 24 countries that maintain embassies in Pyongyang. Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Romania and Bulgaria also do.
The Web page of the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang has a lavish look, just what one expects given the fact that China is the North's closest ally.