The Parks, a Pyongyang success story
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By Andrei Lankov
Ms. Park (not her real name) was born in the late 1960s and by birthright she belongs to the North Korean aristocracy. All her grandparents were, to some degree, involved in the anti-Japanese guerilla resistance, and one of them even had close personal connections to Kim Il-sung in his early days fighting the Japanese in the wilderness of Manchuria. Ms. Park’s father was a high-level official, for security reasons we cannot go into much detail, but suffice it to say, he was in the top 1,000 (probably top 500) bureaucrats in the country.
Ms. Park’s youth coincided with the late 1980s, the Indian summer of the Kim Il-sung regime. At that time, the economy was stagnating, but the old system was still basically functional. Thus, in her teen and college years, Ms. Park enjoyed a fairly typical existence for North Korea’s top officialdom.
In those days, the rich and powerful in North Korea almost exclusively came from the top party, state and military elite. Things have gotten far more complicated since then due to the emergence of an (quasi) independently wealthy entrepreneurial class. Back in the 1980s though, the only route to earthly success was getting a very high position in the official hierarchy. Admittedly, by the 1980s, the upper crust of North Korea’s apparat had become a closed, hereditary group. Thus, only the children of top officials and in some cases, the ambitious and gifted children of mid-ranking officials had the chance to join the ranks of the chosen few.
Ms. Park’s family enjoyed a comfortable life in the Changgwang district. This is a special fenced-off area to which outsiders are excluded, where the North Korean crem-de-la-crem still lives. Ms. Park’s family lived in a spacious, three bedroom flat with a round-the-clock supply of hot water, and 24-hour available elevator. Neither might sound as if they are decadent luxuries to readers, but in 1980s Pyongyang, such conveniences were available only to a fraction of the population. Even in the tallest high-rise buildings (if unoccupied by the top elite), elevators were switched on only during rush hour, while hot water was provided only irregularly (if at all).
Ms. Park’s mother was not a housewife. Indeed, amongst the North Korean 0.1%, it was very common for married women to work, while a full-time housewife was rather unusual (though not frowned upon). Top officials had easy and prestigious jobs, but they still came home late and Ms. Park’s mother was no exception.
The household had a live-in servant appointed by the government who was technically an employee of the secret service. Her job was, in theory, to also ensure the security of the family, not to mention keeping an eye on what was going on inside the household. Apart from that, the middle-aged woman did what servants always do: cooked, cleaned and washed.
Ms. Park’s family loved to travel, and their position meant that troublesome travel restrictions did not apply to them. As a matter of fact, they were only allowed to travel domestically, but they had their father’s chauffeured Mercedes to go to Wonsan, Paekdu, or any other places of interest. Ms. Park remembers such trips with great fondness not least because they were rare times when she could talk to her hardworking father seldom otherwise seen at home.
Even as the economy began to deteriorate, the family wanted for nothing. Every second day they received packages with special rations that included things that the average North Korean could not even dream of. High quality pork, fresh seafood, fruit and dairy products, not to mention imported tobacco and alcohol (women were not supposed to smoke, though they could occasionally drink a bit). These special rations were so generous that Ms. Park’s mother sometimes sold the excess at the market. Of course, she did not go there herself, this would be unbecoming for a woman of her status, instead, she used an intermediary.
Like other top officials, Ms. Park’s father received special bonuses in hard currency that could be used in a hard currency shop near the house. This shop was similar to a small Japanese supermarket, so the Park’s family pretty much wanted for nothing that a Japanese upper middle class family had at the time.
Even now, decades later, Ms. Park remembers these times with great fondness, and perhaps she does not feel much ashamed about the privileges she used to enjoy. Indeed, had she be born in a 0.1% in a capitalist society, such privileges would be still greater.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.