Barbara Demick of the LAT got to eat, drink and be merry with a North Korean businessman in Beijing. And she survived to write the tale:
He arrived at the entrance to a North Korean government-owned restaurant and karaoke club here in the Chinese capital with a handshake and a request. “Call me Mr. Anonymous,” he said in English.
This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, has been assigned to help his communist country attract foreign investment. With the U.S. and other countries complaining about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its human rights record, it’s a difficult task, he admitted.
“There’s never been a positive article about North Korea, not one,” he said. “We’re portrayed as monsters, inhuman, Dracula ??? with horns on our heads.”"
As opposed to all the positive media images of the U.S. in North Korea, I guess.
Anyway, the piece does make for an interesting read, so check it out.
UPDATE 1: Francis over at L’Ombre de l’Olivier has a little fun with the LAT piece. Good links, too.
7 Comments
If you’ve got any links to North Korean propaganda posters, maybe you could post them.
I remember one in particular I “liked”, as I recall it showed a stylized missile crashing into the dome of the US capitol in Washington, DC, while a North Korean soldier gestured defiantly off to the side.
Can’t remember where on the web I saw it now, it was a long time ago, over a year probably, about the first time I began checking in at some of these Korea-oriented blogs. Not sure if it was made pre- or post- 9/11; for that matter, the “Stalinist realism” art style hasn’t change since the 30’s I suppose.
But I assume this particular one was made after the NorK missile test over Japan (1998?)
I wonder if there have been any celebratory paintings or posters of the WTC towers in NorK propaganda art?
I gather Pyongyang was pretty well blasted during the war by US bombing; I suppose this is used to stoke the anger of the “masses”, and justify the use of such imagery.
Fine by me. In fact I think such art ought to receive the widest possible disemination in the US (like the new-found attention now being paid to Ward Churchill’s “original” art work).
For another interesting take on Mr.Anonomous and the LAT, check out http://www.powerline.com. They say it more eloquently than I ever could.
As I read the article, I kept looking for something new to be said, but it was all re-hashed mumble that has been said before.
That’s remarkably “on message” for an anonymous N. Korean “businessman” (savor the ironies in that job descritpion). George W. would be envious of his script writer….
6 party talks are archaic and just allow the Dubya group to postpone at no fault of their own.
I thought the interview was interesting and the person tried very hard to sound like a citizen and not a Gov’t offical.
With all the bitching about the Norks policies, from a Canadian point of view looking at the Patriot Act I see the same potential there.
‘from a Canadian point of view looking at the Patriot Act I see the same potential there.’
Give me a break. I’m Canadian, too and I think your point is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, the French and the Germans also have their own variations on the Patriot Act and have had them for alot longer than the Yanks have.
Heck yeah, Canadian.
And even the UK has a law more feudal than Korea’s National Security Law.
“…the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print, even by peaceful means..”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/mona.....99,00.html