Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shakuhachi]

The National Symbol of North Korea

Towards the end of 1947, Kim Il Sung established a republican constitution, national flag and national symbol for Korea. Later, in January of 1948, Kim Il Sung visited a government building and told the artists working there that ��the national symbol must have the working class at its core and be based on the alliance between workers and farmers to consolidate the unity of the people, and must be drawn to clearly express powerful modern industry, advanced agriculture and development.�� A few days later he also asked for a 5-pointed red star to be included inside the white circle of the national flag.

When they had advanced to the stage when the design sketches for the national flag and the national symbol were completed, anti-communist
counter revolutionary elements demanded that the Kyung Bok Kung palace of the Yi Dynasty be included in the national symbol. Kim Il Sung rejected the counter revolutionaries and directed the artists to "show the future wealth, power and prosperity of the New Korea by drawing our Hydro-electric plant", on the national symbol. In this way the Korean national flag and national symbol were introduced to the world.



The Korean National Symbol, which says 'People's Democratic Republic of
Korea' on a red sash that wraps around ears of rice to form a crest around a magnificent Hydro-electric plant, has a mountain sacred to the revolution known as Bektusan and a brilliant red 5 sided star. The light emitting from the star symbolizes the revolutionary tradition, and the bright future of the Korean People. The Hydro-electric plant symbolizes a self-reliant modern manufacturing industry and working class with a powerful heavy industry as their axis. The ears of rice represent the developed agriculture and the peasants of the unified working class.

Especially this Hydro-electric plant that Japan left in North Korea was a great legacy. This kind of infrastructure was a first for North Korea at that time, and Koreans were lacked the ability to even start a project of this scale. Looking at this fact, one would suppose that North Korea is unable to suggest that Japan contributed nothing to its development.


This is not written by me - I translated it from the orginal Japanese text for a friend. However, I agree with the content.

[Gwangjuboy]

Another one of your posts that makes a lot of sense. I have been doing a lot of reading about the history of North Korea, and a reaccuring theme is the legacy that the Japanese left behind there. It is the primary reason that the North's economy outstripped that of its Southern counterpart for so long. (the remnants of the Japnese infrastructure were largely unscathed in the North, but mostly destroyed in the South)The project in your picture was possibly in Nampo. Interestingly, many Japanese Koreans left Japan for Leninland, and bitterly regreted having done so. One wealthy family left for the North and donated 7 million dollars to the Kim dynasty. It funded the main statue of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. A decade after their settlement in North Korea they were banished to the gulags in the remore North. A similar fate was met by most of those Japanese Koreans who chose to settle in the North. Kim Il Sung believed that they would become a driving force for regime change because they had already witnessed how people should be living. Japanese Koreans wouldn't tolerate food shortages in the future etc. Here is a great quote in a book I came across,

"At first I thought we were going on a trip to the mountains. The scenery was so beautiful. Later, we reached the gulag gates. There was barbed wire, and armed guards were also present. I remember thinking, "how could Koreans do this? I thought only the evil Japanese did this to people. It was like all of the films I had seen about the evil Japanese."

- the son of a Japanese Korean family sent to the gulag for no reason other than the regime's insecurity as economic conditions worsened in the North.

[bobbyhanlon]

doesn't make what japan did right.