The Luckiest Person on Earth is Not North Korean
My life still evolves a lot around “having” rather than “being”. I am working on that. But every once in awhile it hits me that I am the luckiest person on Earth for not being born North Korean.
The being-fucked-up competition
Some time ago, I was working as an Airbus engineer and sharing my office with a very colourful French character (Hi, Paul!). To kill some time after lunch, we had developed a routine. We were reading news about our home-countries, and we were sharing them, making fun about which country is more fucked up. Between Romanian corruption and French extremism, it was a close call.
The winner
At the point when one of us was stumbling upon news or facts about North Korea, it was as if we had stricken gold in matters of fucked up countries. I still remember Paul choking with laughter when he had found out that only 10 types of haircuts are allowed for North Korean men (18 for women). We later found out that men are forbidden to copy Kim Jong Un hairstyle. Yeah! Like that was a problem.
An inconvenient truth
The haircut story is just one of the light, borderline crazy, things going on over there. But there is more and much worst forms of abuse. 3 generations imprisonment punishments, death punishment for watching foreign movies or reading any form of holy scripture, lack of food or fuel for everyday activities, forced labour under different false pretenses, etc.
It is as sad as it gets. Unimaginable for us, the rest of the world, people who have been used to having rights. North Korea happens today. Under our noses. Under mighty world super-powers, who claim they have people’s rights at heart. Yes, I am talking about you, America. Fraud!
Why nobody cares
I guess it’s not really important what happens over there.
After all, who would be interested in helping a country who is forcing its population to donate their faeces so that they have fertiliser for their crops? Can you imagine how it smells there?
Who’d want to aid those whose gross domestic product per capita is $1800 at best? To whom would we sell our stuff there?
Hell, they only have 724 kilometres of paved roads anyway, how are we supposed to drive our expensive SUVs there?
My guess?
I am really waiting for the time when they (and by “they” I mean any world-leading power) will use North Korea as a reason to start a war. Maybe test some more of those UAV (unmanned air vehicles), XYZ, TR$$MW@R technology they’ve been secretly working on in the crack of the earth? Prove themselves they are the greatest. Again. Cuz what is the world without a fair pissing contest every once in awhile?!
The “happy” end
After having had spoiled your day, allow me to make it a little better. I know you are a lucky bastard and not a North Korean because you are reading this. So there is a little chance you can see the following facts about North Korea in a funny light.
1. In 2015, North Korea adopted its own time zone, Pyongyang Time, it is 30 minutes before South Korea’s and Japan’s.
2. Wearing blue jeans is illegal in North Korea. Hear that, Lana del Rey? Well, doesn’t matter if you do, you would be forbidden there, anyway.
3. However, smoking pot is not illegal. It is highly encouraged as a replacement for tobacco.
4. North Koreans don’t celebrate birthdays on July 8 and December 17, since those are the dates that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il died.
5. North Korea is the world’s only necrocracy: a government that still operates under the rules of a former, dead leader.
6. In 2012, North Korean scientists revealed to the world that unicorns are, in fact, real.
7. Americans have NASA, North Koreans have NADA as a space agency. Care to imagine what they have discovered so far?
8. North Korea threatened South Korea with war by sending a message on their state of the art technology, the fax machine.