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Did that situation apply to people in your area who were not being pun- ished as well?"They didn't get rations either, although the people who watched us got paid every time they gave information to the authorities. It's not that everybody was without rations. Officials, State Security and party peo- ple, the military and bureaucrats always got rations. Sometimes they got more than they needed and would sell the 1eftovers. The officials' theme song is 'These Days Are So Good; Don't Let Them End.' They make in- credible profits. They buy things ~rom the ration centers. If they pay eight cents, they sell lace boots for 150 won for a 2,000 percent profit."Choe Seung-chan, an army paratroop sergeant turned factory supply official in Kaesong, told me: "I don't think there are military bases up north. ������ It's a tough area for farming. It's tlie fertile areas the monitors have been to -the white area is the bad 1and for growing. I guess lv white purses for propaganda louis vuitton mens wallet they wanted to show better places. The roads in general up there are not paved."How clo you analyze the map?"In Chagang Province there are lots of military factories. Workers there were given rations. The two areas in the northwestern part of the map are well known for military factories. There are lots of political prison camps in the middle of the map. In the ~ar northeast are marine and navy bases. There are lots of military bases in Kangwon Province. Near Pyong-are few people living above ground. People living in the villages eat more than other people. They usually don't show outsiders those areas. Also, I heard that in South HamSlyong near Tanchon they mine uranium; I heard it's for nuclear weapons. My friend's father worked for a nuclear reactor plant. He used to go on a lot oftrips to South Hamgyong." (Nam was a re- cent enough defector to retain a South Korean police minder. ������The minder LV damier Azur was present in the room during the interview, but had shown no interest in other parts of the interview. He paid close attention to this map talk.) Were any areas of the country written off, treated unfairly during the food crisis?"I don't think so. Each area has its quotas, how much it has to give Pyong- yang. A certain portion of the leftovers goes to Pyon&yang, a certain por- tion to the military. They decide in the province how to distribute the rest."Yanggang Province?"Their basic staple is potatoes.

supports the policies of South Korea. But that is like setting a bomb. That is not advisable. Of course, they believe South Korea is a demo- cratic society, so they can say whatever is true or they believe to be true. The North Koreans also know the U.S. is the most democratic nation in the whole world. If they did not acknowledge American democratic poli- cies, the North black or grey cardy ugg boots Koreans would never have agreed to talks. "Hypothetically, if Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's power declines, the U.S. should show that they could defect to the United States. Look at the UGG Knightsbridge case with South Korea. One former high official [Kim Chongwhi] wants to defect to the United States. It shows that the U.S. presents such an image of democracy that anyone in a difficult spot would want to de- fect to the U.S."If they were being forced out domestically, would they rather go into ex- ile or bomb everyone?"At the moment they'd rather bomb everyone. I die, you die. Kim Il- sung feels he's immortal. Even if everybody dies, he won't die. This de- velopment of nuclear weapons started about thirty years ago with the intention to survive m case of a nuclear war. I believe Kim Il-sung is ready. Even if there is a nuclear attack he has a shelter Supra Vaiders Women White Green ready. Even if he pushes the button he'll survive." Is l:Jis bottom line to save his family,o make sure they can remain in powerful positions despite any external or internal threat?"I clon't believe in an internal threat. I don't think Kim Il-sung feels a threat internally. Kim Il-sung considers his family very important, just as UGG Ashur Boots you think. But to Kim Il-sung the more important thing is to be able to live the high-class life. That is more important than the family. In the U.S. you have the Bill Clinton scandals, but there is no comparison. In fact I don't understand how the president of such a strong country as the United States should be scrutinized. Kim Il-sung has formed a regime in which he can do anything and no one can ever say anything about it. He can 1ead the expensive, extravagant life. For example, the food in Kim Il- sung's mansions is planned two years ahead. He has the power to de- mand such high treatment. Each grain of rice that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il eat is individually selected from a whole heap of rice."Do you think the country has changed substantially since your defection in 1988? "Maybe, but the essence of the system could not wholly chan8'e." Is it possible for the regime of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to refor North Korea? "It depends on what we mean by reform. But because of the essence of'the social system, it is very hard for any real change to occur. For true political reform to occur there needs to be democracy. But democracy would threaten one-man rule in North Korea."

for organization, Kim Jong-il." At that point, "inside the military, people thought Kim Jong-il didn't have the ability to rule," Lim said. Some officers pointed out, "He didn't even enlist in the army. He went to university and spent only one month or so in military camp. He doesn't know how to lead the army. If we make war with Kim Jong-il as our leader, we will all die."The Kims grey metallic ugg boots brushed aside soldiers' private reservations. In December 1991, Kim Jong-il took over as supreme commander of the People's Army. In April 1992, he was named to the top military rank of marshal alongside only one other soldier of that exalted status, O Jin-u. (His father was pro- moted that year from marshal to a newly created super rank translated as generalissimo or grand marshal.) That day, said Lim, Kim Jong-il "was sup- posed to wear a marshal's uniform, but he declined. O Jin-u told him, 'You should wear it ! ' But Kim Jong-il said, 'It's not suitable for me to wear a clean marshal's uniform. That uniform should be torn with shrapnel.''' Lim related this bit of army lore (which I also heard from another former military man) explicitly to illustrate the new marshal's bellicosity. But the anecdote also suggests that Kim Jong-il felt - or wanted to be perceived as ~eeling-some- thing akin to modesty.2 On April 25, 1993, the sixtieth anniversary of the People's Army, Kim Jong-il became chairman of the party's military comrmssion. Reviewing a military parade that day, he had to give a short speech before an assembled multitude. Although he uttered just a single sentence invoking glory upon the armed forces, delivering a messa8'e in person to such a vast audience was an unaccustomed task. One former high official who watched the event on a videotape in Seoul told me, "I saw Kim Il-sung turned toward Kim Jong-il with an expression of concern -- could he make it through his phrase? " The younger Kim did make it ugg casual shoes through, smoothly enough. But rumors spread that he had a speech problem, a former army sergeant, Lee Chong- guk, told me. Even if that was the case, however, public speaking may have been the least of Kim Jong-il's problems. "Kim Il-sung was idolized," Lee said, "but for Kim Jong-il, there are only bad rumors, like the ,lcippeunjo. Al- though there were rumors that Kim Il-sung white boots for sale australia had a five-year~old son, he wasidolized anyhow because of his role in the anti-Japanese struggle and the Korean War. As for Kim Jong-il, it's rumored black suede sandals that he sleeps in the afternoon,parties at night and has affairs with actresses. Nothing good is said about Kim Jong-il.""At first, Kim Il-sung made a conscious effort to hand over power to his son," said former party secretary Hwang Jang-yop. "But as Kim Jong-il began to take control of every area of the government, there was nothing Kim Il-sung could do to control his son anymore. By the 1990s, Kim Il-sung was merely an advisor to his son. But they were father and son, with father having an

UNDER THE LOVING CARE OF THE FATHERLY LEADE in the North-or it might simply have meant the people were wet early by contemporary Western and Japanese standards. Workers made an average of 90 won, or about $53 at the official e rate, per month, Hong said. But he quickly added that the wage frosting on the cake, since "the material and culturallife of our peop vided by the state." Thus, "ifwe calculate the solicitude and benevolc are receiving from the state-such as vacation facilities, free medi< ment, free education-the workers' actual income is much more tJ cash income." Wage differentials were based on position and degree of skill. V lege graduates made up the management corps, workers with ability promoted to team leader and workshop leader. "But the difference much," Hong said. The entire range ran from about 80 won for begi to about 150 won iFor the factory manager and highly skilled techr heard of similar pay ranges at other enterprises, including a hothoucAmazingly, Hong could not say how much the Kumsong plant's cost to produce. "We don't calculate the cost of the tractors," he sa Agricultural Committee takes care of that." The factory supplied the directly to the counties' agricultural managements. Asked about the re."12 I hoped someone had some idea a Figure a rational selling price for the portio abroad, mostly r:o Third World countries, Journeys outside Pyongyang - chaperoned journeys, always - reveal, and small cities, each a miniature men's vuitton wallet Pyoneyang, the men neatly dr Western-style suits or in Mao suits with Lenin caps, the women ofte: designe bag in the colorful Korean traditional dresses, the children marching to school in the uniforms of the children's corps. In the countryside neat rice paddies, vegetable fields and orchards lined with irrigatio: the trucks and christian louboutin red shoes tractors greatly outnumbering the bullock-pulled c plows, the farmers housed in substantial-looking apartment comI clusters of tile~roofed, masonry-walled houses. I was told that dwelling units had been built at state expense for farmers. One day early in the rice-planting season my handlers too Chonsam-ri, a cooperative farm near the east coast port of Wonsan. I came upon scenes that might have made a nice poster to promote agricultural policies. The glistening water atop the knee-deep mu farm's paddies showed reflections of the conical, orchard-topped hi tuating the plain. A man wearing a Lenin cap piloted a chuggi planting machine across one of the paddies. Two kerchiefed women,on the back, fed seedlings into the device, which plopped them, upright and evenly spaced, into the fertilized and smoothed ooze. Two helpers slogged along. christian louboutin evening Beyond a stone~banked irrigation canal and a narrow road bordering it, kindergarten children sang and danced to the accompaniment of a pump or- gan played by a woman teacher. In the nursery next door, toddlers chanted in unison the name of the place where Kim Il~sung was born, Maneyongdae. Otherwise, there was little activitjr and there were few sounds. Most of the five hundred or so adults who did the farming work were nowhere to be seen. The children, it was said, had stayed late so that they could perform for me. Perhaps the farmers had retreated into their tile~roofed houses to leave the sensitive contact with the foreigner to ideologically sound and reliable colleagues. Could it have been that enthusiasm for the collectivization of farming was not yet universal among its practitioners? But there was a more mundane, less conspiratorial possibility that could explain the adults' absence. Only a few days remained before the height ofthe transplanting season -the time when, as an old Korean saying goes, "even a stick of stovewood moves." Perhaps the unseen farmers were resting in preparation for those hectic days when army units, students and office workers from the cities would be mobi- lized to help out on farms like this one. Recall that, before the post-World War II partition of Korea, the northern part had specialized in mining and industry while depending on the granary of the mineral-poor southern part for food. Now there was no exchange between the communist North and the capitalist South. The North must at- tempt to feed itself, despite its mountainous topography. The goal of self- reliance in agriculture had led to extremely labor-intensive additions to acreage through land reclamation. Irrigation channels, the result of Kim Il-sung's"grand plan to remake nature,"13 totaled some forty thousand kilometers_ long enough to girdle the world, as I was told. And Kim had taught that "fer- tilizer means rice; rice means socialism." Fertilizer output was reported to have increased two and half times between 1970 and 1978. Farmers were applying more than 120 kilograms of chemical fertilizer per person per year - equivalent to twice the weight of every man, woman and child in the country. With the right timing, hard work and the water from rain-swollen reser- voirs, North Koreans hoped to approach the goal of harvesting 8.8 million tons of grain for the year- although previous harvests had made clear it was difFicult for the three-quarters mountainous country to produce enough food to sustain 17 million people.'4

solo career was static and he reunited with his brothers for LV damier Azur a time.Meanwhile, Outlaw-clone music inundated Nashville, and Willie and Waylon clones flooded the South and Southwest. In Texas, particularly, the Outlaw look became an everyday uni- form, and that led right into louis vuitton monogram handbag the "Texas Chic" trend which itself directly spawned the whole Urban Cowboy business. Willie and Waylon soon declared themselves sick of the Outlaw moniker, but they were more or less stuck with it. In 1978, Waylon felt moved to write and record t.he song "Don't You Think This Out- law Bit's Done Got Out of Hand," and he christian louboutin red shoes doesn't write all that much. The excesses performed in the name of Outlaw, by musicians and fans alike, were legion. A backlash was inevitable, espe- cially after other performers began to see the amount of success(and money) that accrued to Willie and Waylon. Their records and concerts were scrutinized and criticized to a degree neither had thought possible. They were directly blamed for the basi- cally sleazy Urban Cowboy craze that briefly touched country music. They were probably responsible for the New Traditialists, who responded against the new commercialization of Urban Cowboyism (Nashville Sound as filtered through Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas, and then by the Eagles in California) by returning to a stripped-down, no-frills, back-to-the-basics hard- country music. White hat country, rescued by the likes of George Strait and Reba McEntire.It was not so different from what the Outlaws had started with, in their own revolt againstAs Edwin Bruce, he was a teenage rockabilly who made a couple of records for Sun. Two decades later, Ed Bruce was an honorary Outlaw, having louis vuitton 2011 written Waylon & Willies hit "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" with his wife, Patsy In this photo, he brings his Memphis cowboy touch to the set of "Hee Haw." z. just a.s Outlaws were ted by commerical forces was not overlooked. Even as the X,itigjwayto Urban Cowboys itlaw surge was being effectively swamped by the excesses of Though rock critics have ban Cowboyism, Jerry Bradley was out there trying to conjure championed hi.s country-rock ������

HE GAVE US WATER AND SENT US christian louboutin shoes gray boots MACHINES 163 us how to develop our farm," Chun said. Monuments commemorated those first visits by President Kim to give "on-the-spot guidance." Another monu- ment recalled louis vuitton damier 2011 his only other visit since then, in 1976. In the fall of 1978, just a few months before mens louis vuitton wallet cheap my visit, Kim had held forth on farming questions at a party committee meeting in Wonsan, the nearby capital of the province. There he had instructed men's vuitton wallet everyone to plant persimmon trees.15 "Whenever our Great Leader visited and saw our farmers working in the paddy Fields with crooked backs, weeding with hands and hoes, he told us that he couldn't eat rice with an easy mind when he saw such hard work," Chun said. "So he sent to our farm various kinds ofinsecticides, weed killers, weeding equipment, agricultural equipment. He sent these things to all co~ operative farms, but he paid special attention to this farm because ofits back- wardness." Still, Chonsam-ri was only an ordinary North Korean cooperative farm, Chun insisted - not a model farm such as the famous (and, to the West- ern ear, conFusingly similar-sounding) Chongsan~ri, where the country's agri- cultural policies had been incubated.16 Indeed, three visits by the peripatetic leader were not, relatively speaking, very many. Model Farm or not, Chonsam-ri had a prosperous look to it. The previ- ous year, Chun said, the farm had produced 4,200 tons of crops including3,600 tons of rice. The average share of each family was six tons of grain, which could be sold to the state, and cash in the amount of 3,000 cuon ($1,754 at the official exchange rate). That would have made the Chonsam-ri farmers slightly better off than average wage earners in the cities and towns. "During the past, the young people preferred to go to the city to work," the farm offi- cial said, "but now young people from the city are coming to the countryside because the living standards of cooperative farmers have improved." Farmers shared in the cooperative's income according to a formula set- ting norms for what would be considered a day's work in a particular task. Hand transplanting of rice seedlings is backbreaking work, and there were not enough rice-planting machines in operation in North Korea yet to make the old way obsolete. Bending to plant one hundred seedlings was considered a day's work. A farmer got due credit, in the form of added fractional "days worked," for overfulfilling the quota. On the other hand, plowing was mech- anized and a day's work was considered planting one hectare (two and a half acres). Farmers shared the grain crop, and cash earned by the cooperative from sales of vegetables and fruit, according to each family's total days workedt, officials said. But first, the cooperative took a portion out for the common fund to finance the next year's farming and development projects. The farm had to buy fertilizer and tractor fuel from the state and pay the state for wa- ter supply and tractor rental. The work on the farm remained hard and long. The farmers followed the old East Asian custom of taking a day of rest only every ten days. In the winter, though, there was a day off once a week, and each family could take