Northern Nouveau Riche

The newest, hottest hot spot in Pyongyang - Changjon Street, on Sept. 29, 2014.
The newest, hottest hot spot in Pyongyang - Changjon Street, on Sept. 29, 2014.

 

The Rodong Sinmun of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea posted a picture of Changjon Street in Pyongyang on Sept. 29, 2014. The photo shows a circular building in front of a row of high-rise apartments. The circular building is a theater, and the apartments get as high as 45 stories. The night view in the picture implies that enough power is being supplied to at least downtown Pyongyang to keep the area lit up like that. Changjon Street was completed in June 2012, the first year of Kim Jong-un’s reign. 

It is claimed that the number of elite people living a luxurious life in Pyongyang has increased to a million under the Kim Jong-un regime. “Those affiliated with the Worker’s Party, military, and state-owned corporations are enjoying luxury beyond the imagination of the general public,” said Free University of Berlin Professor Park Seong-jo at a recent interview with the Radio Free Asia (RFA). He added, “They are the new rich, having at least US$50,000, Samsung TVs, pet dogs smuggled from China, and tickets to fancy restaurants, saunas, and gyms that take only the U.S. dollar and euro.”

He continued, “The number of such people is approximately 200,000 to 300,000, as far as I see, but some of my colleagues’ estimate them at over one million.” The professor added that about 5,000 German luxury sedans can be found in Pyongyang, along with 1,500 or so used Japanese cars and about 1,000 cabs. “Even though income inequality was also found in the former East Germany, Slovenia, and Croatia, it is not comparable to that in today’s Pyongyang, where mobile phones are implying that the income gap is widening between the rich and the rest,” he pointed out.

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