North Korean leader Kim Jong-il marked the “Day of the Sun” — the anniversary of his late father’s birth 98 years ago yesterday — by promoting 100 loyal generals, while Pyongyang residents thronged riverbanks to watch a “kaleidoscope” of fireworks, state media said.
Fireworks and a laser display lit up the skies above the Taedong River on Wednesday night, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said yesterday.
“The evening of fireworks will demonstrate before the world the inexhaustible mental power and indomitable spirit” of North Korea as the nation pushes ahead with a mission to build a “great, prosperous and powerful nation” by 2012, the centenary of founder Kim Il-sung’s birth, KCNA said.
PHOTO: AFP
All week, thousands have been lining up to lay flowers at the foot of the towering statue of Kim Il-sung, the guerrilla fighter turned political leader who founded the communist state in 1948, KCNA said. Kim Jong-il marked the holiday by watching a military drill, it said in reports earlier in the week.
In South Korea, defectors and activists marked the holiday by sending balloons filled with leaflets and DVDs denouncing the totalitarian government across the border.
April 15 is one of North Korea’s most important holidays, a day when even average North Koreans get a rare chance at gluttony, the defectors said.
One defector recalled tables piled high with rice cakes; boiled pork and rice served in broth; seasoned spring greens; and her favorite — steamed pollack skin stuffed with ground fish meat and tofu.
“Every household prepared at least three kinds of rice cakes for the occasion,” she said, flashing a coy smile at the memory. “You also can’t forget the cookies and candy — holiday presents from the government.”
She asked that her name not be used to protect her family back in North Korea.
Such lavish meals are a rarity in North Korea, where flooding and mismanagement in the 1990s destroyed the economy and led to widespread famine. Millions now rely on handouts from foreign nations and international donor agencies.
Sanctions tightened in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear defiance last year are believed to have put a further strain on food supplies in the impoverished country.
On Wednesday, the North’s No. 2 official, Kim Yong-nam, delivered a report that highlighted “the need to intensify the all-party and all-state general offensive for improving the people’s standard of living.”
As friends and family back in North Korea celebrated Kim Il-sung’s birthday, seven defectors now living in Seoul recreated their home cuisines for South Koreans unfamiliar with the northern palate.
The defectors and South Korean researchers from the North Korea Traditional Culinary and Culture Institute presented a North Korean-style feast at the five-day World Food and Tourism Expo in southern Seoul, calling it a “Unification Spring Celebration.”
The 15 dishes hailed from three North Korean provinces, including kimchi — the spicy, pickled cabbage beloved in both Koreas — with spring herbs and iced vinegar sauce; ostrich egg casserole, served and cooked in the shell and topped with the raw yolk; steamed seven-spice chicken stuffed with pine nuts, cinnamon, chestnuts, ginger, ginkgo nuts, jujubes and roots; and stuffed fish.
And for dessert? Pyongyang-style sticky rice cakes marinated in malted barley.
“Food is a great way to bridge the gap because North Korean cuisine has remained relatively unchanged since pre-division days,” said Lee Ae-ran, director of the North Korea Traditional Culinary and Culture Institute, who defected from North Korea 13 years ago.
“This [the cuisine] is something that both South and North Koreans can share together,” Lee said.
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