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Date : January 19, 2016
Holiday full of rote memorization and manure
   http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=13680 [869]
Although this years New Years holiday in North Korea was scheduled from January 1-3rd, citizens were forced to spend their time in meetings and mobilization activities related to Kim Jong Uns New Years Address, making the vacation period just as busy as an ordinary week. After designating the holiday, the North Korean authorities promptly ordered everyone to participate in a series of meetings and  tasks, inspiring resentment among the general populace. 

On the 5th, our Daily NK reporter spoke with a source in North Hamgyong Province, who told us that although the Party declared three days of vacation in alignment with the New Years holiday, in reality nobody enjoyed a true day off. On the first day of the new year, students and laborers watched the New Years Address (given by Kim Jong Un) and were stuck  helplessly for the rest of the day in schools and factories participating in collective training sessions. 

Sources in South Hamgyong and Yanggang Provinces corroborated this news. 

Just like last year, everyone went to work on New Years at 8am. However, last year everyone spent the morning "bored to death watching the New Years Address, while this year it didnt begin until noon," she said. "After it finished around 1pm, everybody was mobilized to procure manure (this includes night soil) to be used as fertilizer."

In addition to this unpleasant task, students, laborers, and even housewives were put to work cleaning the sewer pipes and dredging river beds following lunch. Instead of enjoying a much-needed 3 days off, students and other workers spent their vacation dreaming of all the fun things they could have done while working on the holiday. Unsurprisingly, "nobody was happy about this."

Each individual was responsible for acquiring 1 ton of manure, a task that took the entirety of the 3 day vacation, according to the source. Citizens were kept busy running here and there to secure compost. On the Monday following the vacation (the 4th), people loaded up wheelbarrows and carts with the compost collected during the break and went to work.

An absolute majority of the nations students, from elementary to university, had to prepare for a contest over how well they knew Kim Jong Uns New Years Address starting on the first day of the vacation period. "As a result, they were also unable to rest properly," she noted. 

In addition, laborers must also join in this study campaign, slated to last until the end of the month, which means that work in the factories will be halted as workers devote their attention to memorizing Kim Jong Uns speech.

"Anyone failing to learn it within the allotted time subject to mutual self criticism sessions and/or forced to submit reports on periodic self and mutual criticism sessions for all of 2016," the source explained. The regime initiates these types of educational and training activities in an effort to instill a sense of loyalty towards the leadership in the people. They hold up people who can recite the speech perfectly as models for the rest of us."

<Source: Daily NK>


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