New town culture is emerging in Pyongyang as huge apartment blocks have sprung up along recently-constructed Kwangbok (liberation) and Tongil (unification) Streets as well as the earlier-built Changgwang, Munsu and Ansangtak Streets. Munsu Street in eastern Pyongyang, Kwangbok Street in the Mangyongdae district and Tongil Street south of the Taedong River, in particular, being somewhat distant from the center of the capital, can be compared to such suburban new towns as Pundang and Ilsan in the South.
But the concept of apartments differs considerably between the North and South. To begin with, apartments in the North, as is the case with independent houses, are evaluated not by the size of floor space, but by the number of rooms. The floor-space size of an apartment has nothing to do with the living standard of its occupant. Entrances to most apartments are directly linked to stairways, not corridors, and there are no living rooms in North Korean apartments, unlike in the South. Few apartments are of under 59.4 meter2, two-room apartments have a space of about 79.2 meters2, and apartments with three or four rooms have a space of 99 meters2 or more. There is no mistaking, therefore, to regard apartment dwellers as belonging to the upper class.
The best among newly-built apartments is Changgwang apartment block constructed around the Koryo Hotel in the city center. Occupying apartments in this block, with three or more rooms per unit and whose kitchens are furnished with imported items, are mostly senior leaders of the party headquarters. Many new rich people like former Korean residents in Japan who have been repatriated to the North and foreign exchange earners live around Ansangtaek and Munsu Streets. Housed in apartments along Kwangbok Street in Pyongyang suburbs are mostly families related to men of influence or mid-level social leaders, while laborers and middle class families live along Tongil Street south of the Taedong River.
One can see many privately-owned passenger cars and foreign-made clothes hung on verandas for drying along Ansangtaek Street and Munsu Street in eastern Pyongyang, a sign that residents there are rich. Apartment people know their neighbors well because many daily community activities are conducted by the people in teams, consisting of about 30 and 50 households. Household members are required to participate in morning cleaning, snow sweeping and environmental cleansing activities.
Imposing guards standing at entrances to apartment buildings, whose duties are rotated from among jobless occupants, control visitors with the aid of the head of the people teams. People teams are networked with street or block offices, which in turn with the Ministry of Public Security keep citizens' moves under tight surveillance.
As a result, guards become a source of stress to some apartment residents. Households that spend money or live in luxury beyond their means accorded by their ordinary income are liable to be reported to the authorities. Residents find it difficult to bring into their apartments articles they've purchased with side income. Accordingly, to avoid the guards, such articles are sometimes seen being lifted by ropes at the back of apartment buildings. Drawing guards' particular attention are young people acting in groups, who might watch foreign videos or conspire against somebody or something in secret. Houses visited by suspicious people are reported to the authorities regularly, which subjects them to abrupt police inspections.
Most Pyongyang apartments are heated centrally. Most problematic is cooking fuel. Gas has replaced kerosene as cooking fuel at apartments along Changgwang Street in the downtown area and around the Central railroad station. But kerosene is still widely used at other apartments. Each apartment block has a petroleum shop, where the occupants buy kerosene, and each household keeps a number of petroleum containers. Food and daily necessaries are bought at nearby direct-sale or vegetable shops. Shoes, soap, cooking oil and clothes are purchased at department stores with coupons distributed once a month.
Relatively old apartment blocks have holes dug in the basement, where households keep kimchi (pickled vegetables) jars. New-town apartment blocks are paved with concrete and are not permitted to have the holes as they are thought to be ugly to look at. Kimchi jars are now kept mainly on verandas. During the serious food shortages in the 1990s, occupants of lower floors of apartment buildings had to be watchful as their kimchi jars could be stolen by soldiers, mobilized at construction sites.
When elevators stop operating due to power cuts from power shortages, apartment dwellers have to climb staircases reaching 10 floors or higher, and walls are covered in soot from smoke rising when firewood, in the absence of kerosene, is burnt for cooking, according to North Korean escapees in the South. Although animal raising is banned in apartments, some raise chickens and even pigs on verandas. Some apartment occupants in Munsu Street and elsewhere which are near the Taedong River fetch water from the river when no running water is available due to power cuts, add the escapees.
(kang Chol Hwan, nkch@chosun.com)
