North Korea, A Land of Surprises

In a 2003 article North Korea A Land of Surprises by United Nations official John Williams, some interesting glimpses of the hermit kingdom were offered.

One was Williams' observation that North Korean society "gives pride of place to children." Travelling coast to coast from Nampo to Wonson, the children Williams and his colleagues saw were mostly sturdy, warmly dressed and "with energy enough for snowball fights in the freezing winter."

But having said that, Williams also noted that the situation for children was complex. Even though polio had been eradicated, a recent survey showed that immunization levels need to be improved.

"Acute child malnutrition has dropped from 16 to 9 per cent. So those photographs of thin sick children tell an important part, but only a part of the story."

The country itself was said to contain wide variations. Levels of children with pneumonia and diarrhoea were described as worse in the northeast, with its closed factories and poor roads, than in Pyongyang or Nampo, the major port.

"In the centers we visited, North Korean caregivers, usually not highly trained, provided children with that primary ingredient, affection. I saw more human warmth here than on visits to far better equipped clinics in Eastern Europe. As we left a Kangwon provincial clinic, a young caregiver and a small child cuddled as they waved goodbye, their cheeks cradled together."

But with the bitter winter stretching into March that year, Williams noted that the energy crisis was evident everywhere.

"At dusk in small towns, whole families return home, each member carrying a backload of chopped branches. Trees have been stripped of bark as a food supplement."