A State of Mind Page #2

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will go dancing tonight.

Won't you join in?

Hyon Sun's group is training for the next

Mass Games, which are due to be held in July

to commemorate the 50th anniversary of

the end of the Korean War, a war known in

the West as the Forgotten War

in North Korea as the Victorious

Fatherland Liberation War.

Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum

Grandfather, is that a fighter plane from

the U.S. Army of aggressors?

Did it drop bombs too?

No, but it dropped all kinds of insects...

...containing the virus of various plagues

before being shot down.

An estimated four million people

many of them civilians

were killed in the three year war and

to this day Korea has remained divided.

The near flattening of the north by

American bombers

has left a deep mark on North

Korean psyche.

When I was young...

...I didn't know if the U.S.

Imperialists were bad or good,

But through our war in the 1950's...

...I saw the brutal bombing of our country...

...and the atrocities suffered by our people.

I saw things being done that

no human could do.

I became more enraged

about U.S. Imperialism...

...and felt that we had to rid this land

of U.S. Imperialism completely.

Hatred of the US is immortalized

in Mass Games

and is ingrained in everyday life.

The U.S. are making life bad in our country...

...they are manoeuvring to suppress the sound

of happy laughter here.

As war looms in Iraq, America openly

talks of a war on two fronts

implying Iraq and North Korea.

Pyongyang is just over 100 miles from the

37,000 US troops based in South Korea.

Hyon Sun's daily life is disrupted by

preparations for an American attack on the city.

At home, I was having fun playing with my

mother and grandmother...

...then there would be a blackout or an

air-raid practice.

On their way down to the air-raid shelter...

...the mothers and grandmothers say:

This is all because of the Americans'.

Because we're always doing things like air

raids and blackout...

...I think, just as we're taught at school...

...we have to endlessly hate the U.S. and

fight them to the end.

The General's Family

Officially, North Korea is divided into

three classes the workers, the peasants

and the intellectuals

who are seen as equals in society.

Mum, water please.

Yes, use this cup.

Hyon Sun's family is from

the workers class.

Her father is a driver for a government

ministry, her grandfather is a

construction worker.

Mother and grandmother are housewives.

Mum, I have to pack my lunch box.

Lunch? OK, let's pack it.

Take the box out from there.

This one, here?

Housing is allocated by the State.

Pyongyang is not representative of North Korea

it is the showcase capital.

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