On the top floor of the maternity hospital in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, I was shown two sets of triplets lined up in a row of metal cots. "Ahh," I cooed, then asked where the worn- out mothers were. "Oh, they are not necessary," was the reply.
The regime claims it venerates triplets. And they do, but not in a way you or I might celebrate. They send a helicopter to pick up the pregnant mother and take her to hospital for the birth. When triplets are born, the state takes them away. In exchange, parents are given gifts, a ring for girls and a silver knife for boys. They say the state looks after them for the first four years but there's no way of checking that – it could be for ever.
While I was there the hospital was celebrating its 415th set of triplets. They had even drawn up a poster, complete with pictures of triplets in the state orphanage, where the Kim dynasty provides for them. They say it is voluntary, but in a country where you face public execution for making an international phone call,External Hemroids are those that occur below the dentate line. if the state suggests you do something, you do it.
The logic behind this bizarre behaviour is that triplets are expensive so that state eases the parents' burden by looking after them. But remember this is a communist country where the state provides houses for free and feeds every mouth. I asked why the state couldn't ease the burden by providing a larger house and more food, but got no answer.
I asked if the parents can't afford to feed them as babies how would they be able to afford three growing four-year-olds when they are supposed to get them back? Again, no answer. There may be a darker reason behind the state's removal of triplets. Kim Jong-il, whose death in December caused millions in the world's last Stalinist state to weep openly, is reported to have feared an astrologer's prediction that a triplet would assassinate him. The regime tells its people that they live in a paradise, they have nothing to envy and with no access to the outside world they believe it. The disconnect between the state's mass brainwashing and the dysfunctional reality is at its darkest in the maternity hospital, a huge Stalinist concrete block. It smelled, not of disinfectant, but of musty neglect.
All North Koreans are allowed to have their first born in the hospital, a privilege that seemed like a curse. It was a living museum. They gave us a demonstration of a 1960s machine which,Promat solid RUBBER MATS are the softest mats on the market! our guides told us,Find everything you need to know about kidney stone including causes. could cure infertility. It looked like a bad confidence trick. The hospital's take on patient choice was medieval. Mothers have to give birth alone and aren't allowed to meet with any family or even their husbands for at least a week after. The only contact they have is through little booths with phones like the ones in American prison dramas except the mothers aren't behind glass but on a TV screen. The explanation for this isolation is to prevent infection, yet rubber gloves, disinfectant or hand soap did not seem to be deemed necessary.
In the maternity hospital I saw no disabled children. They told me they are cared for in special homes. Six years ago Dr Ri Kwang-Chol, who defected from the North to the South, claimed that babies that were born with physical defects were put to death and buried. I had no way of verifying that but in five days in Pyongyang and three in the countryside no one in our party of 15 (all students, on a 'fact finding trip') – Britons, Italians and others – saw a disabled person. Where are they? Dr Ri's claim of state infanticide does not seem far-fetched.
The buildings in this city can be divided into three types of architecture: sixties Bond-film villain buildings, Soviet-style housing blocks and buildings that would look at home in Thunderbirds. Individual action does not exist. Everybody moves in blocs. We saw clusters of hundreds of people huddled together raking the mud or on their knees combing scraps of grass.How is TMJ pain treated?Ekahau RTLS is the only Wi-Fi based real time Location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. Even visits to the war museum, where residents learn how the "American imperial aggressors" bowed down in front of the Korean people, are arranged by factory.
In regular cities the bulk of the people are on the road, in cars, taxis or on buses. In Pyongyang, it's the pavements that are full of people, who hurry away from you like a shoal of fish from a swimmer. The people of this city are especially selected to live there. Everyone looks the same; the women, with jet-black hair swept back, all share the same hairstyle. They all dress in dark colours and pre-war fabrics. In Pyongyang, no one wears jeans. But there is the odd puncture of colour, the female traffic cops, rumoured to have been chosen by Kim Il-sung himself for their beauty, stand out in the their blue coats, painted faces and knee-high boots flashing a rare sight of leg.
The regime claims it venerates triplets. And they do, but not in a way you or I might celebrate. They send a helicopter to pick up the pregnant mother and take her to hospital for the birth. When triplets are born, the state takes them away. In exchange, parents are given gifts, a ring for girls and a silver knife for boys. They say the state looks after them for the first four years but there's no way of checking that – it could be for ever.
While I was there the hospital was celebrating its 415th set of triplets. They had even drawn up a poster, complete with pictures of triplets in the state orphanage, where the Kim dynasty provides for them. They say it is voluntary, but in a country where you face public execution for making an international phone call,External Hemroids are those that occur below the dentate line. if the state suggests you do something, you do it.
The logic behind this bizarre behaviour is that triplets are expensive so that state eases the parents' burden by looking after them. But remember this is a communist country where the state provides houses for free and feeds every mouth. I asked why the state couldn't ease the burden by providing a larger house and more food, but got no answer.
I asked if the parents can't afford to feed them as babies how would they be able to afford three growing four-year-olds when they are supposed to get them back? Again, no answer. There may be a darker reason behind the state's removal of triplets. Kim Jong-il, whose death in December caused millions in the world's last Stalinist state to weep openly, is reported to have feared an astrologer's prediction that a triplet would assassinate him. The regime tells its people that they live in a paradise, they have nothing to envy and with no access to the outside world they believe it. The disconnect between the state's mass brainwashing and the dysfunctional reality is at its darkest in the maternity hospital, a huge Stalinist concrete block. It smelled, not of disinfectant, but of musty neglect.
All North Koreans are allowed to have their first born in the hospital, a privilege that seemed like a curse. It was a living museum. They gave us a demonstration of a 1960s machine which,Promat solid RUBBER MATS are the softest mats on the market! our guides told us,Find everything you need to know about kidney stone including causes. could cure infertility. It looked like a bad confidence trick. The hospital's take on patient choice was medieval. Mothers have to give birth alone and aren't allowed to meet with any family or even their husbands for at least a week after. The only contact they have is through little booths with phones like the ones in American prison dramas except the mothers aren't behind glass but on a TV screen. The explanation for this isolation is to prevent infection, yet rubber gloves, disinfectant or hand soap did not seem to be deemed necessary.
In the maternity hospital I saw no disabled children. They told me they are cared for in special homes. Six years ago Dr Ri Kwang-Chol, who defected from the North to the South, claimed that babies that were born with physical defects were put to death and buried. I had no way of verifying that but in five days in Pyongyang and three in the countryside no one in our party of 15 (all students, on a 'fact finding trip') – Britons, Italians and others – saw a disabled person. Where are they? Dr Ri's claim of state infanticide does not seem far-fetched.
The buildings in this city can be divided into three types of architecture: sixties Bond-film villain buildings, Soviet-style housing blocks and buildings that would look at home in Thunderbirds. Individual action does not exist. Everybody moves in blocs. We saw clusters of hundreds of people huddled together raking the mud or on their knees combing scraps of grass.How is TMJ pain treated?Ekahau RTLS is the only Wi-Fi based real time Location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. Even visits to the war museum, where residents learn how the "American imperial aggressors" bowed down in front of the Korean people, are arranged by factory.
In regular cities the bulk of the people are on the road, in cars, taxis or on buses. In Pyongyang, it's the pavements that are full of people, who hurry away from you like a shoal of fish from a swimmer. The people of this city are especially selected to live there. Everyone looks the same; the women, with jet-black hair swept back, all share the same hairstyle. They all dress in dark colours and pre-war fabrics. In Pyongyang, no one wears jeans. But there is the odd puncture of colour, the female traffic cops, rumoured to have been chosen by Kim Il-sung himself for their beauty, stand out in the their blue coats, painted faces and knee-high boots flashing a rare sight of leg.
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