![]() “The audience keenly felt once again the truth that our country and people have (an) immensely bright future despite whatever hardship and difficulties in the road of advance(ment) as long as the General Secretary leads the Party.” The songs such as “We Will Go Along the Road of Loyalty,” and “We‘ll Travel One Road Forever” resonated in the concert hall, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported last January. For the last two years, Kim and his staunch aides watched a celebratory concert filled with songs and performances that chanted the eulogy of the greatness of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the North Korean leader, and envisioned a socialist utopia. The country’s leader Kim Jong-un is no exception. Rather, North Korean people quietly celebrate the Lunar New Year, watching art performances including music concerts, “revolutionary operas,” and circuses held in each region, according to the previous state media reports. In addition, the Kim Jong-un regime strengthened restrictions on domestic travel in the name of preventing and controlling outbreaks of COVID-19. North Korean people are required to have a travel permit to travel outside their residence. The scene is quite a contrast to its neighbor China, where the world’s largest annual migration usually takes place across the country each Lunar New Year. Pyongyang residents visit the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where the embalmed bodies of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il are enshrined, and climb up Mansu Hill to bow down to giant bronze statues of the late leaders.īut there is no mass movement to visit family in North Korea, mainly as there is no freedom of movement. In the morning, North Korean people lay flowers and pay respect to the statues or the portraits of the late North Korean leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il. And later in the day, people observe ancestral rites, enjoy family meals, and watch art performances embedded with messages praising the preeminence of leader Kim Jong-un and the ruling party’s leadership. Not surprisingly, North Koreans begin celebrating the Lunar New Year’s day by showing their loyalty to the Kim family. So how do North Korean people welcome the Year of the Tiger? In North Korea, the significance of socialist holidays, including the birth anniversaries of the late leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, the national foundation day on Sept. The Lunar New Year or Seollal is one of the two most important and celebrated traditional holidays in South Korea.īut, though both halves of the peninsula share many aspects of culture, nearly 77 years of division between the two Koreas have led to divergent holiday traditions.
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