N. Koreans fear cultural overthrow

SEOUL, South Korea — Watching foreign movies clouds the mental and ideological health of the people.

Foreign hairstyles and clothing are signs of the "utterly rotten bourgeois lifestyle."

Shaking hands should be avoided in favor of bowing, as it is more hygienic and a part of the national culture.

It might sound like a cross between Miss Manners and a political screed, but this is the advice recently crafted by North Korea's ruling Workers' Party for indoctrination lectures at factories, collective farms and other workplaces.

For decades, North Koreans have been forced to attend such sessions to reinforce the national illusion that they are lucky to live under the wise leadership of first Kim Il Sung, the nation's founder, and his son, Kim Jong Il, who inherited power after his father's death in 1994.

More than 100 pages of written lectures smuggled out of North Korea this year reveal that the leadership is in a state of near-hysteria about outside influences seeping across the nation's once hermetically sealed borders. The spread of "unusual lifestyles," the lectures warn listeners, could render them "incapable of following revolutionary thoughts and sacrificing their lives" for Kim.

The documents also underscore the extent to which anti-Americanism gives meaning to the country and its people. More than 50 years after the end of the Korean War, the United States is blamed for all of North Korea's woes, from food shortages to the infiltration of foreign culture.

"The bastards' indecent methods are clouding the mental and ideological health of the people," warns one lecture. "If we cannot stop them in time, we will be in the same position as the Iraqis."

Brian Myers, an expert in North Korean propaganda at South Korea's Injae University, said he detects an air of desperation in the material.

"This is a regime which for half a century claimed to have 100 percent support of its people. Now they are admitting that its people are succumbing to money madness and the desire for foreign things. Not just a few people, but enough that it is a social phenomenon," Myers said.

North Korea takes extraordinary measures to inoculate its citizens against knowledge of the outside world. Radios and TVs are preset to government stations; foreign newspapers, magazines, books, films and music are banned.

But in the last several years, trade between North Korea and China has surged, much of it not approved by North Korea's leaders. Along with food and consumer goods, traders smuggle in DVDs, tapes, books and Bibles, radios and mobile phones. Once considered taboo, T-shirts with English lettering are pouring into North Korean markets from Chinese garment factories.

The regime fears not only critical material but depictions of other nations that would make North Koreans realize how poor they are in comparison.

"The enemies use these videos and specially made materials to beautify the world of imperialism and to [spread] a fantasy of the free world," one lecture says. North Koreans are urged to steel themselves against such corrupting influences by eating traditional foods, wearing traditional clothing and keeping their hair tidy.

Photocopies of six lectures were given to the Los Angeles Times by Rescue the North Korean People, a human-rights group based in Osaka, Japan.

"It shows that the North Koreans cannot protect their borders. They cannot keep foreign material out, so all they can do is try to educate their people to resist," said Lee Young Hwa, the head of the group.

The contents largely echo the propaganda of North Korea's official media, which also rail against cultural infiltration. But because the lectures were intended for domestic consumption, the language is less guarded. For example, they use the term "nom," which translates roughly as "bastard," to refer to Americans.

The lectures are apparently intended for different audiences — two are for government officials, and another is for teenagers.

The lecturers gripe in particular about Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-financed station that frequently broadcasts stories in Korean that are critical of Kim Jong Il's regime.

But there is no evidence that the United States is otherwise directly involved in disseminating foreign culture in North Korea.

Rather, it seems to be the overpowering tide of globalization that is puncturing the seal around the country.