North Koreans getting hooked on South Korean TV shows, fashion

Feb 1, 2007, 11:00 GMT

Seoul - While the world's attention is fixed on North Korea's nuclear programme, growing numbers of young North Koreans are becoming addicted to South Korean television dramas and associated fashions, a news report said Thursday.

The Herald Economy newspaper said that despite periodic crackdowns against South Korean cultural influence by North Korea's authoritarian leaders, many of the communist country's youth not only watch South Korean shows but also mimic the way the stars talk and wear their hair.

The phenomenon was reported in a survey in October 2006 of 30 North Korean defectors who were receiving resettlement education at Hanawon, a South Korean government-run institute that helps North Koreans adjust to a new life in South Korea.

'If you have nothing to say about South Korean (TV and movie) dramas when you hang around with your friends, you will probably find yourself as an outsider among North Korean young peers,' one young North Korean defector was quoted as saying.

The surveyed defectors said the trend was not limited to the country's elites but also had spread to middle-class people living in big cities like Pyongyang or the western port cities of Nampo or Gaesung.

Some relatively affluent North Koreans can get CDs or video tapes from those returning from trips to South Korea and China, with the South Korean fashions spreading quickly by word of mouth among young people, according to the survey.

Defectors say that some young North Koreans even change their hairstyle to look like South Korean actors.

Bewildered North Korean authorities have launched crackdowns to stop the spread of South Korean culture among North Korean youth.

'North Korea is aware that the stronger the desire for change their countrymen may feel, the greater the risk of breaking the unity among North Korean people,' said one official at the Hanawon Institute.