In the 1980s, videos of a rally let the ordinary people in North Korea how prosperous South Korea was.

 In the 1980s, large-scale protests calling for the anti-dictatorship and the democratization got momentum.  North Korea frequently broadcasted the news about it.   They intended to domestically propagandize that the masses in South Korea were against the military dictatorship and the government lacked the legitimacy”.

However, North Korean people focused on the different information in the videos of protests.  They started to guess how high the South achieved the economic development, by looking at clothes, sceneries of the city, and the number of cars on the street.

Regarding the new “finding” from a video of the rally in the 1980s, a North Korean defector in Seoul described that “I had been taught that the people in South Korea were repressed and starving under the military fascist government.  However, young people in the video wore sophisticated clothes and there were no scrawny people at all.  The high-rise buildings stand along the streets in the city. The rumor, “South Korea is affluent,” that I had vaguely heard was verified, I thought”.
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Following the inflow of the information since the 2000s, North Koreans, regardless of the age and the place of residence, understand as a commonsense that South Korea has achieved the economic development.  Some people even feel the sense of admiration and pride.  It seems too late to blur out the buildings and statues, having no effect on the citizens. (Jiro Ishimaru)

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