Hunger in North Korea

A magazine featuring first-hand accounts of daily life in North Korea has launched a Japanese-language version, its publisher's Osaka office has announced. Rimjingang features photographs and written accounts of life in the secluded country obtained from North Korean reporters, who are taking personal risks by contributing to the magazine.

The quarterly magazine's publisher, Asia Press International Co., says it hopes the magazine will show the good aspects of life in North Korea as well as bad. The April issue is the first to be available in a Japanese-language edition. An electronic version is available on a trial basis in Korean- and Japanese-language versions. The firm plans to publish an English-language version in the future.

Rimjingang features articles, photos and video footage from six reporters based in North Korea, which API receives via contributors who travel between China and North Korea.
Articles are edited and appended with comments by API staffers. The reporters write under pseudonyms out of concern for their personal safety, according to API.

 

In some cases, the magazine does not specify where and when the events covered in an article occurred. The magazine's title is derived from the Imjingang River, which flows from North Korea into South Korea, crossing the military demarcation line. In South Korea the river is referred to as Imjingang, but in North Korea it is called Rimjingang.

The April issue features an interview with an unnamed executive of a state-run firm. The same edition also offers a look at the details of daily life. A photograph of female students at a state-run public market wearing platform sandals, now highly fashionable, is accompanied by text suggesting the sandals were smuggled in from China.

Video footage featured in the electronic edition shows a reporter, aged in his 30s and using the pseudonym Li Jun, explaining why he risks his life to collect journalistic materials, saying he believes some aspects of North Korea need to be recorded and reported on by
North Koreans. Jiro Ishimaru, the editor of the magazine, says he hopes to help journalism find a foothold in North Korea.

 

Hard copy editions of Rimjingang are available in Japanese or Korean for 2,980 yen, from API. The electronic edition can be viewed for free at www.asiapress.org/rimjingang/