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Adrienne Mong
All was quiet on the Demilitarized Zone on the Korean Peninsula on the Kim Jong Il's state funeral took place.
SEOUL, South Korea — As one journalist put it, it said how much we all knew about North Korea that for the better part of Wednesday morning, most of the world remained in the dark about just when — if at all — the state funeral for the country's late leader Kim Jong Il had begun.
But finally around 2 p.m in Seoul, a feed of the funeral proceedings began transmitting. We watched online, impressed by the staging and the direction.
Thousands of people in olive drab stood under snowfall in front of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace — where Kim Jong Il’s body had been lying in state and where that of his father Kim Il Sung is also housed — as a procession of vehicles drove past, including the hearse led by Kim Jong Il's son and successor, Kim Jong Un.
Under a dramatic soundtrack and the emotion-laden voice of a North Korean broadcaster, the continuous wailing of mourners could be heard. Cameras pushed into close-ups of rows and rows of men and women in military uniform sobbing.
As the procession wound its way through Pyongyang and the snowfall grew heavier, footage of civilians began to appear. Dressed in thick winter coats, they craned their necks and covered their mouths as they wept. Those in the front — closest to the cameras —jumped up and down with great emotion. Occasionally, a row of soldiers appeared expressionless and stoic.
Wednesday's state funeral for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il capped more than a week of public mourning. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.
As the video was broadcast — and despite the "live" banner on some cable stations, it was still unclear whether the footage was being transmitted live or had been recorded earlier until one news agency confirmed it was indeed the former.
The mood in Seoul was decidedly different.
'Like father, like son'
Among a small community of North Koreans who fled their homeland years ago, there was scorn for the man they once called their "Dear Leader" and a touch of hope that his death may usher in long-awaited change.
"Kim Jong Il made three million people starve to death," said Kim Jung-geum, a reporter and radio announcer with Free North Korea Radio. She escaped from the North eight years ago and has been living in Seoul for the past six years.
"Initially I thought, wow, now we can go home. But the feeling didn’t last even a day," said Kim Sung-min, founder of the station —which broadcasts a one-hour shortwave radio program back into the North every day.
"It is the third generation leadership," said Kim, who defected from North Korea 11 years ago. "Like father, like son. There is no hope. There is zero per cent chance of change as Kim Jong Un inheried Kim Jong Il's system."
Adrienne Mong
The streets of Seoul suggested it was business as usual in South Korea as Kim Jong Il's state funeral was held.
His colleague was willing to be a bit more optimistic. "The dictatorship is over," said Kim Jung-geum quietly. "A new era will begin with 2012. I expect that."
Both of them, however, did agree on one thing. They remembered when North Korean founder Kim Il Sung died.
"I was so sad that I skipped two meals," recalled Kim Sung-min, who was serving in the North Korean military in a northern province at the time. "It was as if the sun had fallen to earth."
"I cried for Kim Il Sung," said Kim Jung-geum, who was a propaganda teacher at the time. "We had a food ration system. People had salaries then. So I genuinely grieved for his death."
Among South Koreans there was largely indifference.
A trio of college students said they were initially worried about the possible ramifications of Kim Jong Il’s death. "But now I feel a lot better," said Lee Kyung-min, more keen on visiting a nearby museum than thinking about regional security. None of them were interested in the funeral proceedings.
"It was big news," said Cho Nam-hyun, a reporter for Dong-A Ilbo. "But personally, I think of it just as a head of state who died."
The indifference doesn't come as a surprise to analysts in South Korea.
"We've been living under the gun for the past 60 years," said Dr. Hahm Chaibong, president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. "You can’t count the number of crises that we've had over the years. Be it assassinations, commando raids, downing of airplanes, terrorist bombings, and of course more recently nuclear experiments and shelling of islands."
Hahm also offered a final somber thought.
"By and large everyone has learned a lesson as far as to what to expect," he said. "Everybody knows that there isn’t all that much to expect in terms of radical change…. If North Korea is going to change, it's not going to because of something we do in the outside world. They will be the ones who will be undertaking changes because they think it's necessary and because they decide it's time they do it."
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Sure hope it's for the betterment of the people and that it happens soon.
"I finally died, which started the whole world living" Courtesy of the Bee Gees
What an idiotic circus!
Hmmm... While watching the TV coverage, I noticed two things. As the "mourners," packed 10 deep close to the street, were crying, wailing, stomping their feet and flailing their arms, hundreds of mourners standing about 100 feet behind them remained still and quiet. It made it appear as though all of the "active mourning" was a staged event.
Also, the North Korean TV showed at least a million mourners along the funeral route, and all of the citizens and military people looked well-fed. None of them looked gaunt or starved.
Those wailers were promised more food ration and mostly are capital citizen that have connection to North korean gov or army. It's a forced staged event to show the world how revered the tyrant is. In a comunist country where food production is near bottom and food is rationed any additional food ration is welcomed be it faking to wail, smile for propaganda purposes for the state controlled media. A decline to participate usualy end up being scrutinized for being anti state , reduction in basic food staple rationing, shipped to the countryside where the situation is more harsher or jailed.
The images of extreme grieving and wailing -- staged or not -- are some of the most bizarre I've seen all year. Black comedy? It's hard not to laugh when seeing them, even though millions of malnourished North Koreans is not a funny thing. But seeing the fat boy that is supposedly now running the country, and seeing that parade of mid-70s American luxury cars was almost too much. I kept waiting for the clowns and elephants to arrive.
It won't.
Hi Roy!! Long time no see!
hey Chef what year is that car in your photo?
1976 Cadillac Eldorado - not mine - can't afford such a beauty (heavy sigh).
Hey Chef, apparently Kimmy boy could cause those cars in the procession looked strangely like good ol American Cadillacs. Shouldnt a diehard Stalanist holdout like him be riding in a Soviet Zil or something other than a symbol of running dog capitalist imperialism!?
They're Lincoln Continentals from the mid 70's - not quite sure of the year but pretty sure they are 1975's. It's amazing the amount of controversy the cars have generated along with some very astute observations from many viners on some of the other articles. If you have a minute, do read some of the posts on other articles from the last day or two regarding the vehicles and the funeral ceremonies. There have been a few that had me reduced to tears...from laughter!!! :) I'm just glad that Henry Leland was not alive to see his creation toting this dicktater.
They can't keep crying long. I don't think they have that many onions.
They staged the wailing and sobbing by telling the crowd that the Olympics banned men's figure skating.
They're probably forced to cry under penalty of death.................
John-638398 "They're probably forced to cry under penalty of death................."
They've just been told that their food rations are being cut again.
Ammonia capsules. Work the same as onions!
The crying is all about the continued suffering they'll have to endure. I'm sure for a bit they had HOPE that things would change. Much like the HOPE and CHANGE promised by the current idiot in the Whitehouse. Yes current because Bush was an idiot too.
Juche!
A non-existent philosophy created to convince people that Kim Il Sung was a great thinker, as it was fashionable at the time with the other communist leaders. Needless to say, he wasn't.
Beware the power of propaganda. An entire country believes Kim Jong Il was a wise, powerful, great thinker because this is what they have been told to believe. We are all surrounded by propaganda of some sort no matter who we are or where we live. This is why it is so important to educate yourself on the real facts and then decide for yourself rather than letting someone else tell you what to think.
Are you saying that some people here listening to party propaganda is the reason that they would think that GWB or BHO have either one had any grasp on what is really going on in the world?
so long sucker,, good riddance to bad news,,, nothing will change,, would you give up such an exalted title as absolute ruler,, beloved leader,,esteemed son of the fathers ??? for 3 generations this family of nuts has run their country into ruin and starvation,, syrians simply shoot their people,, n. koreans starve them slowly to death...
"Hey you little pr**k, get over here, I've got a nice hot spot I've been preparing just for you!" Satan
I wish the North Korean people luck. I feel sorry for the common man/woman over there.
worst mourning acting I have ever seen, I guess it's hard to act when a gun is at the back of your head.
They are crying for Freedom
How in the world would they know what that is? They've never had it. Before the Kims and Communism was Japanese imperialism. No one currently living in North Korea remembers life before those two things, unless you count right at the end of 1950 when the UN forces were pushing the NKs back to the Yalu before the ChiCom intervention. I think that the wartime conditions of that era probably precluded very many from having the luxury to sitting around contemplating their newfound and illusory "freedom". Anyway, it's not like Syngmhan Rhee was a committed democrat, just better than the Kims.
No, they are not. They are crying because they were told to, or else. Your inability to discern the obvious is quite pronounced.
Cryin' for freedom, how in the hell they know what it is? Agree with Rlqual. They must first have the basic Human Rights, or rather Civil Rights in US-speak. It must come before meaningless so called freedoms. Foremost is freedom from hunger. Second is freedom to have warm clothing in case dying from freezing winter, third is freedom of a roof and housing. Forth is the freedom to obtain a job, for no job means Hunger, which means death. After these basic Human Rights or drather Civil Rights, are met then you can twither your thumbs for some Entertainment, otherwise you will die from boredom. Yes Entertainment is also part of Civil Rights! After that , only after all that can your mind drift and dream of better things to do. Like so called abstract ideas of Freedoms, free speech, free spiritual pursuits, the energy to protest and rioting for political change. Only when the North Korean people have attained all that basic Human Rights dignities of Freedoms can thay have the energies to contemplate illusory abstract poltical reform of their country. For a start please give them food aid first, if you want eventual Freedom for the north Korean people.
jrckj --
Just trying to picture Norman Rocwell's 'Four Freedoms' paintings with the addition of the fifth one, the "Right to Entertainment". Just the mental exercise is quite entertaining in and of itself.
Cammon kids. They were free before Japan tore them to pieces and ran off with 400,000 of their women. They hate Japan and all who stand with the Japanese. They have a valid issue.
If you are tempted to cry out that was 70 years ago! Keep in mind that the Irish and the Brits are going around over an issue in 1040.
The entire eastern Europe is still snarling over WW1
So it goes.
good riddance, but the disease seems to be continuing.
Yeah! They're getting a brand new dictator now! Yippie!
I saw a bit of the funeral. I think they were crying because they were promised a meal if they cried in support of Kim. Either that or communisim and a lack of food ate away their brains so much so that they cried in exhaustion.
The soldiers with the loaded AK-47's probably helped motivate them too. "Mourn the death of your dictator...or else." I find just the thought of living in a place like North Korea very depressing. It's one of very few places left in the world where they haven't figured out that communism just does not work. It's certainly a reason I feel grateful that I live in the USA.
If I were there, standing on the sidelines, watching the procession go by, I'd be crying loudly too - I'd put on an Academy-award winning performance because of all the soldiers standing around with weapons. Fear would make me wail louder. Then I'd go home and laugh up a storm! Sad to say, but I would imagine that was the scenario for many of the people present.
However, I am equally sure there were some mourners exhibiting genuine grief - if they were born and raised under such brainwashing, they wouldn't know what else to do. I kinda equate it to a parentified child: secretly, they resent and sometimes hate their mom and/or dad for making them take on the role of parent over their siblings because mom/dad are lazy, or junkies, etc., but even after they get away from the household, when they return the role play resumes. Anything to keep the peace, and in the case of the North Korean people, anything to survive.
If we brought a North Korean government official to New York City for a weekend gave him some money, and taught him that he could give that hot dog vendor some of the money and the vendor would give him a hot dog, with ketchup and onions, and a Coke, he would apply for asylum here.
Moderator, please remove the above post as it was posted by someone else using my account.
Shirks and crying for a dictator that starved 1/3 of his people just so he could build bombs and satisfy his God ego. N. K. people need to look at what he did and take stock of how cruel and inhuman of a man he REALLY WAS.
Anyone who has dared to "take stock of how cruel and inhuman the man he really was" are now dying in Concentration Camps (at least those who have not died yet in the Concentration Camps). You Mourn for the "Dear Leader" or off to the Concentration Camp for you, the vast majority choose the fake "mourning"
I wonder if those Korean are afraid if they don't appear sorrowful that the state would arrest them.
Duh....
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Hey Kim Jung Il, you'll finally get to meet Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mussolini, Pol Pot, et al, who preyed on the weak and defenseless, you no good rat ba$tard POS!
And he can also gets to meet Tomas de Torquemada, Cardinal Richelieu, Rev. Jim Jones, and a host of other "Christians". Frankly, the rest of the crew you mention are hopelessly outnumbered down there.
Yeah tell them to save space for Dubya and Cheney.
Annoying slide show on MSNBC this morning. Thanks MSNBC!
The Concentration Camp Warden is dead... shrugg. Why does the Media Elite label North Korea as a "country" when it is really just an oversized Concentration Camp?
I'm sure they are all relieved he's dead, but I wouldn't risk not crying with all those soldiers around.
Chokes me up too.....'bout as much as when I flush the toilet and watch another piece of crap disappear. This a-hole's main contribution to his fellow countrymen is to have reduced their average life span by 3.5 years (since his father's death in 1994). Maybe the family's new turd-in-chief will have a short, pathetic, life...we, and the NKorean people, can only hope....though, as the press reports note, if those folks are willing to put up with this turd they deserve what they get....took the Russians 70 years to throw off the shackles; 40 years for East Europe; even the Chinese gov't realized it needed to adapt, or it would fall. NKoreans: when you've had enough, let us know...we'll be waiting to welcome you back....
This just shows you how twisted the North Koreans' race-based nationalist mindset is, and just how powerful nationalism is.
North Korea: The "Cult Of Personality" distilled to its finest essence. The populace doesn't have a chance. The military WILL do what they're told.
This headline is too weird: do they really think most of the people in N Korea are morning? Come on, because of his "leadership", millions have died by starvation. I think most are probably crying because he did not suffer like they did before he died.
If you were watching this at 2:30 in the morning it was a live feed...If you were watching during the day time hours is was recorded..I live here in Thailand and saw this live all afternoon...on Wed. Dec. 28...I wish I had recorded it...I get all the channels in Asia and you should hear the propaganda that is spewed from some countries...North Korea is at the top of the list...Those people should have been lighting off fireworks in celebration of his demise...We do fear the future here for North Korea...and elsewhere.