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NEW YORK -- The latest issue of the U.S. current affairs magazine Time reports that the winds of capitalism are blowing through North Korea, with even pornographic videos easily available in the Sino-Korean border town of Hoeryong, North Hamgyeong Province.
Time said all over North Korea, privately run bakeries, clothing stores and gas stations were flourishing, while in border areas residents could buy Chinese-made mobile phones. Quoting defectors in South Korea and China, the magazine said the capitalism had its strongest foothold in Hoeryong, where everything is available from rice, corn, apples, bananas, and tangerines to beef, pork, Japanese TVs and VRCs, South Korean cosmetics and Chinese sports apparel.
It said some ordinary North Koreans owned private cars, once the exclusive domain of the privileged class, and some have been able to purchase homes.
"Nobody believes in the old socialist ideology anymore -- they believe in money,¡± Korea specialist Leonid Petrov told the magazine. ¡°This is exactly what was happening in the Soviet Union in 1989." Time enthused, "Dragging a color TV from China to sell in a [North] Korean market may not be the way that revolutions normally start. But such flickers of enterprise may yet light a fire that could consume the regime."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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