This is just dumb, NK.

[Stratos]

The North Korean government must be really bored to figure out something like this...

N Korea wages war on long hair North Korea has launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy - the wrong haircut. A campaign exhorting men to get a proper short-back-and-sides has been aired by state-run Pyongyang television. The series is entitled Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle. While the campaign has been carried out primarily on television, reports have appeared in North Korean press and radio, urging tidy hairstyles and proper attire. It is the strongest media campaign against men's sloppy appearances mounted in the reclusive and impoverished Communist state in recent years. The propaganda drive on grooming standards has gone a stage further than previous attempts. This time television identifies specific individuals deemed too shoddy. Crew cut Pyongyang television started the campaign last autumn with a five-part series in its regular TV Common Sense programme. Stressing hygiene and health, it showed various state-approved short hairstyles including the "flat-top crew cut," "middle hairstyle," "low hairstyle," and "high hairstyle" - variations from one to five centimetres in length. The programme allowed men aged over 50 seven centimetres of upper hair to cover balding. It stressed the "negative effects" of long hair on "human intelligence development", noting that long hair "consumes a great deal of nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy. Men should get a haircut every 15 days, it recommended. Named and shamed A second, and unprecedented, TV series this winter showed hidden-camera style video of "long-haired" men in various locations throughout Pyongyang. * Hair is a very important issue that shows the people's cultural standards and mental and moral state Minju Choson newspaper * In a break with North Korean TV's usual approach, the programme gave their names and addresses, and challenged the fashion victims directly over their appearance. The North Korean media normally reserves the reporting of names of its citizens to exemplary individuals who show high communist virtues. The series was shot at various public locations - on the street, at a sports stadium, a barbershop, a bus stop, a restaurant, a department store. Some unruly-haired pedestrians or customers captured on camera "meanly ran away", the programme said, while others made excuses about being too busy to get a trim. Television newsreels such as "Employees of Pyongyang Textile Plant keep their hairstyle and dressing neat and tidy" and "Hairdressers at Ch'anggwangwo'n manage men's hair according to the demands of the military-first era" have also aired. What not to wear State radio programmes such as "Dressing in accordance with our people's emotion and taste" link clothes and appearance with the wearer's "ideological and mental state". * People who wear other's style of dress and live in other's style will become fools and that nation will come to ruin Nodong Sinmun newspaper * Tidy attire "is important in repelling the enemies' manoeuvres to infiltrate corrupt capitalist ideas and lifestyle and establishing the socialist lifestyle of the military-first era," the radio says. Newspapers too highlight the civic advantages of short hair and smart shoes. Hair is a "very important issue that shows the people's cultural standards and mental and moral state", argues Minju Choson, a government daily. "No matter how good the clothes, if one does not wear tidy shoes, one's personality will be downgraded." For party papers such as Nodong Sinmun, the struggle against foreign and anti-communist influence is being fought out in the arena of personal appearance. "People who wear other's style of dress and live in other's style will become fools and that nation will come to ruin," it says. BBC Monitoring , based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...ic/4157121.stm Published: 2005/01/08 13:47:32 GMT © BBC MMV

(Slightly edited for easier reading)

[ 01-09-2005, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[shamrock_uk]

Damn, that's funny.

I'm not very fond of the 'high' hairstile myself and I'm quite convinced that my own hair is unruly enough to disqualify me from dressing in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle. I think you're right Stavros - they must be bored!

Personally, I wonder whether the connection they draw between neatness of dress, haircut and ideological view is as ridiculous as it might initially seem. Do we not automatically perform the same judgements ourselves?

Somebody with a suit and smart haircut is a businessman, leaning towards a right-wing, capitalist viewpoint. A young person with very unruly hair, untidy clothes, random stubble etc is probably a student and therefore liberal-leaning. Someone wearing all black with long dark hair is probably gothic and most likely disollusioned from politics. Someone wearing a burberry cap with very short hair (especially with marks shaved into it) is usually a chav and probably a nationalist where politics are concerned.

Gross generalisations, I realise, but your appearance is a statement to the world about yourself, and its almost impossible to make statements like that without expressing a political preference.

[johnny]

How much longer until the people are fed up with that retarded regime ?

[Stratos]

Maybe NK is afraid that American spies are hiding cameras in the hair of longhaired North Koreans.

Jokes aside, I guess it's a superiority thing. Communist states have always been very keen on presenting themselves as better people than those who live in capitalist states, who are viewed as decadent. Keeping a clean, healthy and disciplined appearance is probably along those lines. I guess the NK government don't think that long hair gives the "proper" look for a "superior" communist North Korean.

[ 01-09-2005, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[Sir Degrader]

Damn commies, taking away the right to long hair. Where's MacArthur when you need him?

[Darlon]

I thought the NK government were already crazy.


I changed my mind, they're not crazy.


THEY'RE INSANE!!! [img]graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[Lucern]

I, and my 9 inches of (Capitalist?) hair disapprove, and would think that's funny if it were not real people in a real place. Yay government oppression.

I guess longer hair promotes capitalism with increased shampoo usage and purchase of a slightly larger comb. Though a haircut every 15 days probably evens out the cost [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I smell government influence on behalf of barber shops!

[Kakero]

I'm sure they'll become the role model and the envy of every nations around the world.

[Djinn Raffo]

Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle.

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Stratos: Communist states have always been very keen on presenting themselves as better people than those who live in capitalist states,[...] I guess the NK government don't think that long hair gives the "proper" look for a "superior" communist North Korean.

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Damn commies, taking away the right to long hair. Where's MacArthur when you need him?

To be further left than you appreciate is not necesarily to be communist. North Korea is Socialist last I checked, and that is a big difference.