Booze-loving tyrant Kim Jong-un launches his nation’s first ever BEER festival – while millions of his subjects starve to death
Foreign tourists appear on state-run TV downing ales with locals in Pyonyang
BOOZE-loving tyrant Kim Jong-un has launched North Korea's first ever beer festival – as millions of his subjects struggle on the breadline.
Foreign tourists and the elite in the capital Pyongyang have appeared on state-controlled TV downing locally-made ales.
The beer festival – Kim’s Asian equivalent of Munich’s famous Oktoberfest – is taking place on a floating restaurant in Pyongyang, state broadcaster Korean Central Television (KCTV) showed.
Served by waitresses in white and blue-coloured uniforms, drinkers also enjoyed bread, nuts and chilli peppers.
The government also laid on musical performances on the riverside and a sampling event where beer lovers judged and guessed the beers they were drinking.
UK-based tour operator Koryo Tours, which brought 100 tourists to the festival, said the event was proving popular with their customers.
“All have enjoyed it greatly with the highlights being the interaction with a large number of local people who are also enjoying themselves,” said Simon Cockerell, general manager at Koryo Tours.
“It’s a testament to the universal power of a couple of cold beers on a warm evening to make people get along with each other”.
The festival featured North Korea’s white rice and dark beers and several kinds of brews made at the Taedonggang Beer Factory, which was founded by the North’s late leader Kim Jong Il, KCTV reported.
“The festival would be a great opportunity to show off our world-famous Taedonggang beer widely and improve its competitiveness,” a news reader said quoting the director of the General Bureau of Public Service, Choe Yong Nam.
Hosted primarily for local Pyongyang citizens, the festival comes following steps by the Taedonggang brewery to improve access to its product in other parts of the country.
“Up to a couple of years ago, Taedonggang was actually very hard to find outside of Pyongyang,” said Andray Abrahamian, a regular visitor to the hermit state.
“Now basically, you get it nationwide, so they do have a national distribution system,” he continued, adding other consumer products were also increasingly visible throughout the country.
“The Pyongyang Taedonggang beer festival shows our people’s lives are filled with happiness and optimism, building up a people’s paradise and a highly civilised socialist country, while smashing the U.S. and its followers’ heinous moves to isolate and stifle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” the KCTV news reader said.
The beer festival has a capacity of more than 700 people, according to Cockerell.
It will last around 20 days, with visitors able to enjoy Taedonggang beer from 7pm until midnight at the Taedonggang Restaurant Boat and around the wharf.
The dumpy dictator is known for his love of imported fine foods and drink but the lifestyles of the elite are in stark contrast to those of the rest of the nation.
The Pyongyang Taedonggang beer festival shows our people’s lives are filled with happiness and optimism
North Korean state TV
A UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report stated that North Korea remains one of the 34 nations in the world needing external aid to feed its people.
The agency estimates around 2.8 million "vulnerable" people in the North face an ";ongoing struggle with under-nutrition and a lack of vital protein and fat in the diet."
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