Kang Chol Hwan on Hamhung

Kang Chol Hwan thinks that Kim Jong Il’s address to a mass rally in Hamhung — that is, if you’re convinced he really did address that rally –means that His Withering Majesty is determined to resist any reform of the system. That part of what Kang says is obvious enough and therefore less interesting than his description of Hamhung, which sounds post-apocalyptic:

Hooligans clustering at the railroad station glared at the goods carried by pedestrians and provoked quarrels if they thought you were looking at them. At construction sites in Pyongyang, the word was that Hamhung people were wild. Often there were gang fights at project sites where tens of thousands of youths from different regions had been mobilized, and Hamhung youngsters were always the most violent. The city was home to the greatest number of organized gangs, and even police officers couldn’t handle them. Hamhung also has more access to outside world as it is an intermediary place through which all things coming in through the northern border with China pass. [Chosun Ilbo]

Hamhung also appears to have the worst drug problem of any city in North Korea, and is believed to have suffered disproportionately during the Great Famine.