{"id":51,"date":"2008-12-21T23:51:29","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T03:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/?p=51"},"modified":"2014-08-27T17:24:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T17:24:42","slug":"sung-tan-jul-%ec%84%b1%ed%83%84%ec%a0%88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/sung-tan-jul-%ec%84%b1%ed%83%84%ec%a0%88\/","title":{"rendered":"Sung-tan-jul (\uc131\ud0c4\uc808)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What is sung-tan-jul (<strong>\uc131\ud0c4\uc808<\/strong>)?\u00a0 Sung-tan-jul (<strong>\uc131\ud0c4\uc808<\/strong>) is Christmas in Korean.\u00a0 As you know, some South Koreans celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 However, the story&#8217;s different for North Korea.\u00a0 Christianity is seen as a doctrine imported by the West.\u00a0 As a result, the North Korean government views Christmas and anything associated with the West with suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>Although there are a few churches in North Korea, (four to be exact) the activities of the church\u00a0are monitored very closely.\u00a0 The churches basically operate on the whim of the North Korean government.\u00a0 If the government is displeased with the church in any way, it can arrest and imprison any of its members.\u00a0 Imprisonment can lead to death for any of the church members.\u00a0 The work camps in North Korea are infamous for its torture tactics.\u00a0 Out of fear, North Koreans celebrate Christmas in secret.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, not many North Koreans know about Christmas.\u00a0 The press is tightly controlled and scrutinized by the North Korean government.\u00a0 Therefore, anything postive about the West, including Christmas, is censored by the North Korean press.\u00a0 If the North Korean people saw how happy and charitable people were on Christmas, and how beautiful the streets are decorated, capitalism would seem like a positive thing.\u00a0 That would threaten the North Korean agenda.<\/p>\n<p>So this Christmas in North Korea, there will no christmas trees, no lights that line the streets of Pyongyang (<strong>\ud3c9\uc591<\/strong>) the capital of North Korea.\u00a0 The only thing that will light up the streets of Pyongyang (<strong>\ud3c9\uc591<\/strong>) is the Juche Tower (<strong>\uc8fc\uccb4\uc0c1\ud0d1<\/strong>).\u00a0 The Juche Tower (<strong>\uc8fc\uccb4\uc0c1\ud0d1<\/strong>) was made to commemorate the life of Kim Il Jong (<strong>\uae40\uc77c\uc815<\/strong>), the former dictator of North Korea.\u00a0 What the tower really symbolizes is oppression and the wholesale denial of humanity.\u00a0 So for all those North Koreans this year and for everyone reading this, Merry Christmas (<strong>\uba54\ub9ac \ud06c\ub9ac\uc2a4\ub9c8\uc2a4<\/strong>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is sung-tan-jul (\uc131\ud0c4\uc808)?\u00a0 Sung-tan-jul (\uc131\ud0c4\uc808) is Christmas in Korean.\u00a0 As you know, some South Koreans celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 However, the story&#8217;s different for North Korea.\u00a0 Christianity is seen as a doctrine imported by the West.\u00a0 As a result, the North Korean government views Christmas and anything associated with the West with suspicion. Although there are&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/sung-tan-jul-%ec%84%b1%ed%83%84%ec%a0%88\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,3004],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-north-korea"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2728,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/2728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}