N. Korea: Long hair is foolish

[paineinthearse]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2005/02/01/pf-916837.html

February 1, 2005

N. Korea: Long hair is foolish

By SANG-HUN CHOE

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's communist government is waging war against men with long hair, calling them unhygienic anti-socialist fools, and even leader Kim Jong Il has trimmed his famous bouffant locks. The hair campaign comes as North Korea's dictatorship struggles to tighten its control over information, monitor its population and dictate cultural tastes. It is directing men to wear their hair "socialist style," deriding shabbily coifed men as "blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle."

North Korea's state-run Central TV even identifies violators by name and address, exposing them to jeers from other citizens. "We cannot help questioning the cultural taste of this comrade, who is incapable of feeling ashamed of his hair style," the station said Monday, showing a Mr. Ko Gwang Hyun, whose unkempt hair covered his ears.
"Can we expect a man with this disheveled mind-set to perform his duty well?" the announcer asked.

The government, which demands unquestioning allegiance and controls all publications and broadcasts, is growing wary of outside influence seeping in. Foreign broadcasts penetrate the country through smuggled transistor radios. As North Korea's economic woes persist, more North Koreans are travelling to China to seek food - and are exposed to the rapidly spreading capitalist culture there. CDs containing South Korean songs and TV dramas - popular in most of Asia - are reportedly smuggled into the North.

The hair campaign, which began in October and is dubbed "Let's trim our hair according to socialist lifestyle," requires that hair be kept no longer than five centimetres. But the state trendsetters allowed an exception: old men can grow hair up to seven centimetres to hide balding. The campaign claims that long hair hampers brain activity by taking oxygen away from nerves in the head. It doesn't explain why women are still allowed to grow long hair. In November, a North Korean broadcast chastised men with long hair as "fools who abandon our own lifestyle and mimic other people's model."

more...

[Ediacara]

1. This is so silly

And by this, I mean: "The campaign claims that long hair hampers brain activity by taking oxygen away from nerves in the head." From what I've read, the NK govt tends to justify stuff with silly, sociological explanations, and not silly scientific ones. This explanation is so absurd, it might cause people to snap out of it :-)

[renegade000]

2. what nutcases

...

[htuttle]

3. Can anyone translate this into Korean for me? I want to send a letter...

She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know
It's not for lack of break
Like the Grateful Dead
Darling

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

Down to here
Down to there
Down to where
It stops by itself

They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair

My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

[K-W]

4. I assume all DU socialists will conform to the proper socialist haircut?

[w4rma]

5. Diversion. Poorly run governments always try to talk about *anything*

other than their own policies. They do that to keep folks from focusing on REAL problems, like the dictatorship.