{"id":2076,"date":"2016-02-04T15:12:49","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T06:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.01.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang-2\/2016\/02\/report\/cold-wave-people-life\/"},"modified":"2018-08-24T18:21:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T09:21:32","slug":"cold-wave-people-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/2016\/02\/news\/cold-wave-people-life\/","title":{"rendered":"-30C, Bitter Coldness! How do the ordinary people in N.Korea survive the bitter cold? Enforced composts gleaning! Fire wood and coal saving emphasized!"},"content":{"rendered":"

2016\/1\/28<\/p>\n

The bitter cold which overwhelmed East Asia has frozen Japan and Korean Peninsula. Sometimes the thermometer indicates less than -30c in some parts of Ryanggang Province in North Korea. Then how can the ordinary North Koreans survive the bitter cold? We talked with a resident in northern part of North Hamkyung Province through mobile phone on January 25. (KANG Ji-won, defector reporter, Rimjin-gang)<\/p>\n

\"Mobilized

Mobilized women to glean composts in Mid North Korea (Taken by Kim Dong-cheol\/ mid January2015\/ASIAPRESS)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What is the temperature there?
A:<\/strong> According to yesterday\u2019s report, it was -22c.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Do you work outside, even in that harsh cold weather?
A:<\/strong> We don\u2019t care about the weather here. We are having a hard breaking the frozen feces that are used at farms.
*People mobilizing to glean composts in January and February to prepare for the spring farming in North Korea.<\/p>\n

\"A

A woman is heading for her home with buckets of water from the public well.
The biggest challenge is to secure water for living during winter in North Korea.
The river is frozen and there is no running water as the motor pump does not work because of insufficient power supply.
Residents collect money together to dig a well or break ice on river to draw water. (Taken by Mindulle\/January 2015\/ ASIAPRESS)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The

The reporter\u2019s shoes are covered with snow because he walked on a snow piled road for drawing water. (Taken by Mindulle\/January 2015\/ ASIAPRESS)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Is the market still open?
A:<\/strong> Yes! I go to the market for my own business, even if I skip my work place.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How do you heat your home?
A:<\/strong> I burn fire wood that I have purchased from the military last December. I paid 500 Chinese Yuan (U$75) for a load of Tongbangho( a brand of Chinese truck) and treated them with meals (to soldiers).<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Can you endure the winter with that? How do other people prepare for heating?
A:<\/strong> We don\u2019t have enough stuff for heating here! So people are remodeling Kudul! (floor heating system of Korea). They remove the Kudul tube (tube for heated air circulation) in unused rooms to save fire woods. They install that heating system only in rooms for sleeping at night and make the distance short between the fireplace and chimney<\/p>\n

*Kudul=Ondol: A heating system of Korea to warm up floor<\/p>\n

*ASIAPRESS smuggles Chinese carrier mobile phones into North Korea to communicate.<\/p>\n

\"Rimjingang_banner001\"<\/a>*\u00a0Editor\u2019s notes on North Korean reporters<\/a>
<\/a>ALL REPORTS >>><\/a> <\/strong><\/span>
ARCHIVE(pdf) >><\/a><\/span>
DPRK MAP >><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2016\/1\/28 The bitter cold which overwhelmed East Asia has frozen Japan and Korean Peninsula. Sometimes the thermometer i\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.02.asiapress.org\/rimjin-gang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}