K-POP FEVER SPREADS TO N. KOREA
Music by South Korean artistes like G-Dragon is banned in North Korea, but its people manage to sneak it in anyway. Here’s how they do it, writes BIBI NURSHUHADA RAMLI
SOUTH Korean superstar G-Dragon is so popular worldwide that he even has a following in North Korea.
But the country’s communist regime has a strict and heavily-monitored ban on capitalism. So how do they get access to the singer’s music?
Apparently, some North Koreans had found a way to smuggle in South Korean entertainment through China.
According to a news report by Koreaboo, North Koreans have been using a portable storage device called “Stealth USB” that hides media content like K-Pop well enough for it to pass through the North Korean regime’s heavy surveillance.
The device looks like your common USB flash drive, but when it is connected to a USB port for the first time, it appears to be empty. However, after connecting it several times, its contents are revealed.
A North Korean defector revealed that South Korean entertainment was highly popular in the communist country, and was sold at premium prices.
Even though there is the danger of being caught, the smuggling activity continued for years.
Thanks to this nifty device, North Korean teens have been exposed to K-Pop, with G-Dragon, the leader of the South Korean group Big Bang, being the most popular artiste among them.
In previous years, North Korean
North Koreans have been using a portable storage device called ‘Stealth USB’ that hides media content like K-Pop well enough for it to pass through the North Korean regime’s heavy surveillance.
officers detected South Korean entertainment content in cassettes, video tapes and CDs by turning off the electricity of an entire town.
Those in possession of the items wouldn’t be able to take them out of the media players and hide them in time.
Well, now with the advancement of technology, some devices don’t depend solely on electricity anymore; it may be just a little tougher for the regime to restrict the entry of foreign content.