The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
NK bans off-shoulder bags as Missing dog found 2,000 sign of Western decadence miles from Michigan home
NORTH KOREAN patriot patrols are haranguing citizens for carrying bags slung over one shoulder because it is un-socialist.
Anyone caught on their way to school or work with a bag over one shoulder is stopped and lectured against copying the people of capitalist South Korea.
Transgressors have had bags confiscated and even been expelled from school in some cases, Radio Free Asia reported, citing sources inside the country.
In the most extreme cases, reoffending bag carriers are being punished with spells in labour camps, RFA said.
North Korean citizens are being told that the appropriate way to carry a bag is in the approved socialist style – worn on the back with straps over both shoulders or held in the grip of one hand.
“A patrol organised by the Socialist Patriotic Youth League cracked down on a college student who wore a bag hanging by their side at the main gate of Hamhung Medical University”, a resident of the city told RFA. The person was not named for security reasons.
Another source confirmed that college students “prefer to wear shoulder bags with long straps at their sides because they often watch South Korean TV shows”.
At the opening ceremony for a teacher training college in Pyongsong, officials announced that anyone found carrying a bag over one shoulder would be punished “for spreading the culture of the South Korean puppets”, the source added.
Copying the trends of South Korea is also likely to attract additional scrutiny from the authorities as many young North Koreans affect the mannerisms and slang of their neighbours after watching television dramas and films smuggled into the North.
Kim Jong-un’s regime has in recent years been prosecuting a fierce campaign under the draconian Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Law against external influences.
Human rights groups have reported that dozens of people – including many children – have been sentenced to long prison terms or even executed after being caught watching foreign programmes.
Shoulder bags have joined a growing list of behaviours considered contrary to the nation’s socialist principles.
Numerous reports have emerged from the North in recent years about people being reported for wearing clothing that deviates from the baggy Chairman Mao-style suit or having a hairstyle that is not on the list of approved styles.
A DOG that went missing in California nine months ago has been reunited with its owners after being found walking the streets of a Detroit suburb more than 2,000 miles away.
The terrier-mix, called Mishka, was picked up by police, who took her to an animal shelter last week, following a report of a stray dog near Harper Woods, Michigan.
Staff at the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society found she had a microchip, which identified her owners as living 2,343 miles away in San Diego.
Mishka vanished last July from a workplace and it is unclear how she had travelled so far.
Owners Mehrad and Liz Houman were on holiday in Minneapolis when staff from the shelter called and immediately drove 10 hours to Michigan to collect their pet.
While both the journey to Michigan and who cared for her remain a mystery, the family reported that she has learned a new trick during her time away. Mishka can now sit on command.
“I’ve been missing my kid, so that’s I think what anybody would do to go get their kid back,” Mr Houman told Fox 2.
Pictures and videos shared on social media showed Mishka wagging her tail as she was reunited with her delighted owners. “This is the happy ending we all wanted,” shelter staff said in a Facebook post, describing it as “a tale that Hollywood would love to tell”.
Nancy Pillsbury, the veterinarian who examined the three-year-old dog, gave her a rabies jab and cleared her to travel home to southern California.
“Whoever had her, took good care of her,” said Ms Pillsbury, adding the dog was clean and well-fed. “How she got here – that’s a story only Mishka knows.”
“We never gave up hope,” said Liz Houman. “It’s a 100 per cent miracle.”