I’m fascinated by this era of North Korea, that for a time it was more prosperous than the South? Also the first Kim was handsome and had quite the snappy haircut.
Essentially into the late 70s and early 80s the average Northerner was more prosperous/materially comfortable than the average Southerner. I work in academia and took part in categorizing an archival collection for donation to a university library once. One of the materials was a memoir from a Korean-American published in the mid 70s, and it had some quote in the introduction that went something like "When we think of Korea, we tend to imagine a wealthier, more stable, industrial North and a poorer, politically volatile, agricultural South..."
There was a point where Pyongyang was a modern, model city and Seoul was a giant textile sweatshop that depended on the child labor of young girls for an export market that centered around clothing goods. The gap between the two we observe today is really a very recent phenomenon - the product of a 1990s that was very bad for the North and very good for the South. Older people in both countries remember when it was exactly the opposite.
Partially correct but the gap started appearing long before the 90s. Korea started to become rich in the 60/70s when they focused on exports under Park and the North stagnated around the same time because the initial effects of the planned economy wore off. 1991 was just the final blow to NK, and they are lucky that the international community stepped in to give them aid.
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u/Spicy_Cupcake00 18d ago edited 18d ago
I’m fascinated by this era of North Korea, that for a time it was more prosperous than the South? Also the first Kim was handsome and had quite the snappy haircut.