Jo Oct 11, 2023
From ancient times, our people enjoyed Chusok (Harvest Moon Day) playing a variety of folk games altogether.
The most interesting of them was ssirum. On the day, it was played on a large scale in every part of the country for a bull prize. Ssirum in Pyongyang was particularly well known across the country.
When ssirum was attracting men, swinging was popular among women. Swinging was widely spread in the care of our people and it was played on public holidays everywhere in the country.
Another popular pastime was singing and dancing where thirty or forty neatly-dressed women dance in a circle singing “Kanggang Suwollae”.
Thanks to our Party’s policy of protecting national heritage, the custom of all folk games on Chusok including archery, yut game, janggi (Korean chess) and tug of war is still being carried forward and developed in line with the socialist lifestyle and aesthetic tastes of the times.
...
Jo Oct 6, 2023
The Pyongyang Bell, which was founded during the feudal Joson dynasty, is a precious legacy of national culture indicative of high creative wisdom of our people of those days.
The bell is 3.1 metres tall and about 13 tonnes heavy, with a 1.6 metre-wide mouth.
The present bell is said to have been refounded of bronze for approximately four months in 1726.
The bell looks harmonious, well-balanced and stately. The ring at the head that is shaped like a blue dragon and a yellow dragon entangled together looks so sophisticated and vigorous. With the most charming shape and the most solemn peal of the bells during the feudal Joson dynasty, the Pyongyang Bell has been known as the “attraction of Pyongyang” from olden times.
It was used for telling the time and sounding an alarm to the Pyongyang citizens.
President
The Pyongyang Bell serves as a precious national cultural legacy that gives a glimpse into the high-level metal processing and formative arts of our people and as a witness conveying the history of change of our country.
...
Jo Oct 3, 2023
A good practice of keeping gardens neat and beautiful is one of our people’s traditional customs.
Koryo people liked sinking wells and growing fruit trees and flowers in their gardens.
It was common to plant several kinds of trees like junipers, matrimony vines and willows around wells to landscape gardens.
It is said that those in the central part of Korea round Kaegyong (Kaesong at present), which was the capital of Koryo, would enclose their houses with hedges that often consisted of juniper trees, needle juniper trees or flower trees.
Some of them used to decorate their gardens with odd-shaped rocks and big stones or famous flowers.
Such landscape gardening of the Koryo age was the inheritance and improvement of Koguryo peoples’ landscape gardening practice in accordance with Koryo peoples’ aesthetic feelings and emotions.
The murals in Anak Tomb No. 1, one of the Koguryo tombs, show artificial mounds and pavilions with lotus ponds and rocks of fantastic shape, enclosed by fences or cloisters.
In addition, the eastern wall and the east part of the southern wall of the inner chamber of the Koguryo Tokhung-ri Tomb are painted with lotus ponds and scenes of colourful events, which tells us that dwelling houses used to have gardens with lotus ponds in the east.
Landscaping of front garden, inner garden and back yard that constituted gardens of houses in the Koryo age differed greatly according to class and social positions, but it gives a full description of one aspect of civilized house customs of Koryo people who were good at making their gardens elegant.
...
Jo Sep 10, 2023
The earth’s orbit around the sun is divided into 24 with a central angle of 15°. The 24 points were given names to be 24 divisions of the year.
Each month has two divisions. Although the dates differ one or two days every year, the central angle, that is, the position of the earth stays the same.
The names of the 24 divisions reflect the experiences accumulated in the course of nature study and life from olden times and the simple desire of our ancestors quite accurately.
Even in present days the divisions give a lot of help in everyday life and organizing agricultural production.
The names Chunbun, Chubun, Haji and Tongji are related to the length of the day and night while Ripchun, Ripha, Ripchu and Riptong refer to the beginning of four seasons.
Sohan, Taehan, Choso, Taeso, etc. describe the degree of coldness and warmth. Usu, Kogu, Sosol and Taesol are associated with the period of rainfall and snowfall.
Kyongchip represents revival of all things after winter while Chongmyong refers to the clearness of the sky.
Soman and Mangjong are directly connected with the farming season.
...
Jo Sep 5, 2023
The Mausoleum of King Tongmyong is a tomb of King Tongmyong, the founder of the Koguryo dynasty, situated in Ryongsan ri, Ryokpho District.
The mausoleum was brought to the present site by the movement of the capital of Koguryo to Pyongyang in the fifth century.
It was rebuilt in May, Juche 82 (1993). It stands magnificently as if it was demonstrating the might of Koguryo, which was once a great power, as the mausoleum of the founder king.
It is a stone structure covered with earth facing the south. It has a huge pile of earth, which is 11.5 metres high.
On the four 34-metre-long sides of the bottom part is a platform built of properly faced stones. Around the tomb, some graveside structures are set up on the 5-metre-wide pavement of riverside gravels.
Before the tomb, several structures stand in good order as they were in the days of the Koguryo dynasty.
On the top floor in front of the tomb are a stone table, a stone lantern and two stone sculptures of tiger. Along the right and left sides stand sculptured figures of civil and military officers and their horses. A pair of stone posts and a stone stove are also found there.
Erected in the east on the lower floor are “Monument to Sage King Tongmyong, Founder of the Koguryo Dynasty” and “Historical Monument to Sage King Tongmyong, Founder of the Koguryo Dynasty” written in Chinese character with explanations in Korean. In the west is a building for memorial service and in the south is a gate.
Under the care of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Mausoleum of King Tongmyong was rebuilt wonderfully and it has been in good preservation. It is now making a positive contribution to educating our people in the national pride and dignity and patriotic spirit.
...
Jo Sep 1, 2023
National classic “Palhaego” is a book compiled by a realist scholar Ryu Tuk Gong (1748―?) in 1784.
Aiming to rectify the history of Palhae distorted by feudal historians and great-power chauvinists, Ryu Tuk Gong collected and sorted out a large number of books at home and abroad into “Palhaego” in one volume and in one book.
“Palhaego” is divided into several parts ― Kungo about the successive kings, Singo about central government officials, Jirigo about the territory, capital and local areas, Jikkwango about government offices and posts, Uijanggo about costumes of each rank, Mulsango about specialties, Kuksogo about letters sent to Japan, etc.
The book gives many-sided information about the foreign activities, territory, government post system, etc. What is particularly striking among them is it demonstrates that Palhae was a full-fledged sovereign state that succeeded to Koguryo.
The author wrote in the preface, “Where on earth is Tae from? He is surely from Koguryo. …The territory of Palhae right belongs to that of Koguryo.” He highlighted by means of the six letters sent by the kings of Palhae to Japanese kings that Palhae had been founded by the people of ruined Koguryo.
The book contains fairly detailed records indicative of the fact that Palhae was a sovereign state that exercised its sovereignty with dignity.
In addition, it repudiates the former view that Palhae had 60 provinces but proves that it had 62 provinces, and that the territory of Koryohuguk (a state founded by people of ruined Koguryo) belonged to that of Palhae.
In conclusion, “Palhaego” is a very important book that collected and catalogued all materials related to Palhae to rectify the history of Palhae for the first time in the middle ages of our country.
...
