The people’s committee of North Hamgyong Province has criticized local cultural and recreational facilities as hotbeds of non-socialist behavior and has begun drawing up measures to address them, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Monday that the provincial people’s committee “convened a meeting on Apr. 20 to discuss measures to deal with the transformation of local cultural and recreational facilities intended to improve the cultural lives of the people into bad facilities where non-socialist behavior predominates.”
According to the source, the meeting in question criticized how new bowling alleys, hotels, department stores, inns and restaurants — mostly in the city of Chongjin — host non-socialist behavior that is completely at odds with the founding mission of improving the people’s cultural lives and convenience.
The provincial people’s committee said the state ordered the operation of bowling alleys, hotels, department stores, inns and restaurants to provide the people with cultural and recreational facilities to make their lives happier. However, behavior at odds with this intention was taking place, it said, with individuals and agencies using the facilities to fill their pockets.
“The meeting chastised the officials managing the facilities, saying minors engage in widespread unhealthy behavior at accommodation facilities like inns and hotels and young people unreservedly gamble by putting money on games at bowling alleys, but the officials were simply making money by turning a blind eye,” the source said.
In response to the problem, the provincial people’s committee — criticizing how capitalist lifestyles were infiltrating local cultural and recreational facilities — decided to strictly manage the facilities per state directions and bolster supervision of the businesses.
Thus, officials managing and operating cultural and recreational facilities now must undergo continuous inspections to ensure they are operating the facilities to improve the people’s welfare per their original mission.
The provincial people’s committee plans to teach provincial residents, especially students and young people, how to use cultural and recreational facilities properly.
“The meeting was held to prevent social and cultural regression resulting from the misuse of cultural and recreational facilities intended to promote the cultural and recreational development of the people,” the source said. “The meeting beseeched all relevant agencies and individuals to perform their responsibilities and roles fully.”
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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May 02, 2024 at 01:00PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)