A university in Pyongyang has held a struggle session after students were caught secretly giving their professors envelopes filled with cash for the New Year, Daily NK has learned.
“The party committee of Pyongyang Kim Won Gyun University of Music and Dance convened an ideological struggle meeting on Jan. 16 after being informed that students of the same year in one of the school’s departments secretly gave envelopes stuffed with dollars to their professors by hiding them in flower bouquets,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
According to the source, students of all grades and departments at Pyongyang University of Music and Dance visited their professors and gave them bouquets as New Year’s greetings.
In North Korea, it is normal for students to give their professors a modest amount of money when they visit them at the beginning of the year. However, the problem arose this year when the students in question gave their professors a particularly excessive amount of cash.
The students had agreed to raise an unprecedented amount of money as a New Year’s greeting for their professors, as well as a bribe for favorable treatment. According to the source, they hid an envelope containing four USD 50 bills, or a total of USD 200, in each professor’s bouquet.
However, one of the professors was nervous about the potential consequences of the gift. After considering his course of action for several days, he took the envelope and the money to the university’s party committee and confessed that he had received US dollars, which brought the whole incident to light.
When the party committee learned of this, they called in and interrogated all the other professors who had received envelopes hidden in their bouquets. In the end, the professors had to hand over all the money they had received to the party committee, the source said.
The party committee then told students from other years and departments that they had nothing to fear if they came clean about handing over envelopes of cash to their professors. While their bribes would be confiscated, the committee said, all the money would be used only to decorate the university, take care of paintings and statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and do spring cleaning.
Students and “corrupt” professors taken to task
But the party committee did not stop there. On Jan. 16, it gathered all the professors and students in question and held an ideological struggle meeting, the source said.
“Some sharp criticism was voiced during the struggle meeting. The committee members told the students, ‘We won’t stop you from visiting your professors and greeting them. There’s nothing wrong with giving them a card or a bouquet, or even having a meal together for the New Year. But exchanging money is non-socialist behavior that defiles the sacred lectern.”
Meanwhile, the professor who had taken his envelope of dollars to the party committee was held up as a “principled professor,” while those who had remained silent were denounced as “unprincipled professors.” They were subjected to such humiliation that they could barely hold their heads up, the source said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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The post Pyongyang university holds struggle session after students caught bribing professors appeared first on Daily NK English.
January 26, 2024 at 01:04PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)