Hanawon is an education facility for North Korean refugees who have just arrived in the South. Its main role is to equip recent refugees with the practical knowledge necessary to live in South Korea, as well as to provide them with some vocational training (within relatively tight time and budget constraints, of course).
It is well-known that one of the most popular courses taught there is one on driving. North Korean refugees badly want to get drivers licences as soon as they can. Given that South Korea is a country of near-universal car ownership, this is not surprising. The actual reason, though, is quite different: North Koreans grew up in a country where being a driver is a privilege and a highly profitable job.
The drivers were well-positioned to profit from this peculiar economic situation
North Korean drivers have enjoyed a high social standing since the emergence of the North Korean state, but in the last 20 years, their standing has increased still further. As always with us human beings, the reasons are material. Even in the times of Kim Il Sung, when control over internal movement was unusually harsh, drivers by the nature of their job could move relatively freely around the country. They used this freedom to buy and sell. In the 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the markets, price differences from region to region could be very high in North Korea. A bundle of dry fish was worth next to nothing in a remote fishing village, but could be sold for a hefty premium in a large city far from the coast. The drivers were well-positioned to profit from this peculiar economic situation.
The growth of private markets in the 1990s and 2000s made a driver’s job even more lucrative. Price differences admittedly decreased and travel restrictions did also (in practice, though not in principal). However, the ever-growing number of merchants needed vehicles to transport their merchandise and they were willing to pay good money for the service. Therefore, drivers often became affluent, if not rich, through their jobs.
One should, therefore, not be surprised to find that it is not easy to become a driver in North Korea. First of all, one has to be male, since women are only allowed to learn driving under exceptional circumstances. It is generally assumed that it is too dangerous to trust a woman with a motor vehicle. Actually, women are theoretically banned from riding bicycles and motorbikes as well, even though this ban is never enforced (admittedly, things might change soon: a few days ago, a traffic accident in Pyongyang caused by a motor-bike-riding young woman, reportedly again attracted the government’s attention to the long-neglected menace of female driving). Back in the 1970s and 1980s, even foreign diplomats and their family members, if they happened to be females, usually were not issued local driving permits (much like Saudi Arabia).
Learning to drive is a full-time exercise. Many North Korean towns have driving schools complete with dormitories. Aspiring drivers study there for the full day, and should they come from outside the town they are even supposed to sleep at the school’s dormitories. The regular course lasts for a year of full-time classes and practical studies. It is not only driving that is studied at such schools: Students also learn how to maintain and repair their vehicles – this is an important skill given the sorry state of most North Korean cars.
NORTH KOREAN CARS
…the North Korean automotive industry was born in the late 1950s, long before South Korean factories began to roll out their countless Hyundais and Kias
The empty streets and highways with almost no traffic have long been a much-discussed feature of North Korean landscape. Indeed, South Korea has some 19 million vehicles for 51 million people, while in the North the number of cars is much smaller. The exact figures are not known, since the relevant statistics in North Korea have always been classified, but it is currently estimated that there are 250-300,000 motorcars in North Korea.
But what do they drive in North Korea? It might now be difficult to believe, but the North Korean automotive industry was born in the late 1950s, long before South Korean factories began to roll out their countless Hyundais and Kias. The first North Korean vehicle, a 2.5-ton truck proudly called the “Sungli (Victory) 58,” was a licensed copy of the Soviet GAZ-51. This was a sturdy and reliable vehicle, though North Koreans had to simplify the already simple Russian design, adjusting it to the limited capacities of North Korean industry and technology (as a matter of fact, I met the person responsible for the redesign).
Soon afterward, in the late 1960s, North Korea began producing a military four-wheel drive, known as Kaengsaeng (self-reliance). It was also a copy of a Soviet vehicle, GAZ-69, which was in turn a slightly modified copy of a U.S. jeep from the late 1930s. Such antique origins did not prevent the North Koreans from producing Kaengsaeng (slightly modified) until recently. For decades this sturdy military jeep has remained the major passenger vehicle in the country.
There have been a number of attempts to produce proper passenger cars, but no such attempts have brought any significant results. In the 1980s, North Korea produced simplified copies of Mercedes, known as Paektusan, but the total number of cars produced remained tiny (a few hundred at most). In 1999 they started Pyonghwa Motors, a joint venture with South Korean companies associated with the Unification Church. This venture initially attracted much media attention, but failed to prosper and formally ceased operations in late 2012.
FOREIGN MODELS
Therefore, nearly all passenger vehicles that can be now found on North Korean roads have been imported. In the days of Kim Il Sung, most passenger cars were Soviet-made Volgas and Ladas – crude and primitive, but easy and cheap to maintain. In a curious twist, in the 1970s, North Koreans ordered 1,000 large and luxurious Volvo sedans from Sweden. The cars were dutifully shipped but never paid for. Back then, in the 1980s, the foreign diplomats stationed in the North joked about the “largest car theft in history.” Some of the Volvos remain operational now, and Swedish government still occasionally tries to get the North Koreans to pay the long-standing debt.
However, most of the passenger cars in North Korea are used cars from China and Japan. Obviously, when trade with Japan came to a near complete halt in the early 2000s, China became nearly the sole provider of used vehicles. The same is applicable to buses and trucks. There are still some surviving Victory trucks, as well as vehicles imported from the Soviet Union, Hungary and other countries of the former socialist bloc, but the share of Chinese vehicles is growing. The top elite, however, prefer expensive European cars, with BMWs and Mercedes being the most popular.
An unusual feature of North Korea’s car stock is the existence of trucks and buses powered by “gas generators.” Because these vehicles produce thick clouds of dark smoke, and have large boiler-like contraptions installed, they are frequently mistaken for steam-powered cars by the less tech-savvy visitors. This is a misconception. The gas generator (the boiler-like contraption) is fed with charcoal, wood or other flammable substances, and then produces a gas which is pumped into a slightly modified internal combustion engine.
Many countries used this kind of vehicle during the Second World War, in the days of grave fuel shortages, but it was immediately discarded once a reliable oil supply was once again secured. In North Korea, conversion of the car’s fleet to gas generator power started in the 1970s. Kim Il Sung wanted to make the country independent from foreign oil. He succeeded but with a cost: gas-generator cars are far less efficient and powerful than regular petrol-fed cars. The smoke emitting trucks and buses (the gas generators are too heavy and bulky for smaller vehicles), can usually only move at about 30 kph and take about half an hour to warm up. To protect both the urban environment and country’s propaganda image, the gas generator vehicles have always been banned from entering Pyongyang as well as from using the notoriously empty North Korean highways. Nonetheless, at some point in the 1990s some three-quarters of North Korean trucks were equipped with gas generators.
…for North Korea’s new rich, a conventional motor vehicle is a very attractive type of investment
As is usually the case with North Korea, no statistics are available, but it seems that the number of gas-generator vehicles is in steep decline now. While it is not officially admitted, more buses and trucks in North Korea are privately owned and private entrepreneurs think first of all about economics, while ignoring such lofty concerns as independence from foreign oil-producing nations. Obviously, for entrepreneurs, the gas-generator technology is troublesome.
Private ownership of buses and trucks is not officially admitted, but for North Korea’s new rich, a conventional motor vehicle is a very attractive type of investment. The fast growth of private commerce means that there is no shortage of merchants willing to pay for travel and freight.
Since private ownership of vehicles is generally forbidden – theoretically, only passenger cars can be owned privately, but numerous regulations apply to them, too – owners usually buy their vehicles in China and then register them with a government company or agency. The company manager is paid an agreed-upon bribe on a regular basis, and some official payment to the company’s budget may also be required, but in all other regards, the vehicles are the property of their owners. The buses and trucks are used to move fee-paying passengers and their merchandise around.
It is remarkable that in some cases, the vehicles are then rented out to drivers who pay the owners a fixed fee for the privilege (paying for fuel and maintenance is also the driver’s responsibility). There is no shortage of demand and the arrangement is usually quite profitable for both sides. Being a driver in North Korea, a country of unpaved and dangerous roads, poorly enforced traffic regulations and unreliable vehicles might be difficult and dangerous, but it is clearly quite profitable as well.
Hanawon is an education facility for North Korean refugees who have just arrived in the South. Its main role is to equip recent refugees with the practical knowledge necessary to live in South Korea, as well as to provide them with some vocational training (within relatively tight time and budget constraints, of course).
It is well-known that one of the most popular courses taught there is one on driving. North Korean refugees badly want to get drivers licences as soon as they can. Given that South Korea is a country of near-universal car ownership, this is not surprising. The actual reason, though, is quite different: North Koreans grew up in a country where being a driver is a privilege and a highly profitable job.
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Andrei Lankov is a Director at NK News and writes exclusively for the site as one of the world's leading authorities on North Korea. A graduate of Leningrad State University, he attended Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University from 1984-5 - an experience you can read about here. In addition to his writing, he is also a Professor at Kookmin University.