A joke from North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun:
A middle-aged man entered a hotel in Tokchon City on the late night of last October.
Chuckling yet? This is going to be good....
Read on:
He had just arrived there by train from elsewhere on business. He went through formalities at a receptionist room of the hotel. He checked in at its room for the night.
On the morning of the next day a janitress came to him and kindly asked him whether or not he was comfortable in his bed. She informed him that his breakfast was ready at a dining-room of the hotel and guided him there.
He followed her there. He was astonished that the manager of the hotel named Kim In Suk and its employees wished him a happy birthday and took him to a dining table quite unexpectedly.
Marveling at this he did not readily take breakfast. A man who ate his meal at the table opposite him told him that the case was similar to him a few days ago on his birthday and that the hotel kept a diary of special service for lodgers and honored them with a good spread on their birthdays from the bottom of their hearts while they observed them at the hotel on official business. The man concerned remembered that the receptionist carefully looked at his citizenship card.
He felt a lump in his throat.
OK, maybe I misled a little. Not so much a joke, more the first item of a pair under the title, Stories about Tender-hearted Persons in Our Socialist Country. Which is a joke in itself.
Here number two:
Some time ago Ryom Jong Suk received a letter from the shock workers who restore the flood-wrecked areas of the country. She is a vice-director of an external agency for developing the technology of medicines. It belongs to the People’s Hospital of North Phyongan Province.
The letter began with the phrase "the beloved mother of Sinuiju".
The word "mother" is explained below.
On each occasion she was hugely delighted to hear that innovations were made at the flood-hit areas under reconstruction. Although she did not know the flood victims by name and by face they all belong to the one and the same large socialist family.
She thought time and again of helping even a little toward building dwellings at the areas as soon as possible. She hit upon a good idea with joy.
She was determined to prepare medicinal spray with garlic good for one’s health and started to do that. Some time afterwards she made thousands of bottles of medicinal spray and travelled quite a distance to the areas with them.
This greatly played upon the heartstrings of the shock workers.
Simple as it is the medicinal spray reflects the beautiful social traits of our people who love and benefit each other sharing bitters and sweets with each other.
No, I know, that's not very funny either.
In North Korea a sense of humour is surplus to requirements.
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