Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, seemed like a giant communist theme park, a propaganda showcase for a Third World country still reeling from the collapse of old alliances with the USSR and China. A primer on how to strike humorous chords, from Prokofiev's sendup of military bureaucracy in Lieutenant Kije, to Carl Stalling's eclectic soundtrack music for Bugs Bunny, the roadrunner and other cartoons. Marian Botsford Fraser chronicles the history of mining in this one-industry town with an uncertain future. We cannot escape them. They're about birth, loss and death within the family.
Generations pass as inevitably as time.
A sixtieth birthday is marked and a baby is mourned. Closed to the West for more than 40 years and isolated by superpower politics, North Korea is the last refuge of Stalinism. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, seemed like a giant communist theme park, a propaganda showcase for a Third World country still reeling from the col- lapse of old alliances with the USSR and China. Often, several men and women share the same name. This has always con- fused outsiders who have taken fingerprints, issued disc numbers and most recently, assigned surnames in an attempt to sort out who's who.