Word: kim
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...course, in an impoverished nation where aid organizations provide food aid to some six million people, the Western notion of a gift-giving holiday does not translate very well, particularly after Kim Jong Il's regime effectively stripped most of the nation of any personal savings three weeks ago. Each year underground worshippers in North Korea receive an array of presents from the outside world, including foreign-made clothes and candy, smuggled in by defectors like Jeong...
...Meanwhile, the communist regime has placed a slew of nationalistic holidays around Christmas, though their timing is probably a coincidence. On December 24, many North Koreans observe the birthday of Kim Jong Suk - the deceased mother of dictator Kim Jong Il and a revolutionary hero - by making pilgrimages to her birthplace of Hoeryong, a town in the northeast. Three days later, they are given a day off work for Constitution Day. Even New Years' Day is more about revolutionary zeal than ushering in 2010, when thousands of North Koreans will walk in a yearly procession to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace...
...build four state-run churches in Pyongyang in the following years, though critics maintain they're facades to show the world that it supports freedom of religion. "[Foreign missionaries] are allowed to come for relief or other purposes, only if they promise not to spread the word," argues Kim. (See pictures of the key moments in North Korea's history...
...Still, some scholars contend the regime practices a kind of pragmatic tolerance of Christianity, suggesting North Korea's intelligence agency chooses to ignore underground churches because of their political usefulness. "How can they not know the whereabouts of 100,000 Christians?" says Philo Kim, a professor of sociology at Seoul National University in South Korea, who has visited North Korea several times to study Christianity there. "The government takes advantage of them by dispatching spies into the churches. They can gather information about the churches in China and how they help defectors escape...
...That may be, but it's a limit that most are not willing to test. North Koreans still face execution if they're caught evangelizing, prompting most Christians to put aside Christmas for more patriotic holidays. Because useful or not, says Kim, "Among all religions, Christianity is seen as the most threatening to the regime...