{"id":4600,"date":"2021-03-05T09:19:41","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T09:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/?p=4600"},"modified":"2021-03-06T13:32:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T13:32:34","slug":"chongjin-a-very-different-north-korean-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/chongjin-a-very-different-north-korean-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Chongjin, a very different North Korean city"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While Pyongyang is very much a showpiece city for the DPRK, the same cannot be said of Chongjin. This industrial city in the north east of the country has only relatively recently opened up to tourism. And it\u2019s easy to see why. North Koreans, both as a government and a people, like to show visitors the best of their country. They want us to be impressed by their progress and modernity; they want us to see the nation as the success they believe it to be. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in some ways Chongjin is<\/strong> a success, when you understand something of its past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief history of Chongjin <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Chongjin is an industrial city known sometimes as the \u2018City of Iron\u2019. Originally a fishing village, it underwent massive growth during the 20th century as the Japanese made it into a major port and industrial city. They declared it an \u2018open trading port\u2019, used for the transport of Korean resources and as a stopping point for resources from China. Its factories produced steel, machinery and chemical fibres; and it mushroomed in size and population, which was, by 1945, around 300,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n