Under Kim Jong-un’s rule, young North Koreans are eager to learn Chinese.

When traveling in North Korea, you can find Pyongyang very clean. Walking in Pyongyang, you can see blue sky and white clouds, straight and spacious roads. Pyongyang is very green and the air is very good. In May, spring flowers bloom in Pyongyang, giving people a wonderful impression. Pyongyang is not only clean and tidy, but also the girls give a good impression. Our tour guide is a beautiful Pyongyang girl who speaks fluent Chinese.

In North Korea, not only the tour guide can speak Chinese, but also many young people in foreign-related places can speak Chinese. Young people in North Korea like to learn Chinese. When we visited the Pyongyang People’s Great Hall of Learning, the inside lecturer told us that the Hall of Learning has opened a lot of foreign language training courses, the most people learning Chinese. In the foreign restaurants in Pyongyang, many young and pretty waitresses could communicate with us in simple Chinese. I was impressed by their standard pronunciation.

Chatting with a pretty girl in a foreign restaurant, I learned that she had taken a Chinese course in college. Now she is working in a job where she can continuously improve her Chinese expression skills.

She told me that the Chinese language program is very popular in North Korean universities, and many North Korean college students are interested in Chinese. Her latest goal is to translate the menu of a restaurant into Chinese on her own.

There is a reason why young people in North Korea like to learn Chinese nowadays. North Korea and our country are neighbors, and historically, there is a sense of closeness. In recent years, China’s economy has developed rapidly and made remarkable achievements. Some North Koreans who work in trade with China have gotten rich. This has made many young North Koreans more interested in learning Chinese. Learning Chinese will help them in their future work. Nowadays, there are also many Chinese people traveling to North Korea, and many North Korean girls want to work as tour guides, which also makes them interested in Chinese.

During my travels in North Korea, I noticed that in some stations and public places in North Korea, I could see some introductory Chinese books. According to our tour guide, some Chinese TV dramas are also very popular among the North Korean people. This is a good opportunity for young North Koreans who love Chinese to improve their reading and listening skills.