"North Koreans are allowed to wear only short hairstyles. There are 28 types of haircuts approved by the country's administration..."

"... 18 for women and 10 for men" — #11 on "Twelve shocking facts about North Korea," according to Pravda.



Also:

9. One does not allow [sic] to turn the government radio off even in one's own house. One can only turn the volume down a bit. There are special units that track down those who listen to forbidden radio programs, and this crime is punishable by death.

And:

12. In the event of a fire, the first thing to rescue from a burning home must be portraits of DPRK leaders.

ADDED: What would you save if you have to rush out of your burning house? That's an old question, but the classic old answer doesn't work anymore, because we keep our photographs — including our photographs of beloved leaders — on some website. Grab your iPhone and your car keys and get out of there. Anything else?

IN THE COMMENTS: George M. Spencer writes:

Generally speaking, human life means little in Asia.

That's the first sentence of the Pravda article.

Isn't most of Russia in Asia!?!

I had to look back at the article, because I didn't believe that line would be on the news site, even at Pravda, but it is indeed the first sentence of the article.

It's true — in terms of land mass — that most of Russia is in Asia, but most of Europe is in Russia. 80% of Europe. In terms of population, only 23% of Russians live in Asia. I'm going to assume that Russians think of themselves as European, not Asian. The ones we see in the news certainly look more like other Europeans than like other Asians.

Interestingly, when I google russians think of themselves as european, the second hit is "The British are the least likely Europeans to consider themselves European."

Hmm. Some kind of pride thing?