North Korea clamps down on long hair

North Korea’s communist government is waging war against men with long hair, calling them unhygienic anti-socialist fools, and even leader Kim Jong Il has trimmed his famous bouffant locks.

The hair campaign comes as North Korea’s dictatorship struggles to tighten its control over information, monitor its population and dictate cultural tastes.

It is directing men to wear their hair “socialist style”, deriding shabbily coifed men as “blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle”.

North Korea’s state-run TV even identifies violators by name and address, exposing them to jeers from other citizens.

“We cannot help questioning the cultural taste of this comrade, who is incapable of feeling ashamed of his hair style,” the station said, showing a Mr Ko Gwang Hyun, whose unkempt hair covered his ears.

“Can we expect a man with this dishevelled mind-set to perform his duty well?” the announcer asked.

The government, which demands unquestioning allegiance and controls all publications and broadcasts, is growing wary of outside influence seeping in.

Foreign broadcasts penetrate the country through smuggled transistor radios. As North Korea’s economic woes persist, more North Koreans are travelling to China to seek food – and are exposed to the rapidly spreading capitalist culture there. CDs containing South Korean songs and TV dramas – popular in most of Asia - are reportedly smuggled into the North.

The hair campaign is dubbed ”Let’s trim our hair according to socialist lifestyle” and requires that hair be kept no longer than two inches. But the state trend-setters allowed an exception: old men can grow hair up to seven 2.8 inches to hide balding.

The campaign claims that long hair hampers brain activity by taking oxygen away from nerves in the head. It doesn’t explain why women are still allowed to grow long hair.

In November, a North Korean broadcast chastised men with long hair as “fools who abandon our own lifestyle and mimic other people’s model”.

Short haircuts fit with Kim Jong Il’s “songun” – or army-first – philosophy, which focuses on military strength and exhorts the people to follow the example of the 1.1 million-member Korea People’s Army, the loyal backbone of Kim’s rule.

Kim himself for many years wore a bouffant hairstyle – reportedly to boost his height – but recently set an example by trimming it.