For nearly twenty years, the inhabitants of a North Korean city have been subjected to an ‘eerie’ sound that serves as their morning wake-up call.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, located in East Asia, is known for its totalitarian regime.
Amnesty International has noted that the country is one of the worst offenders in terms of human rights, a view shared by the United Nations and Freedom House.
Since 1948, the Kim family, known officially as the Mount Paektu Bloodline, has governed the nation as its ‘supreme leaders’.
In 2008, three years before the passing of Kim Jong II, North Korea’s second supreme leader, a loud sound began to resonate throughout Pyongyang, the country’s capital.
Each morning at 6am, a ‘creepy’ melody fills the air of the vast city, which is constructed largely from concrete, bronze, and marble.
Watch the daily moment below:
This strange sound was highlighted in the Channel 5 program Michael Palin In North Korea.
Monty Python actor Michael Palin described it as ‘the most peculiar wake-up call’, and recently, the sound has gained attention again on social media.
“I thought it was just incidental post-production music,” commented one YouTube user after hearing the tune.
“But when you learn that it’s being played through a sound-system throughout the city it becomes creepy. It takes on a bizarre life of its own. There’s also something weirdly hypnotic about it to”
Another noted: “Eerie. Sounds like a perfect soundtrack for a strange dystopian land, played throughout the city like that creates a fitting vibe.”
“It seems like a song that would play if you walk around in a foggy forest under the watchful eye of a mystical predator creature,” another added.
Meanwhile, a TikTok user shared: “This is the same exact vibe I get in my dreams.”
“That’s quite creepy imagine having sleep paralysis and this is playing,” someone else remarked.
If this is your first time learning about the unusual wake-up call, here’s what you need to know.
The song that plays every morning from the loudspeakers at Pyongyang Railway Station is titled ‘Where Are You, Dear General?’
It is believed that the six-minute 30-second piece might have been composed by Kim Jong II in 1971 as part of the opera A True Daughter of the Party.
In the opera, a character named Kang Yeon-ok, an army nurse, uses the moment to express her lifelong aspiration to meet Kim II Sung, Kim Jong II’s father and the ‘founder’ of North Korea.
Since around 2008, a rendition of the song by the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble has been heard throughout Pyongyang each morning at 6am.
‘Where Are You, Dear General?’ acts as a sort of alarm clock, with some saying it is ‘heavily distorted and barely recognizable’ from the original version.
North Korean television sometimes broadcasts this electronic ballad, as reported by NK News.
It truly is something you have to hear to believe.