culture

Schoolchildren are now enjoying camping in the Mangyongdae Children's Camp in the suburbs of Pyongyang.

At the camp located at the foot of Mt Ryongak, campers conduct mountaineering and various other activities such as boating and sports and video games.

The 1 060-metre-long climbing path leading to Tae Peak thick with foliage has an average gradient of 40 degrees and there are a steep, slippery rock ridge extending for dozens of metres and large protruding rocks which seem to roll over in no time.

The campers have good experience during mountaineering as they cook rice without a pot and have a cooking contest.

They play sports games amid boisterous cheering and hold mass dances to the tune of lively music. Most impressive for them is the vegetable cultivation in the hydroponic greenhouse.

According to Pae Kwang Su, an official of the camp, there is a story about the greenhouse that came into being in the camp.

On June 3 2016, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un visited the camp to learn in detail about its renovation and preparations for its operation. At the entrance to a hall, he said that in the future hydroponic and vegetable greenhouses should be built in large camps and that a lot of spaces for combining theory and practice should be created there so that the campers could acquire vast knowledge and have extensive experience.

Later, a greenhouse for object lesson was built at the compound of the camp and various vegetables like tomato, crown daisy, lettuce and bok choy came to grow there.

The daily schedule at the camp includes the time of greenhouse management, and vegetable growing is a very interesting experience for the urban students.

U Song Hyok and Kim Un Hui, students from Sosong District, Pyongyang, said that they could have a better understanding of what they learned at school and how vegetables are served on the table every day as they cultivated plants during the camping.