NORTH KOREA CURRENCY: NORTH KOREAN WON CONVERSION: 1krw is 0.5php, 1000krw is 48.

63php, 1krw is 0usd, and 1000krw is 1.11usd

Cheondoism
Cheondoist theology preaches that God (Haneullim, a concept taken from ancestral Korean shamanic beliefs) resides in each of us. It strives to convert our earthly society into a paradise on Earth. It attempts to transform the believers into intelligent moral beings with a high social consciousness. In this respect, it could be seen as a humanistic, socialist religion. Cheondoism is rooted in Korean shamanism and Korean Buddhism, with inspirations drawn from Christianity. It has become increasingly popular in both South Korea with the revival of Korean nationalism, and particularly in North Korea, where, according to government's statistics, it is the major religion of the country, followed by 12% of the total population. Cheondoism had about 1.13 million followers and 280 churches in South Korea in 2005 and 2.8 million adherents in North Korea (12.9% of the total population) as of 2000.North Korean Cheondoists are represented in politics by the Cheondoist Chongu Party. KOREAN SHAMANISM
Korean shamanism covers magic-religious rituals, both communal and private ones. In these rituals the focus is on both the shamans (mudang) individual experience as well as on the shamans hereditary abilities to contact the spirit world, inhabited by various shamanistic gods.

A person can become a shaman in two ways. He or she can be born into a shaman family and thus end up as a shaman. This kind of hereditary shaman is called sseseupmundang. The heredity system is matrilineal and thus a man can become a shaman through marriage. A person can also become a shaman through a mystical experience or a so-called shamanistic illness (sinbyeng), after which an initiation ceremony is required. This kind of shaman, chosen by the spirits, is calledgangsinmudang. They often have the ability to go into a trance and thus they are able, for example, to dance on sharp knives etc. The hereditary shamans do not involve themselves in this kind of extremes. Their main duty is simply to take care of the shamanistic gut rituals. Shaman families have often given their offspring training in music, dance or other forms of art. So even today many important artists come from shaman families. Nowadays most of the shamans are women, while the musicians accompanying them are men.

POPULATION 25 million, census conducted in 2008 by the north Korean government. Released to public in 2011.