memoir of her time teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, there are twelve "Wonders of Songun": The sunrise at Mount Paektu (the alleged birthplace of Kim Jong-il); the winter pine trees at the Dabaksol guard post (where Kim Jong-il supposedly launched the policy); the Cheollyeong azaleas (a "frontline" hill where Kim Jong-il visited often); the evening view of Jangji Mountain near the Changja River (a refuge for a young Kim Jong-il during the Korean War); the sound of the Ullim Waterfall in the mountains above Munchon, Kangwon Province (as it is the sound of a "powerful and prosperous nation"); the horizon at Handurebol (the Handure Plain in Taechon County) for this was the location of Kim Jong-il's land reform in 1998 after the famine; Taehongdan County's large fields of potato flowers (Kim Il-sung is said to have fought the Japanese here and Kim Jong-il turned it into the country's largest potato farm); the area around the mountain village of Beoman-ri in Sohung County, North Hwanghae Province (Kim Jong-il rebuilt the village after the famine and is claimed as the "pride of a communist country"); the bean (or nut) farming program Kim Jong-un instituted to provide food for the military; the large rice farm in Migok, Sariwon; the Taedonggang fruit farm in Pyongyang; and the Ryongjung fish farm in South Hwanghae Province. A thirteenth "wonder" is reported to have been created in 2016. The first nine of these sites have been heavily promoted by North Korean authorities and have become tourist destinations. Rationale Two reasons have been offered as to why after Kim Il-sung's death North Korea shifted to Songun as a major ideology. One strand of the debate points to North Korea's desire to increase its military strength due to its precarious international position. In this sense, Songun is perceived as an aggressive, threatening move to increase the strength of the North Korean military at the expense of other parts of society. This argument also often points to the series of crises that befell North Korea in the early 1990s, beginning with the fall of its long-time ally the Soviet Union in 1991, followed by the death of Kim Il-sung (1994), several natural disasters, the North Korean famine and economic crisis, all before 1999. These also could have served as motivation for a new method of consolidation of power. The second strand focuses on internal North Korean politics