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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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But a probe into the school days of Kim Jong Un – youngest son of dictator Kim Jong Il – proves he is little more than an academic failure who squandered his education playing computer games and basketball. [....]
‘Un tried hard to express himself but he was not very good at German and became flustered when asked to give the answers to a problem. The teachers would see him struggling ashamedly and then move on. |
That's probably not fair. Learning English is hard enough for Koreans, and I imagine learning German would be harder, and he probably had to devote some effort to English as well. A young man struggling with education in a difficult foreign language is not necessarily an academic failure, but simply not academically outstanding, and given that, unlike many of his peers, his future in no way relied upon getting good grades, it's not especially surprising that he wouldn't be motivated to meet the challenge. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Quote: |
But a probe into the school days of Kim Jong Un – youngest son of dictator Kim Jong Il – proves he is little more than an academic failure who squandered his education playing computer games and basketball. [....]
‘Un tried hard to express himself but he was not very good at German and became flustered when asked to give the answers to a problem. The teachers would see him struggling ashamedly and then move on. |
That's probably not fair. Learning English is hard enough for Koreans, and I imagine learning German would be harder, and he probably had to devote some effort to English as well. A young man struggling with education in a difficult foreign language is not necessarily an academic failure, but simply not academically outstanding, and given that, unlike many of his peers, his future in no way relied upon getting good grades, it's not especially surprising that he wouldn't be motivated to meet the challenge. |
No, probably not, but then again according to his propaganda he is uniquely capable, so by that metric he is a failure. |
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wishfullthinkng
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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i was a tad bit surprised that this guy was allowed to teach computer programming in the north.
first because giving these people knowledge could lead to eventual hacks of their security infrastructure and custom operating system.
second, because their os is a custom shell of windows (xp i believe) that only the dear leader knows how to use/program. how could any mere mortal make it better?! |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Is there that same kind of almost magical power attributed to him in current Korean propaganda that was attributed to his father? I remember all the ludicrious claims about his father (golf, etc.), but I haven't heard any really crazy things about him yet. Admittedly I don't really go looking. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| I hope that Japanese chef talks more about KJE. I'd take his word over the American propoganda machine. |
Do you have any reason at all for what you think, other than supposition and wishful thinking? |
I know of an old Korean neighbor, who in the 1980's, went to China to meet his North Korean brother 2 times. They somehow got seperated during the war, and I have no idea how they contacted each other. And after giving him some money, American cigarettes and such luxuries as soap and toothpaste, his brother went back on both occasions. If it were so bad, why didn't his brother try to take his family out?
If I only believed what western papers say... If it were really so bad for most North Koreans they would be fighting tooth and nail trying to leave the country. They would practically be teaming on the south banks of the Yalu River and the Chinese would see a flood of them coming over. But guess what? Most North Koreans in China go back.
The average person probably doesn't come into much contact with the NK authorities and could hardly care if there was a 'revolution', but would not oppose a revolution if one was started. But until anything major happens, most will just go about their lives trying to provide for their families in what is typical of a 3rd-world country. |
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wishfullthinkng
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 12:05 am Post subject: |
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jvalmer, it is THAT bad. however the main reason they aren't leaving in droves is many decades of brain washing, military force keeping them in, and not wanting to leave their families. it's a bit hard to get an entire family out of a situation like that let alone a single person.
north korea is etymologically speaking, a second world country although i believe there should be a separate category for a place like that. cambodia is considered third world and i'd sure as chips rather live there than n. korea. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 4:58 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Is there that same kind of almost magical power attributed to him in current Korean propaganda that was attributed to his father? I remember all the ludicrious claims about his father (golf, etc.), but I haven't heard any really crazy things about him yet. Admittedly I don't really go looking. |
Not to the same extent as his father yet, but he is still described/treated as some sort of a God-King. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| I hope that Japanese chef talks more about KJE. I'd take his word over the American propoganda machine. |
Do you have any reason at all for what you think, other than supposition and wishful thinking? |
I know of an old Korean neighbor, who in the 1980's, went to China to meet his North Korean brother 2 times. They somehow got seperated during the war, and I have no idea how they contacted each other. And after giving him some money, American cigarettes and such luxuries as soap and toothpaste, his brother went back on both occasions. If it were so bad, why didn't his brother try to take his family out?
If I only believed what western papers say... If it were really so bad for most North Koreans they would be fighting tooth and nail trying to leave the country. They would practically be teaming on the south banks of the Yalu River and the Chinese would see a flood of them coming over. But guess what? Most North Koreans in China go back.
The average person probably doesn't come into much contact with the NK authorities and could hardly care if there was a 'revolution', but would not oppose a revolution if one was started. But until anything major happens, most will just go about their lives trying to provide for their families in what is typical of a 3rd-world country. |
"In 1972 Kim Il-Sung passed a law stating "Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un-has-a-secret-that-could-send-him-straight-to-prison-2012-5#ixzz2svKoiaTo
If you defect your family is sent to the camps. Also, many were leaving through China, but now, thanks to your reformer, that's no longer an option.
"Kim Jong-il staged occasional crackdowns on would-be defectors, but this has been raised to new levels under Kim Jong-un. Additional army units have been posted to the border to supplement frontier police and there are reports that officials that in the past were happy to take bribes to look the other way are being punished. As well as attempting to halt the defections, the North's agents are working more closely with the Chinese authorities to recapture groups that have made the perilous crossing and are trying to traverse Chinese territory to safety in a third country. In June, a group of nine defectors – the youngest just 13 – was caught on the border with Laos and forcibly returned to North Korea. After appearing on state television to insist that they were delighted to be home, the nine were reportedly executed."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10522136/Kim-Jong-un-10-ways-North-Koreas-Dear-Leader-is-different.html
Considering that there is a 10 year long required service in the military for males, pretty much all families will come into contact with the government. Also, considering that all people are working for the government, that is not likely. You based all this on A North Korean guy meeting his brother twice in China, and not even under the current leader? |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| I hope that Japanese chef talks more about KJE. I'd take his word over the American propoganda machine. |
Do you have any reason at all for what you think, other than supposition and wishful thinking? |
I know of an old Korean neighbor, who in the 1980's, went to China to meet his North Korean brother 2 times. They somehow got seperated during the war, and I have no idea how they contacted each other. And after giving him some money, American cigarettes and such luxuries as soap and toothpaste, his brother went back on both occasions. If it were so bad, why didn't his brother try to take his family out?
If I only believed what western papers say... If it were really so bad for most North Koreans they would be fighting tooth and nail trying to leave the country. They would practically be teaming on the south banks of the Yalu River and the Chinese would see a flood of them coming over. But guess what? Most North Koreans in China go back.
The average person probably doesn't come into much contact with the NK authorities and could hardly care if there was a 'revolution', but would not oppose a revolution if one was started. But until anything major happens, most will just go about their lives trying to provide for their families in what is typical of a 3rd-world country. |
"In 1972 Kim Il-Sung passed a law stating "Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un-has-a-secret-that-could-send-him-straight-to-prison-2012-5#ixzz2svKoiaTo
If you defect your family is sent to the camps. Also, many were leaving through China, but now, thanks to your reformer, that's no longer an option.
"Kim Jong-il staged occasional crackdowns on would-be defectors, but this has been raised to new levels under Kim Jong-un. Additional army units have been posted to the border to supplement frontier police and there are reports that officials that in the past were happy to take bribes to look the other way are being punished. As well as attempting to halt the defections, the North's agents are working more closely with the Chinese authorities to recapture groups that have made the perilous crossing and are trying to traverse Chinese territory to safety in a third country. In June, a group of nine defectors – the youngest just 13 – was caught on the border with Laos and forcibly returned to North Korea. After appearing on state television to insist that they were delighted to be home, the nine were reportedly executed."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10522136/Kim-Jong-un-10-ways-North-Koreas-Dear-Leader-is-different.html
Considering that there is a 10 year long required service in the military for males, pretty much all families will come into contact with the government. Also, considering that all people are working for the government, that is not likely. You based all this on A North Korean guy meeting his brother twice in China, and not even under the current leader? |
These reports are questionable at best and a lot of the information comes from defectors who have an agenda. NK is the biggest blackhole of intelligence in the world. I believe some of it. But all these reports make NK out to be a lot worse than he probably is.
There reports are along the same journalistic integrity as the 'horrible' hotel conditions coming out of Sochi. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:38 am Post subject: |
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| Why are they questionable. That Kim Il Sung quote or law is real, and never really been contested. If you want to call numerous defectors who were in the government running the camps, or in the camps themselves, liars, you should have some reason why you think that is so. I've met defectors, nice to know you've already decided they have an agenda, but somehow find the Kim family more believable. It is becoming more and more clear that you don't really know what you are talking about, but don't like journalism, or get some kind of good vibe from Kim Jong Un or something, but feel no need to substantiate any of it. Like I mentioned before, only last Friday I met the people from the school that this thread is about, and while the event was off the record so I can't go into details, believing that North Korea isn't really that bad requires ignorance or suspension of disbelief. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Why are they questionable. That Kim Il Sung quote or law is real, and never really been contested. If you want to call numerous defectors who were in the government running the camps, or in the camps themselves, liars, you should have some reason why you think that is so. I've met defectors, nice to know you've already decided they have an agenda, but somehow find the Kim family more believable. It is becoming more and more clear that you don't really know what you are talking about, but don't like journalism, or get some kind of good vibe from Kim Jong Un or something, but feel no need to substantiate any of it. Like I mentioned before, only last Friday I met the people from the school that this thread is about, and while the event was off the record so I can't go into details, believing that North Korea isn't really that bad requires ignorance or suspension of disbelief. |
Based on most articles on NK, I'd think people are in constant fear of being sent to a death camp for just staring at a cop. They'd be cowering in fear of the site of a group of government officials. But it isn't like that. It never was that bad in Libya, Soviet Union, China or Chile. If you stay out of politics, the chance of being arrested and sent to a 'death' camp is minimal. |
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stilicho25
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 1:26 am Post subject: |
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Jvalmer, your view is so historicaly myopic its difficult to decide where to begin. Let's start off with your comparisons to the Soviet Union. There were large groups of undesirables who were eradicated or ethnically cleansed, either due to the result of bad economic policy or policies of extermination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union
A"bout 40 million people were affected by the food shortages including areas near Moscow where mortality rates increased by 50%.[53] The center of the famine, however, was Ukraine and surrounding regions, including the Don, the Kuban, the Northern Caucasus and Kazakhstan where the toll was one million dead. The countryside was affected more than cities, but 120,000 died in Kharkiv, 40,000 in Krasnodar and 20,000 in Stavropol.[53]"
Let's take a look at China during the great leap forward
"However if a mid estimate of 30 million deaths is accepted, the Great leap Forward was the deadliest famine in the history of China and in the history of the world."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
If you were caught up in one of the episodes of mass hysteria, you would see something like what is being described by the defectors. As for your comparisons to Libya, people there were afraid of the government, and they did eventually revolt against it. |
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Mickey Jeffries
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| Chaparrastique wrote: |
If you want to accuse anyone of supporting the regime you might want to point the finger at american politicians who donated nuclear reactors to the country and propped up the kims with all kinds of foreign aid. |
Only an American would do something like that. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:53 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| Why are they questionable. That Kim Il Sung quote or law is real, and never really been contested. If you want to call numerous defectors who were in the government running the camps, or in the camps themselves, liars, you should have some reason why you think that is so. I've met defectors, nice to know you've already decided they have an agenda, but somehow find the Kim family more believable. It is becoming more and more clear that you don't really know what you are talking about, but don't like journalism, or get some kind of good vibe from Kim Jong Un or something, but feel no need to substantiate any of it. Like I mentioned before, only last Friday I met the people from the school that this thread is about, and while the event was off the record so I can't go into details, believing that North Korea isn't really that bad requires ignorance or suspension of disbelief. |
Based on most articles on NK, I'd think people are in constant fear of being sent to a death camp for just staring at a cop. They'd be cowering in fear of the site of a group of government officials. But it isn't like that. It never was that bad in Libya, Soviet Union, China or Chile. If you stay out of politics, the chance of being arrested and sent to a 'death' camp is minimal. |
Are you some kind of authoritarian/totalitarian sympathizer. It is estimated that around 1% of North Korea's population is in a camp, but it is not like the camp is the only terrible thing the regime is carrying out. There was the totally preventable famine that killed 2-3 million people, there is the way that food is distributed based on a class system of desirable, suspect, and undesirable, there is the food shortage, etc.
Also, China under Mao really was that bad, with more than 40 million dying in the great leap forward, not to mention the cultural revolution. In the USSR, there were the famines, forced migrations, etc. Don't know as much about Chile and Libya, but Pinochet was a butcher. Of course to you, it is "not that bad". |
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Hokie21
Joined: 01 Mar 2011
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| Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 8:55 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| Why are they questionable. That Kim Il Sung quote or law is real, and never really been contested. If you want to call numerous defectors who were in the government running the camps, or in the camps themselves, liars, you should have some reason why you think that is so. I've met defectors, nice to know you've already decided they have an agenda, but somehow find the Kim family more believable. It is becoming more and more clear that you don't really know what you are talking about, but don't like journalism, or get some kind of good vibe from Kim Jong Un or something, but feel no need to substantiate any of it. Like I mentioned before, only last Friday I met the people from the school that this thread is about, and while the event was off the record so I can't go into details, believing that North Korea isn't really that bad requires ignorance or suspension of disbelief. |
Based on most articles on NK, I'd think people are in constant fear of being sent to a death camp for just staring at a cop. They'd be cowering in fear of the site of a group of government officials. But it isn't like that. It never was that bad in Libya, Soviet Union, China or Chile. If you stay out of politics, the chance of being arrested and sent to a 'death' camp is minimal. |
Are you some kind of authoritarian/totalitarian sympathizer. It is estimated that around 1% of North Korea's population is in a camp, but it is not like the camp is the only terrible thing the regime is carrying out. There was the totally preventable famine that killed 2-3 million people, there is the way that food is distributed based on a class system of desirable, suspect, and undesirable, there is the food shortage, etc.
Also, China under Mao really was that bad, with more than 40 million dying in the great leap forward, not to mention the cultural revolution. In the USSR, there were the famines, forced migrations, etc. Don't know as much about Chile and Libya, but Pinochet was a butcher. Of course to you, it is "not that bad". |
Jvalmer is a complete idiot. How about you spend a Sunday volunteering with the North Korean refugees at the Mulmangcho School, quite a few of the kids there are orphans and still have parents/family members in camps in NK. I'd love to hear you explain to them how it's not so bad up there.
Moron. |
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