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Swiss James
Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Location: Shanghai
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 Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| soviet_man you are either a very very subtle satirist or incredibly misguided. |
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FUBAR
Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Location: The Y.C.
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
There is no conclusive primary-source proof about Kim's movements or living conditions. What we *DO* know is that Western journalists - people that have never set foot in North Korea - are in no position to make such judgements first hand. Frankly, nor are we.
|
Here is an article writen by his former chef that disputes your claims.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/19/news/norkor.html
| Quote: |
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.
See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were
never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.SEOUL In sleepy North Korea, where ox carts outnumber cars, the ruling Kim family dashes from villa to villa in high speed convoys of black Mercedes-Benzes. In a poor country where a prized possession is a used Japanese bicycle, the Kim clan enjoy the most expensive imported toys - Jet Skis, motorcycles, karaoke machines, NBA-regulation basketball courts.
.
And in the late 1990s, when about two million North Koreans starved to death, their Dear Leader - as Kim Jong Il is known - sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Tehran to buy caviar, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs.
.
This portrait of Kim and his family living a sheltered, pampered existence, a modern echo of ancient Korean royal dynasties, comes from a burly, chain-smoking Japanese sushi chef who until 2001 served as personal chef for the family. Writing under the name of Kenji Fujimoto, a pseudonym adopted for his safety, the chef, who is 56, came out last year with a memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." Published in Japanese and Korean, the book contained 70 photographs, including several of the author with Kim. Last summer, in a new book, "The Private Life of Kim Jong Il," he focused on the dozen villas he had visited, including diagrams and photographs.
.
"I am the only foreign person to spend time with Kim Jong Il, so close as to feel his breath," he said in a recent interview at his Tokyo publishing house. To disguise his appearance from North Korea agents he believes want to kill him, he had grown a goatee, covered his hair with a bandanna, and carried sunglasses for public forays.
.
With the death in August of Kim Jong Il's favorite mistress, Koh Young Hee, attention has turned on the secretive, luxurious lifestyle of a family that, according to this former palace insider, treats the nation as its plantation. This fall, three sons are in the running to be groomed as heir to their father.
.
Now 62 years old, Kim started running North Korea at least a decade before his own father died in 1994.
.
If the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.
.
"I think he sensed the reality," the Japanese author said, recalling seeing gaunt and starving peasants as the official motorcade raced along one of the nation's three highways. "You could see the malnourished children standing on the land. Naturally he saw these people through the car windows."
.
While Kim was slow to admit foreign food donations to ease the famine, he was quick to send underlings on international missions to satisfy his gourmet whims. Grapes came from China, mangoes from Thailand, papayas from Singapore, and, from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, fatty tuna, sea urchins, eels and squid. From France, came boxes of cheeses and enough wine, brandy and cognac to replenish what the author called "the royal wine cellar," a collection of 10,000 imported bottles.
.
.
One day, he recalled, the leader's sons came home from boarding school in Switzerland and "reported to Kim Jong Il, 'we ate hamburgers and it was so delicious."'
.
"So I flew to Beijing, and went to McDonald's and bought a bag of hamburgers," the chef recounted. "Of course by the time I got back to Pyongyang, they were cold. So Kim Jong Il ate cold hamburgers." The experience may have prodded Kim to introduce hamburgers to the masses.
.
In 2000, he began a campaign to feed university students "gogigyeopbbang," which is Korean for "double bread with meat," also known as a hamburger.
.
"I've made up my mind to feed quality bread and French fries to university students, professors and researchers even if we are in hardship," Kim said at the time.
.
For public consumption, North Korean propaganda often refers to Kim enjoying a hearty meal of potatoes at an army canteen. On visiting army garrisons, Kim also often distributes imported packets of Japanese ramen noodles to awestruck soldiers. But in the late 1990s, when the state propaganda machinery was advising famine stricken North Koreans to forage for grass, roots, and edible bark, Kim's conversations with his foreign chef were of exotic ingredients, of new recipes and new cookbooks.
.
"Before I cooked rice for him, a waiter and kitchen staff had to inspect it grain by grain," the chef wrote. "Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those what were perfect were served."
.
By 2000, foreign charities, led by the World Food Program, were feeding about one quarter of North Korea's population of 20 million. But inside the sealed world of Kim Jong Il, the Japanese chef recalled, the only time food shortages came up was when employees at a villa kennel were caught eating beef intended for Kim's pet dogs.
.
"Kim Jong Il ordered the kennel director to go to a labor camp for two years and the others for one year," he wrote in the new book. "Twenty kilograms of beef in the refrigerator every day must have been a great temptation to the workers who were never given beef."
.
The favored foreign chef freely admits to enjoying the high life - the gambling parties with bricks of $100 bills, the gourmet meals, the private screenings of the latest Hollywood movies and the company of Kim's charming team of young "pleasure girls."
.
Through marriage to one of them, Om Jong Nyo, the author said he got a look at the other side of the high walls separating governors and governed in the Stalinist nation.
.
"We secretly went to see her family one month after our marriage," he said. "I was amazed that six people were living in one room."
.
At the time, he said, the family was trying to survive on food rations of 85 grams, or three ounces, of food per person per day. Later, he learned that four members died of smoke poisoning from burning coal briquettes in the unheated, poorly ventilated room.
.
"I don't know any other country in the world like North Korea that has such a huge gap between rich and poor," the Japanese chef wrote of a country that claims to follow the world's purest brand of communism.
.
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Shutterfly
Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 12:23 am Post subject: |
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The article is posted 3 times  ^^^ |
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Freezer Burn
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 12:47 am Post subject: |
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Look out for the KJI clothing line out this summer, it will be shown on the catwalks of Pyongyang, soon to be seen in Beijing, Seoul and Milan.
Big name celeb's are ordering before the release in anticipation of a sellout line.
Fashion spies, currently on death row in DPRK, say that the big color for the summer season is grey.
My sources have it that the fashion show will feature "approved haircuts" as a theme and the music will be the military march followed by an after party that features a show of arms and a possible display on the great designers latest project plutonuim processing.
Should be a great night and I for one fashion queen will be in line to get the latest KJI fittings, right behind Soviet man |
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soviet_man
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 3:02 am Post subject: |
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This man is interested in selling his book for profit.
Much in the same way journalists write (usually false) stories about Kim Jong Il to sell newspapers.
Everything this author writes MUST be seen in that context.
If a publishing house offered him cash to write it, I'm sure this man would *suddenly* be able to come up with such stories about Kim.
As I've said before, the whole North Korea "famine" argument is a myth. Statistically, the USA actually has a higher death rate than the DPRK (due to its grossly obese population). |
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Saxiif
Joined: 15 May 2003
Location: Seongnam
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 4:22 am Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
This man is interested in selling his book for profit.
Much in the same way journalists write (usually false) stories about Kim Jong Il to sell newspapers.
Everything this author writes MUST be seen in that context.
If a publishing house offered him cash to write it, I'm sure this man would *suddenly* be able to come up with such stories about Kim.
As I've said before, the whole North Korea "famine" argument is a myth. Statistically, the USA actually has a higher death rate than the DPRK (due to its grossly obese population). |
Yes, because NKorea would never EVER provide the world with anything but the most acurate economic statistics! Perish the thought! |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
This man is interested in selling his book for profit.
Much in the same way journalists write (usually false) stories about Kim Jong Il to sell newspapers.
Everything this author writes MUST be seen in that context.
If a publishing house offered him cash to write it, I'm sure this man would *suddenly* be able to come up with such stories about Kim.
As I've said before, the whole North Korea "famine" argument is a myth. Statistically, the USA actually has a higher death rate than the DPRK (due to its grossly obese population). |
The famine is I belief very real and it stupid to say otherwise. Of course this guy is interested in selling books but that doesn't mean it is made up. KJI whilst short is not as short as the North Korean guards I saw when I visited the DMZ. I'm only of average height but even I made these guys look like dwarves and I'm guessing they probably put their biggest guys on show at the DMZ the south Korean guards were by comparison generally pretty big guys. |
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JacktheCat
Joined: 08 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
This man is interested in selling his book for profit.
Much in the same way journalists write (usually false) stories about Kim Jong Il to sell newspapers.
Everything this author writes MUST be seen in that context.
If a publishing house offered him cash to write it, I'm sure this man would *suddenly* be able to come up with such stories about Kim.
As I've said before, the whole North Korea "famine" argument is a myth. Statistically, the USA actually has a higher death rate than the DPRK (due to its grossly obese population).
|
Me thinks you need to visit Dalian, China where many North Korean refugees live.
The stories they will tell you of their life in North Korean will chill your soul.
Or wander through the stores in Chinese towns near the North Korean border and see the food for sale stamped UNICEF and USAID and realise this is food that was intended for starving North Koreans that was sold on the black market to buy more guns for the North Korean army and cavier for Kim Jong Il.
Go see the truth for yourself.
In this world or the next, the Kim family will pay for it's crimes against the Korean people. |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 7:29 am Post subject: |
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KJI is not crazy. He pretends to be a madman to get more concessions out of gullible countries. He knows exactly what he is doing. That SOB will pay some day. I can only hope it is his own people that get rid of him. Poetic justice.
Soviet Man, we should always take media articles with a grain of salt yes. People are really starving in North Korea though. Communism doesn't work. Look at the Soviet Union's food production through the years. Very inefficient. Look at what Communism did to Angola. A net food exporter became an economic basket case.
Argue against capitalism if you wish but at least that system allows you to grow food effectively. |
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Kimchieluver
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Why argue with Soviet_Idiot? His life is a sham. He should donate his computer to North Korea, as well as work for less than 350,000 won/month and give the rest to Cuba.
I bet he has long hair and watches S. Korean television and maybe even spends money on unnecessary items like meat. |
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soviet_man
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 1:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Me thinks you need to visit Dalian, China where many North Korean refugees live. |
Under capitalism, everyone has a price. Defectors will say or do anything to get what they want (a ticket to South Korea).
| Quote: |
| Or wander through the stores in Chinese towns near the North Korean border and see the food for sale stamped UNICEF and USAID and realise this is food that was intended for starving North Koreans that was sold on the black market to buy more guns for the North Korean army and cavier for Kim Jong Il. |
I'm afraid I don't buy the "rice for guns" argument either. Perhaps in small amounts it occurs in Dandong and Shenyang. But overwhelmingly, the western humanitarian organisations inside the DPRK monitor these movements. Realistically, you would need a huge amount of rice to exchange for weapons.
| Quote: |
| The famine is I belief very real and it stupid to say otherwise |
If this famine existed (and it doesn't) the DPRK's death-rate and life expectantcy would be on par with some African republics. But it simply isn't. It is quite similar to South Korea's death-rate and life expectantcy.
| Quote: |
| Argue against capitalism if you wish but at least that system allows you to grow food effectively. |
Laissez-faire capitalist economics = 5 billion people (out of 6.39 billion) living in permanant poverty.
I don't see that as producing and distributing food effectively. |
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Kimchieluver
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| In North Korea, everybody lives below the poverty line, excluding government officials of course. That's why there is no bark left on the trees. Soviet_Man you are an idiiot. Why did you leave Russia? |
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Randall Flagg
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Location: Talkin' trash to the garbage around you
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 4:01 am Post subject: |
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| Soviet_man, I suggest you watch the documentary "Children of the Secret State". It is an eye opening film with actual footage from The DPRK. It can be downloaded from www2.digitaldistractions.org |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 4:39 am Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
| This man is interested in selling his book for profit. |
When numerous unrelated sources say the same things that argument cannot go very far. Almost any reputable book on North Korea details Kim Jong Ill's excesses, and countless diplomats (many from Russia, China, and former Eastern European allies) also detail his extravagant dining habits. Your position is downed by the sheer amount of evidence directly contradicting it.
| Quote: |
| No. Not at all. I have never seen Kim wearing a suit and tie. |
Normal North Koreans don't have a change of clothing. Noone was talking about slick suits.
| Quote: |
| As I've said before, the whole North Korea "famine" argument is a myth |
When hundreds of defectors completely unknown to each other are saying the same things, and various aid organisations detail famine on a mass scale your contention that the North Korean famine is a "myth" constitutes nothing more than trolling activity at the best, or outright stupidity at the worst. It's a sad indictment of your character. |
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soviet_man
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Soviet_man, I suggest you watch the documentary "Children of the Secret State" |
Scenes of poverty and child abuse are universal and could equally of be taken in any US city, or in South Korea, or any country in the world.
Economic conditions in South Korea have also caused significant exploitation. There are a lot of beggers in Seoul and people who are homeless, unemployed and socially disadvantaged.
I also think its "child abuse" for a parent to force a 7 year old to undertake 15 hours a day of school and hagwon in South Korea and deprive them of time to be children. |
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