SEOUL // An account published online last week by a young woman who says she had a close personal relationship with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reveals a wealth of information on - and new insights into - the life of the isolated country's reclusive head of state. According to the account by Mi Hyang, a former member of one of Mr Kim's "pleasure squads" - groups of attractive young women enlisted to provide entertainment and sexual services - the leader could be sentimental when drunk, and even shed tears.
His favourite delicacy contains the reproductive organ of sharks. He has a number of private residences around the capital city, some equipped with a 50-metre-long underground swimming pool. Mr Kim is known to be irascible towards his aides, but is surprisingly caring towards his private female attendants. He likes listening to Russian and Japanese music, but he is not a very good singer. He is good at hunting and often cooks the pheasants that he shoots.
Mi Hyang, who goes only by her first name, served in one of Mr Kim's pleasure squads for two years before fleeing to the South and defecting after her family was accused of treason, for reasons not yet revealed. She now resides in Seoul. The fate of her family has not been publicly disclosed. Her story was published on the well-known blog Nambuk Story, which literally means "the story of North and South Korea", in the form of an interview with the blog's owner, Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean who defected. The account published last week was the first installation in a series, of which six parts have been published.
"When I first met Kim Jong Il, he looked so normal … like a next-door neighbour. He has many brown spots on his face. His teeth were yellowish. My previous fancy about the great leader was shattered at that very moment," Mi Hyang says in the interview. "But he was very considerate towards me." Stories about life in North Korea by defectors are often published in the South, but Mi Hyang's one is unusual in that it deals directly and intimately with the life of Mr Kim. Few people have access to the leader.
Analysts say the account is a valuable source of information on Mr Kim. "I believe it's quite credible. There are also many new things about Kim Jong Il in her story that were not previously known," said Kim Sung-min, a former propaganda officer for the North Korean army and now the head of the Seoul-based Radio Free North Korea. The existence of Mr Kim's harems has long been known by South Korea's intelligence community.
According to Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korea studies at Seoul's Dongguk University, the young women in the pleasure squads are employees of the state whose work in many cases equates to other forms of mandatory service, such as military duty. "Unlike a capitalistic country, [pleasure squads] are managed on a state level," Mr Koh said. "They are not only for Kim Jong Il, but also for other senior cadre. They serve at official functions of the ruling class."
It is not known how many women work in this way for Mr Kim and the rulers, but various South Korean media estimate 2,000. Apart from sexual services, the women provide massages and dance and sing. Mi Hyang described how she was recruited. "I was 15 when two officers in their forties visited my school. They inspected all the female students and put aside some of them, including me, and made a detailed record of my family history and school record. I was asked whether I ever slept with a boy. I felt so ashamed to hear such a question.
"Those over 165cm [tall] are excluded because Kim Jong Il is short," she said, adding that the candidate's body should not have any scars or blemishes and their voice should be soft and feminine. They also undergo a thorough medical examination. Across the country, 30 to 40 students are chosen annually as final candidates, including 15 males who serve as farmhands or household servants to Mr Kim. The new recruits undergo six months of training before they are "interviewed" by Mr Kim, who then decides whether he likes them. If they are chosen they can serve him until the age of 25, when they retire from duty. Before Mi Hyang met Mr Kim, she was required to write a pledge of allegiance with blood from her finger vowing to "To serve loyally".
During their service to Mr Kim, which usually lasts 10 years, servants are not allowed to contact their families. Mi Hyang's service was cut short when her family was accused of treason and ordered to be executed. Mr Kim, she said, instructed that she not be killed. "I was told that he gave an order not to kill me. Perhaps, I owe him my life," Mi Hyang said. Shortly after that she fled. Mi Hyang said she never slept with Mr Kim. She also said he gave her a new name. "He said my original name sounded like a countryside girl and gave me a new name, 'Mi Hyang', which has since been registered in all my official records."
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst on North Korea at the Sejong Institute, a Seoul-based think tank, said Mi Hyang's testimony enabled South Koreans to take a sober look at the North's pleasure squads, which are often sensationalised in southern media. As of yesterday, 7.8 million people had visited the Nambuk blog where Mi Hyang's story is told. Attempting to defect is usually punished by death in North Korea, as authorities there fear defectors could divulge secrets about the Dear Leader, and southern officials say it is possible Mi Hyang is being monitored.
The blog's owner, Mr Joo, said he and Mi Hyang were advised by South Korean authorities against publishing the story, saying it would be difficult to guarantee the pair's safety. "We receive death threats all the time," Mr Joo said. @Email:foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
Sun jukebox
Rufus Thomas, Bear Cat (The Answer to Hound Dog) (1953)
This rip-off of Leiber/Stoller’s early rock stomper brought a lawsuit against Phillips and necessitated Presley’s premature sale to RCA.
Elvis Presley, Mystery Train (1955)
The B-side of Presley’s final single for Sun bops with a drummer-less groove.
Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, Folsom Prison Blues (1955)
Originally recorded for Sun, Cash’s signature tune was performed for inmates of the titular prison 13 years later.
Carl Perkins, Blue Suede Shoes (1956)
Within a month of Sun’s February release Elvis had his version out on RCA.
Roy Orbison, Ooby Dooby (1956)
An essential piece of irreverent juvenilia from Orbison.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls of Fire (1957)
Lee’s trademark anthem is one of the era’s best-remembered – and best-selling – songs.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
RESULTS
5pm: Rated Conditions (PA) Dh85,000 (Turf) 1,600m
Winner: AF Mouthirah, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: AF Alajaj, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: Hawafez, Connor Beasley, Abubakar Daud
6.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m
Winner: Tair, Fabrice Veron, Eric Lemartinel
7pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m
Winner: Wakeel W’Rsan, Richard Mullen, Jaci Wickham
7.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
Winner: Son Of Normandy, Fernando Jara, Ahmad bin Harmash
