Another pattern he established was that of not not appearing in public. He had been reclusive before his 1980 debut as heir-designate, and he was to remain so. Pyongyang after 1980 reported that the junior Kim had been eschewing appearances at meetings, other than the party congress at which he was anointed and a series of celebratory parades. Instead he was spending his time traveling around to give "guidance" to the people. appearing in public. He had been reclusive before his 1980 debut as heir-designate, and he was to remain so. Pyongyang after 1980 reported that the junior Kim had been eschewing appearances at meetings, other than the party congress at which he was anointed and a series of celebratory parades. Instead he was spending his time traveling around to give "guidance" to the people.
In fact he lived much of his life in the private world of a movie fan, locked up in a room with his celluloid and videotape images of the outside. After a trip to China in 1983, it appears that he seldom went abroad. Besides absorbing movie versions of foreign places, he had his women dress up once a week in the national costume of some country, serve him the cuisine of that country and make believe.
Kim Jong-il"s responsibilities increased, so much so that the contrast of his behavior with the persona he needed to project became untenable. Eventually he himself would realize the need for a conscious effort to clean up his act. But that time did not come until the mid-1980s, when-already in his forties-he was placed in day-to-day charge of the party government and military. His youth and some signs that he harbored liberal views led to hopes that he would prove to be a reformer prince, but early evidence for that proposition was less than overwhelming.
Especially through the first half of the 1980s, although he had started a family as early as 1977, Kim Jong-il continued an active schedule of relationships with women from the world of let"s pretend: actresses, dancers, members of his mansions corps. At the same time, according to Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, who was working for him in a high-ranking position in the party"s central committee, Kim would go to any length to portray himself in the public eye as "above reproach when it comes to women." Hw.a.n.g said Kim "forbade women to ride behind men on bicycles when out searching for food because it offended public morals. He even forbade women from riding bicycles on their own because he said it was unsightly."
If such decrees seem more ridiculous than sinister, consider the story told by Hw.a.n.g, architect-engineer Kim Young-song and others about Woo In-hee, a promiscuous movie star who had received the t.i.tle "people"s actress." In 1980 she was making love in a garaged car-the engine and heater running--with a Korean returnee from j.a.pan. Both were overcome by carbon monoxide and the man died. When Woo recovered, authorities interrogated her to obtain a list of men with whom she had been intimate. The story goes that Kim Jong-il then ordered her execution by shooting. Hw.a.n.g wrote, "It is rumored that the main reason for deciding to kill Woo was that she had crumbled under interrogation and confessed to having slept with Kim Jong-il.2 While many elite North Koreans had heard about Woo, the rumors about Kim Jong-il"s involvement with her awaited confirmation. The evidence was a little better in the case of another woman who talked out of school. A Happy Corps member was irate because it was time for her retirement and she had not been a.s.signed a husband like the other retirees. She let off steam by complaining to acquaintances that Kim Jong-il "is propagandized as a holy, pure, G.o.dlike type, but he"s nothing like that." Former political prisoner Ahn Hyuk told me he had met the woman in his prison camp and heard directly from her about this.
(It was Ahn, drawing on what he said that woman prisoner had told him, who said that "Kim Jong-il didn"t go overseas any more, so they would have national nights. On India night, the Happy Corps would wear Indian sari and he would eat Indian food. The next time they might be gotten up as geishas." But former official Kang Myong-do told the Seoul newspaper JoongAng Ilbo JoongAng Ilbo that Kim did make some unannounced pleasure trips up until the mid-1980s. "He would take his private jet to Hong Kong, Macao, stay in the top hotels, eat Chinese delicacies including sparrow specialties.") that Kim did make some unannounced pleasure trips up until the mid-1980s. "He would take his private jet to Hong Kong, Macao, stay in the top hotels, eat Chinese delicacies including sparrow specialties.") My point in dwelling on the Kims" s.e.x lives at some length is to show that a great many North Koreans were affected by the rulers" systematic, even official, exploitation of girls and young women. I mentioned President Bill Clinton and Prince Charles earlier. Many people would argue that the news media and, in Clinton"s case, political opponents were too keen to expose what were essentially private acts between consenting adults, the sort of affairs that many countrymen who were far less exalted like-wise engaged in. I doubt that many who have read this far would offer such an argument on behalf of the Kims.
Sometimes it was men who suffered from Kim"s womanizing, if that term can be used for such intricately organized hunting and gathering. One former official told me the story of Kang Yon-ok, a beautiful woman who "was able to make her acting debut because she was Kim Jong-il"s mistress. Kim Jong-il kept her from age seventeen to twenty-nine. He set her up to marry an actor, Yi Sung-nam. Yi didn"t know she wasn"t a virgin. He was upset when he discovered she wasn"t, and taunted her. She had promised not to talk about her background, but she felt she had to tell him. He was furious. He spoke to his friends, asking: "How could Kim Jong-il do this?" Now he"s in a prison camp. Lots of people in North Korea know this story."
The former official added that Pyongyang elite circles believed actress Kang as well as others among Kim"s mistresses had become pregnant by Kim before he married them off to other men, and subsequently had given birth to his children. The official mentioned in this regard famous actresses Hong Yung-hui ("who played the t.i.tle role in the movie The Flower Girl), The Flower Girl), O Mi-ran and Ji Yung-bok. Although specific confirmation of such rumors is elusive, it is indisputable that Kim did take time out of the busy schedule of the country"s co-ruler to involve himself in matchmaking-traditionally the job of parents. Consider the following story-this one from an official biography- of a hastily arranged marriage: O Mi-ran and Ji Yung-bok. Although specific confirmation of such rumors is elusive, it is indisputable that Kim did take time out of the busy schedule of the country"s co-ruler to involve himself in matchmaking-traditionally the job of parents. Consider the following story-this one from an official biography- of a hastily arranged marriage: One evening in January 1980, a woman anti-j.a.panese veteran was telephoned in her office by Kim Jong-il and was told to come to him at once. ... Some days previously, Kim Jong-il, who had heard that she had a son who was old enough to get married, chose a fiancee for ... her son, who was serving in the army after graduating from a military academy, and asked her opinion. She immediately agreed with Kim Jong-il"s choice and was grateful for his kindness, which was as great as the warmth shown by parents to their son. Remembering his care, the veteran fighter wondered, while she was in the car, how she would thank him when she met the man who had been worried about her family. Before she realized it, the car pulled into the grounds of a building.But she found something else to surprise her when she entered the room. Her son and married daughter were already there. "Oh, my what are you doing here?" Her daughter told her what had happened. Kim Jong-il had sent for her because of her son"s marriage. After he had heard the opinions of both the lad and the girl as well as the parents of both sides, Kim Jong-il had thought that, because they all agreed about the marriage, it would be a good idea to have an engagement party. This was why they had been sent for. ...Kim Jong-il was highly delighted to see her, and shook her hand ?warmly He told her that he had sent for her because he wanted to decide on her son"s betrothed and hold the engagement party and then set the date of their marriage. Then he asked her for her opinion. She thanked him heartily, saying that they had no greater honor that that of having the engagement party in the presence of Kim Jong-il. They would not mind if they did not have a wedding party, she added. She said they would take the memorable engagement party as being a wedding party. Kim Jong-il thanked her and told an official to prepare the wedding party.3 Mean-while, the regime"s ideologists were working hard to develop a theoretical basis for the succession. As ultimately spelled out, it involved these propositions: First, it was necessary to have a successor to Kim Il-sung, because "the struggle of the working cla.s.s and the ma.s.ses of people is too prolonged and too complicated to be completed in one generation." Second, the heir must be someone endowed with "boundless loyalty to the Great Leader, which takes the form of a complete knowledge and understanding of the revolutionary thought of the Leader; dedication to the working-cla.s.s and people"s interests; and complete inheritance of the Great Leader"s ill.u.s.trious leadership and a full embodiment of his lofty moral virtues.4 Of course, only one person combined all these virtues. Of course, only one person combined all these virtues.
Kim Il-sung played Confucian ethics for all they were worth to justify the hereditary elite he established and his plans for dynastic rule of the country. It was at least partially for that purpose that the regime"s propagandists-now headed by his son-glorified the elder Kim"s parents, uncles, grandparents and even his great-grandfather as patriot leaders. "All of the world"s people ought to learn from the record of struggle established by the Kim family," Radio Pyongyang told listeners in 1977. "The people of the world envy the Korean people who have such a family as their leaders. Therefore we must be loyal and devoted to the Kim family and their shining tradition."5 In fact, of course, not all the people of the world-and not even all the people of the communist world--were swept away with envy. An American Korea specialist went to China in the early 1980s and discussed North Korea with Chinese Pyongyang-watchers. He kept trying to get their opinion on the dynasty in Pyongyang, but the Chinese were hesitant to talk about it. Finally the host said, "Let"s go to lunch and stop talking about this. But before we go I will say one thing. We communist theoreticians have a difficult time categorizing this system. Is it feudal socialism or socialist feudalism?"
Lies quickly engulfed the young Kim, as they had his father. Indeed, his own official personality cult is even more ludicrous in its excess than Kim Il-sung"s, because propagandists had far less to work with. In the case of the elder Kim, the regime"s sycophantic biographers needed only a few steps from recounting his actual guerrilla war record during the 1930s to casting him as a magical general who could cross rivers by walking on fallen leaves. When it came to the son, though, a lack of tangible achievements made constructing a towering image more difficult. After all, Kim Jong-il fought in neither the anti-j.a.panese resistance nor the Korean War. Casting about for alternative legends to glorify the man who would be Great Leader but who had little apparent Great Leadership to his credit, the Pyongyang regime settled on the t.i.tle of "genius."6 Kim Il-sung got personally involved in the new propaganda push on his designated heir"s behalf. According to Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, the former party ideology secretary, with the success of the intensified efforts to glorify the senior Kim"s revolutionary career "the stage was set for the birth of the first legend about Kim Jong-il-his birth in 1942 in a secret encampment in Mount Paektu. Kim Il-sung was enjoying a holiday in the resort in Samjiyeon when he summoned the people who had partic.i.p.ated in the partisan struggle and ordered them to find the site of the secret camp in Mount Paektu where Kim Jong-il was born. Obviously they could not find something that did not exist. So Kim Il-sung said that he would have to do it himself. He looked around and picked a scenic spot and claimed that that was where the secret encampment had been. He then named the mountain peak behind it "Jongilbong" (Jong-il Peak). The Party History Center obtained a huge granite rock and carved the word "Jongilbong" on it. Then they accomplished the difficult task of hoisting the rock up the Jongilbong and attaching it there. Underneath the rock they built a hut called "Home of the Mount Paektu secret encampment" and went around claiming that this hut was where Kim Il-sung had lived with Kim Jong-suk. This was where he had planted the red flag indicating the commander"s headquarters and directed the partisan struggle. And this was where Kim Jong-il was born. He supposedly grew up in this hut listening to the sounds of gunshots of the partisans." One of Hw.a.n.g"s jobs was supervising the Party History Center, he wrote.7 ***
Kim Jong-il was credited with having been the advocate of the policy of mobilizing ma.s.ses of workers to complete construction projects at breakneck speed. In October 1974 "when the economy was faced with many difficulties," Kim Il-sung convened a meeting of the Party Central Committee"s politburo. "At that time Mr. Kim Jong-il set forward the policy of waging "speed battles" to overcome the economic difficulties," a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Tokyo reported later. Others pointed out the obstacles, but "it was his firm conviction that there was nothing that could not be overcome if the inexhaustible power and energy of the ma.s.ses were mobilized. On October 5 of the same year, in order to fulfill the annual a.s.signments of economic construction, Mr. Kim Jong-il proposed to start a "70-day battle" in the national economy"8 Such "speed battles" became the trademark of Kim Jong-il"s leadership style, both in contruction and in the general operation of the economy. Looking back at the end of 1980 on the accomplishments of that year, for example, North Korea"s Central News Agency credited the "dazzling ray of guidance"-Kim Jong-il, of course--with a construction "speed campaign" in which "grandiose monumental creations ... have sprung up everywhere." All those "great monuments of the era of the Workers" Party, which were built in the land of paradise under the outstretched hand of guidance, are gifts of great love which could be provided only by the Respected and Beloved Leader [Kim Il-sung] and the Benevolent Party Center."
Upholding his father"s "architectural esthetic," Kim Jong-il focused his energies on ma.s.sive urban-development projects in Pyongyang. "The young secretary completely transformed the capital" by 1979, throwing up hospitals, an indoor stadium and the Mansudae Art Theater. Changgw.a.n.g Street, lined with new twenty- to thirty-story apartment blocks, normally would have taken three or four years to build but went up in ten months in 1980, the regime boasted.9 Even though he already had received his father"s approval to become the successor, Kim Jong-il continued his elaborate and expensive flattery of Kim Il-sung. As when he was a youngster, the son was accustomed to doing as he wished-and ordinary mortals generally were not prepared to stand in his way. "Formally, the Supreme People"s a.s.sembly is the highest sovereign organization in North Korea," one former high-ranking official said. "In reality, even if it sets a budget, Kim Jong-il will demand unreasonable expenses for constructing such projects as villas, the Juche Tower or the Arch of Triumph. Cases of unplanned expenses are frequent. Although there are times when experts spin around in circles, pointing out these expenses, there is no one who can act as a restraining force." The former official added: "Most citizens are unaware of these non-productive expenditures. However, even if they harbor dissatisfaction, is there anyone who could express this dissatisfaction and make an issue out of it? This non-productive investment was an important cause of the economic predicament North Korea fell into in the latter half of the 1980s. The waste was caused by the political environment leading up to the transfer of power to Kim Jong-il.10 In 1983 officials of Chongryon, the pro-Pyongyang a.s.sociation of Korean residents in j.a.pan, which functions as a sort of de facto emba.s.sy in the absence of diplomatic relations between j.a.pan and North Korea, invited me to a movie screening. It would be the j.a.pan premiere of a doc.u.mentary film depicting a visit to China by Kim Jong-il.
That was an irresistible invitation at a time when North Korea was very much in the news. The country had just sent commandos to Burma to bomb a South Korean delegation. Failing to harm the South"s president, the North Korean agents killed four of his cabinet members and thirteen other officials. Among those who died in Rangoon was Kim Jae-ik, a brilliant, Stanford-educated economist-in my estimation the best and brightest of the technocrats involved in planning the South"s economic miracle. After my 1979 visit to North Korea I had traveled to Seoul to compare notes with South Korean officials. Talking about the North was still a strong taboo, however, and every official I visited contrived to change the subject-except for Kim Jae-ik. I actually went to see him to talk about another topic, South Korea"s economic plans. But when he heard I had just come from the North he was so excited that he kept me in his office for several hours, picking my brain about what I had learned there. In the fall of 1983, when I saw Kim Jae-ik"s name on the Rangoon fatalities list, I felt personal loss. (It was only much later that various sources, among them former party secretary Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop,11 suggested that Kim Jong-il had ordered the attack. Some a.n.a.lysts say his father still retained the main supervisory role over major initiatives in inter-Korean and foreign affairs.) suggested that Kim Jong-il had ordered the attack. Some a.n.a.lysts say his father still retained the main supervisory role over major initiatives in inter-Korean and foreign affairs.) I duly attended the screening and reviewed the film as follows for my employer at the time, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, and its U.S. parent newspaper: and its U.S. parent newspaper: TOKYO-Is the virtual crown prince of communist North Korea a candidate for an early heart attack? Does he lack a skill so essential to a political leader as speechmaking? Did he harbor doubts about the intentions of North Korea"s Chinese allies-doubts that Beijing sought to allay with almost two weeks of marathon banquets, talks, sightseeing and (literal) hand-holding? With President Reagan due to visit the other Korea this coming weekend, such questions may be of at least pa.s.sing interest to Americans.A North Korean doc.u.mentary film, "Dear Leader Kim Jong-il"s visit to China," which premiered in English here, chronicles a June visit to China by Kim Jong-il, President Kim Il-sung"s 41-year-old son and designated successor. It gives tantalizing clues to the personality abilities, att.i.tudes and health of a leader little known outside his largely closed country. And it provides hints of North Korean and Chinese policy trends at a time when tension in Northeast Asia is heightened by the Rangoon bomb that killed 17 South Korean officials and by the earlier Soviet downing of a South Korean jetliner.The younger Mr. Kim is secretary of the Korean Workers" (Communist) Party. He visited China June 112. The trip wasn"t announced until after his return.The two-hour film describes the visit as "unofficial." Yet it makes clear that the Chinese went all out to give their guest treatment befitting an officially visiting head of state. At every arrival and sendoff during a rail trip that took him to several east-coast cities, his hosts stage-managed the sort of adulation by supposedly joyous crowds of-well--wishers he is accustomed to at home--where both he and his father are treated as G.o.dlike cult figures of superhuman brilliance and accomplishments.The film covers only ceremonial and social parts of Mr. Kim"s meetings with Chinese officials, who included Deng Xiaoping, Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang and Premier Zhao Zhiyang. But it covers those parts interminably and in the process supports some observations and some educated guesses:Young Mr. Kim has a heroic abdominal overhang of the sort known outside sober North Korea as a beer belly. Despite a discreet tailoring job on the gunmetal-blue Mao-style tunics he wore, he looked in the film to be perhaps 40 to 50 pounds overweight. He smokes filtertipped cigarettes. In Beijing he slowed going up some steep steps and looked out of breath. A Chinese soldier accompanying him offered an arm, but he refused it. Most doctors would counsel dieting and exercise to reduce the chances of high blood presure, heart attack, stroke or other illness.(On the other hand, his father carries similar bulk and also is a smoker, and he pa.s.sed his 71st birthday this year. And there must be political advantages in looking like his father--which he does, except for his sylishly permed hair, right down to the boyishly round face seen in old photos of the elder Mr. Kim.)The younger Mr. Kim may dislike public speaking. He appeared to lack talent for it. When welcoming speeches were made to him and his party during the trip, he almost always left the replies to underlings. When he did make a speech he stood reading it without expression, his head down. He made neither gestures nor eye contact with the audience. This is curious, since North Korean spokesmen in Tokyo have praised the oratorical skills of the "dear leader."Mr. Kim seemed unsmilingly ill at ease or haughty on occasion during the first days in China. But by the time his trip ended, the film showed him positively glowing. It is possible that in the beginning he simply suffered from the usual shock experienced by a visitor unaccustomed to the mammoth banquets with which the Chinese stuff their guests. But it is more likely he took a-while to decide whether to trust his hosts. Chinese leaders, only recently rid of the personality cult and nepotism of the late Chairman Mao Zedong, had been slow to recognize the junior Mr. Kim publicly as successor to his father"s even more extravagant personality cult. And there had been hints of a softening in China"s stance toward the North"s mortal enemy, South Korea. When his stiffness turned to relaxation, and even an animated charm, around mid-way in the visit, it is a good bet he was responding not just to the lavish hospitality but mainly to promises of support, implied or expressed.The film was made originally in Korean, which indicates it was intended to give the home folks the message that China was recognizing the younger Mr. Kim as heir to his father. Like the very expensive continuing propaganda campaign to portray the father as a leader revered world-wide for his sagacity, this effort testifies that in North Korea there still are doubters, if not overt opponents, of "Kimilsungism" and its provision for an hereditary succession. For several years, North Korea"s officials and spokesmen have seemed extremely sensitive to foreign criticism of the Kim clan"s nepotism, and this hasn"t changed. One of the unofficial spokesmen for North Korea, who arranged the film premiere, pointedly struck up a conversation with me about my very young son. "So you have a successor now," the spokesman said. "Do you want him to be a journalist like you?"The Chinese were able to swallow their very strong misgivings and embrace the scion of so un-Marxist an inst.i.tution as a dynasty. That shows once again how susceptible they are to Kim Il-sung"s playing off of China against the Soviet Union. The film shows how literally that term "embrace" can be taken. Hu Yaobang, the main official negotiating with Mr. Kim, had at least five sessions with him. And Mr. Hu went for the hard sell. On two occasions the film shows him trying to link arms with Mr. Kim. Both times Mr. Kim resisted. Eventually, Mr. Hu"s determined overtures prevailed and they strolled along holding hands.Finally, the film is yet another demonstration that North Korea"s propaganda is the most heavy-handed in the world. The doc.u.mentary unmercifully subjects viewers to every railway station arrival demonstration, every fervent fare-well, every banquet toast. Eleven sets of talks and banquets are described as having occurred in atmospheres characterized by combinations of qualities from this list: cordial, serious, comradely and friendly. The cameraman throughout the long trip never failed to lean out of the train window just after a departure and film the train snaking around a curve ahead, and the editor never failed to leave the cliched scene in. All this belies a 1980 desrip-tion of Mr. Kim by North Korea"s spokesmen here as the country"s Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k, as an artistic film director in his own right who transformed the country"s cinema even as he gave "personal guidance" to many musicians, dancers and jugglers.The film showing was arranged and invitations sent before the explosion in Rangoon. It is a doc.u.ment that hints at the state of mind of North Korea"s leadership in the months just before the bombing: perhaps an enhanced confidence resulting from China"s overtures.12 I heard subsequently that the highest-level Chongryon official involved in inviting me to the screening had been required to answer to his superiors for my review. According to one account, he nearly lost his job over it. Our relationship cooled decidedly after that. I was told by another official in the Chongryon Tokyo headquarters more than five years later that the incident still was held against me, and was remembered in connection with my continuing applications to revisit North Korea. Mean-while, after that China journey Kim Jong-il took few publicized trips abroad.13 But the China visit"s diplomatic success could be seen in de facto Chinese support for his status- and, soon, in Soviet public recognition that he would be the successor. But the China visit"s diplomatic success could be seen in de facto Chinese support for his status- and, soon, in Soviet public recognition that he would be the successor.
If that doc.u.mentary had shown nothing else, at least it would have demonstrated that Kim Jong-il still had ample reason to be dissatisfied with his filmmakers. Of course there were bright spots where they had "grasped the seed" and produced work in which he could take pride. The film version of The Flower Girl The Flower Girl at one foreign film festival had been awarded a Special Prize and Special Medal. at one foreign film festival had been awarded a Special Prize and Special Medal.14 But obviously there remained much room for improvement. And indeed, as it turned out, Kim had long since made plans-bizarre beyond anything the world had yet heard about him-to deal with his film industry"s shortcomings. But obviously there remained much room for improvement. And indeed, as it turned out, Kim had long since made plans-bizarre beyond anything the world had yet heard about him-to deal with his film industry"s shortcomings.
Lacking a film director of the caliber of South Korea"s finest, the prize-winning Shin Sang-ok, the Dear Leader in 1978 had arranged for the kidnapping of Shin himself. Kim"s agents first lured Shin"s ex-wife, South Korean superstar Choi Eun-hi, to Hong Kong to discuss an acting role, then bundled her off to North Korea by sea. Kim Jong-il, waiting at dockside for her arrival, said, "Welcome to the DPRK." He didn"t explain why she had been kidnapped, and Choi was "afraid to ask." Kim established her in luxurious surroundings, as she related in a book Choi and Shin published after their 1986 escape.15 It would be five years before Choi learned that she had been taken as bait to catch Shin. The two had remained friendly-and Kim Jong-il knew this-although they had divorced due to childlessness and Shin had married another actress, with whom he had children. Six months after Choi"s mysterious disappearance Shin--who had been searching for her--was in Hong Kong when Kim"s agents nabbed him, too, and spirited him off to North Korea. In Pyongyang, at first, Shin like-wise got VIP treatment, with no explanation of-what was going on-he was not told what had become of Choi. But Shin twice attempted escape. He was sent to prison, where he learned the hard way how the regime dealt with disobedience.
Choi was a.s.signed a tutor and put to work studying Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and the North Korean revolution. On Fridays Kim Jong-il invited her to see movies, operas and musicals. Others attending those soirees were high officials Kim had invited. Kim clearly wanted Choi to get to know him and to have a favorable impression of him. If there was no party, he took her videotapes of South Korean movies and asked for her critical opinion. Eventually she realized he was intelligent and possessed artistic sensibility. He arranged for her to have reading material, including a three-volume life of Kim Il-sung"s father, Kim Hong jik. Volume three alone took about three months to read, but she found it interesting. With all that watching and reading, reviewing and commenting, she wasn"t permitted much free time. But on Kim Jong-il"s birthday, February 16, 1978, Choi"s handler-guide took her on an outing. The destination proved to be a museum, at Kim Il-sung University that was devoted to Kim Jong-il. Never having seen such a big museum devoted to just one person, she was surprised.
Choi saw and was impressed by Kim"s trademark movies, Sea of Blood Sea of Blood and and The Flower Girl. The Flower Girl. But although she knew he had overseen those productions, taking more or less the role of producer, she couldn"t tell who had actually directed the films. She noticed that in North Korea the director was not identified on movie posters. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il wouldn"t allow it, she learned. Only industry insiders would know who had made a movie. The two Kims didn"t want other people to become famous. There were exceptions, though. A few movie people Kim Jong-il liked were recognized publicly as stars. For example, Hong Yong-hui of But although she knew he had overseen those productions, taking more or less the role of producer, she couldn"t tell who had actually directed the films. She noticed that in North Korea the director was not identified on movie posters. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il wouldn"t allow it, she learned. Only industry insiders would know who had made a movie. The two Kims didn"t want other people to become famous. There were exceptions, though. A few movie people Kim Jong-il liked were recognized publicly as stars. For example, Hong Yong-hui of Flower Girl Flower Girl fame was pictured on the country"s fame was pictured on the country"s one-won one-won currency note. currency note.
Choi noticed another curious practice in the North Korean media world: The country televised sports matches between North and South Korea only if the North had won. The people weren"t told the outcome of the losing matches. She found also that the Korean language had forked off into different directions in the North and the South. When she went shopping with her guide, he requested bulal. bulal. Hearing that word embarra.s.sed her, as Hearing that word embarra.s.sed her, as bulal bulal in South Korea meant t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. But she found that in North Korea it meant lightbulb. in South Korea meant t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. But she found that in North Korea it meant lightbulb.
When April 15 came, Choi noticed that Kim Il-sung"s birthday parade was "more like a funeral" because the North Koreans cried at the sight of the Great Leader. They also cried as they received the gifts-clothing, mostly- that Kim Il-sung provided for the people. Of course they applauded even as they were crying. "Once I neglected to clap my hands. Someone asked me, "Why don"t you praise Kim Il-sung?" "Uh oh. I"m sorry" And I clapped." Then there were the formal messages of congratulation that she was expected to prepare on Kim Jong-il"s and Kim Il-sung"s birthdays and on the September 9 anniversary of liberation. "Someone brought very nice paper so I could write the message, and then I had to make a cover of colorful material. There were specific dimensions to be followed. I had to find a different message each year-one is not allowed to repeat oneself. It was really torture."
Choi found also that, just before one of the leaders" birthdays, all North Koreans had to gather in family or other groupings to commemmorate the occasion by listening to a 140-minute radio broadcast or recording recounting the Kim family saga. It was forbidden to talk or sleep before this Pyongyang answer to a Christmas Eve service ended. On Kim Il-sung"s birthday everyone was expected to collect or otherwise acquire azaleas to present to him. Presents came from the Great Leader in return. Most prized was an Omega watch, the back inscribed with Kim Il-sung"s name. Choi got one of those.
Choi, staying in a guest house, had a dog, which made her very happy. But she heard that the North Koreans exported dog fur to Russia, besides eating dog meat. The dog disappeared. The housemaid said she didn"t know for sure, but it was "probably far away." As the housemaid told her, frankly, "A dog"s life is only six months. A dog is an export item in North Korea." (Some South Koreans eat the meat of dogs, but in the South those normally are especially bred food animals, not pets.) Choi met a Chinese woman who had been kidnapped to work as a language teacher and learned from her that the spies employed in such operations must be good-looking. A handsome spy, pretending to be rich, could easily pick up a targeted female victim. If a spy"s natural endowments were insufficient, the plastic surgeons stood ready to perfect what nature had wrought. Choi learned that "there was a special hospital for Kim Il-sung, his family and high officials. There were always soldiers there."
Shin was kept at first in a guest house, also in Pyongyang but separate from Choi"s, with a guide and a secretary. After a couple of months, however, as punishment for his two nocturnal escape attempts, he was jailed. In his cell he was required to sit cross-legged, in the lotus position, his back straight, for hours at a time, Zen-style. He was not allowed to move. No reading, no radio, nothing else was permitted. He had to look into the eyes of his instructor, not shifting his gaze. A guard remained with him all day long. Meals were corn or rice, with salty soup.
"I awoke around five each day, then as soon as I got up I had to raise my arms straight up until the 7 A.M. breakfast, as punishment," Shin recalled. "After breakfast I could wash my face with the remains of my drinking water. Then I had to sit in the lotus position for three hours. After that punishment, I had three minutes to relax. Following lunch, it was the lotus position again from 12:30 to 6:30. Electrical brownouts occurred on average three times a day. Someone would bring a candle to each cell then, because the guards needed to see that we were in the lotus position. Once a week I had to strip and face the wall for a "physical exam." It was not a real physical, and I hated to show them my nudity."
In jail, after a couple of years of that routine, Shin felt his sanity starting to unravel. On Christmas morning in 1980, he was struck by an urge to send a greeting to his family back in South Korea. It was a white Christmas. Sent out with a shovel to clear the grounds, Shin used his urine to write "Merry Xmas" on the snow. "Anyone who saw me would have thought I was out of my mind, but I had to do it," he wrote. (That pa.s.sage reminded me of my own nutty 1979 fantasy of escape across the Demilitarized Zone, described in chapter 1.) Eventually Shin requested a consultation with someone in authority. The request was refused. He was told he must write a letter of apology to Kim Jong-il for his escape attempts and his other disobedience. "I decided to write a letter of apology. It took three days to get it right. I wrote: "I will obey your rules. I want to become a DPRK citizen and follow and praise Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Please free me.""
After he wrote his apology letter, Shin found that his status changed. Under the tutelage of a State Security agent, he began studying the lives and thoughts of the Kims. Wake-up time was still 5 A.M. And he had to obey rules that were posted on his wall: "Obedience is essential. Do not try to learn of the private lives of other prisoners. Don"t listen to other prisoners" conversations. Don"t converse with other prisoners. Accuse any prisoner who is at fault. Patients, obey the doctor. Don"t waste the blanket, which is the property of the nation." Each prisoner had only one blanket, one set of clothing, one pair of socks. Before Kim Il-sung"s birthday the prisoners had to clean the premises furiously. Some called that "the torture of April."
Shin found the rules ridiculous, especially one that limited each prisoner"s shower to five minutes. He obeyed for a while but eventually got so fed up with prison that he resumed attempting to escape and even tried to fast to death. At first, his guards simply told him to go ahead and die of starvation if he wished. But then some "guidance" officials came to his cell and force-fed him with a funnel, pushing the food down his throat. After that horrible experience a guard told him, "I"ve never seen that before. They never cared about a fasting prisoner. You"re the first." The guard said his treatment indicated Shin must be very important for North Korea.
Shin continued his studies and eventually was awarded his own outing to the Kim Jong-il Museum. There he was shown a mineral well whose water was highly praised. He should drink from it, he was told. He declined but his hosts insisted he "drink in remembrance of Kim Jong-il." It isn"t clear whether this touch had been borrowed from Christian observance or from the ritual purification rite performed at the shrines of j.a.panese Shinto, the religion that had been used to support emperor worship.
In 1982, when Kim Il-sung"s seventieth birthday drew near, Shin worked on composing a congratulatory letter as his political tutors had urged. They told him ordinary paper would not do, and gave him the proper stationery, magnificent and colorful. Opening the cover, he could see the faint outlines of the magnolia flower, Kim"s favorite. He wrote his note on that paper. When Kim"s birthday came, Shin received as a present from the Great Leader his own inscribed Omega wrist-watch. He was also awarded a national medal.
The following year, on February 23, Shin"s letters of apology and flattery finally paid off when Kim Jong-il sent a letter releasing him from jail. A guard ordered him to stand at attention while the guard read it and watched Shin"s eyes. "I forgive you even though you are a sinner and your guilt was very large," Kim Jong-il had written. "I just want you to devote yourself to achieving revolution in my country." Shin"s handler took him to a restaurant. There, Shin bo-wed automatically, at the requisite forty-five-degree angle, before a portrait of Kim Il-sung. Then, still standing before the portrait, he vowed aloud to "do as you order, Great Leader." The guide was pleased. "You are doing very well," he told Shin. "Let"s have a seat."
Earlier that month, Kim Jong-il had told Choi for the first time that her ex-husband was in Pyongyang, promising her that she would meet Shin soon. On March 6, Shin"s handler told him: "You will have good news today. You should get dressed." He was taken to meet Kim Jong-il and Choi. Kim suggested to Choi: "Why don"t you hug him?" Then Kim announced, to the security people and others present, "Mr. Shin will be my film advisor from now on." Kim had a suggestion for the divorced couple: "Why don"t you get married on my father"s birthday?" He a.s.sured Shin that he was returning the still-glamorous Choi to him "without having touched her. I am a real, purified communist."
Kim held a party for the couple and there he astonished them by apologizing for having kept each of them in the dark about the reasons for the kidnapping and the whereabouts of the other. The date was March 7, 1983, and presumably Kim knew that it was the twenty-ninth anniversary of their original marriage. "Please forgive me," Kim said to them. "I was just playing a role." Kim got drunk during the party and sang South Korean songs (-which were forbidden to his subjects). He showed some doc.u.mentary films in which citizens displayed adulation toward him. When Shin complimented him on the people"s evident devotion, Kim replied: "It"s all a lie. They"re just pretending to praise me."
Before meeting him, Shin had thought Kim must be crazy. Now, however, upon hearing Kim"s apologetic and humble remarks, Shin concluded that the young leader had real humanity and was very generous. "I was amazed that he was a communist."
Shin and Choi were happy to be reunited. After the party, they were taken to see the Dear Leader"s personal film library, which they found to be a three-story building where some 250 employees cared for an astonishingly full collection of more than 15,000 films from around the world. Around 300 of those were from South Korea, and one of them came as a major shock to Shin and Choi. Years earlier, without taking the precaution of making copies of his new film Tale of Shimcheong, Tale of Shimcheong, Shin had sent it to a representative in Hong Kong who had asked to have it shipped there so that subt.i.tles could be made. The film thereafter had gone missing. Now Shin saw that Kim Jong-il had it in his library, which meant that the Dear Leader was the only person in the world who could screen it. The couple figured Shin"s Hong Kong employee had been Kim Jong-il"s secret agent, involved first in stealing the film and then in kidnapping them. Shin had sent it to a representative in Hong Kong who had asked to have it shipped there so that subt.i.tles could be made. The film thereafter had gone missing. Now Shin saw that Kim Jong-il had it in his library, which meant that the Dear Leader was the only person in the world who could screen it. The couple figured Shin"s Hong Kong employee had been Kim Jong-il"s secret agent, involved first in stealing the film and then in kidnapping them.
Kim asked Shin and Choi to watch and critique films, four per day mostly from the communist bloc but also including the occasional Hollywood production such as Dr. Zhivago. Dr. Zhivago. All that viewing would not have seemed to Kim an onerous ch.o.r.e. He himself was watching movies every night. Shin and Choi concluded that he was using foreign films to make up for his lack of foreign travel, gathering from them information about foreign countries. Wherever he went, a video setup was expected to be provided. Shin learned that Kim personally vetted in advance each film proposed for showing in the country. Kim phoned the couple every day, dialing directly rather than having his secretary make the calls. "How are you? Is your health OK? If there"s anything you need, just tell me." Shin developed considerable respect for Kim"s film knowledge and sensibility, deciding that the young ruler was "smarter than his directors and writers." All that viewing would not have seemed to Kim an onerous ch.o.r.e. He himself was watching movies every night. Shin and Choi concluded that he was using foreign films to make up for his lack of foreign travel, gathering from them information about foreign countries. Wherever he went, a video setup was expected to be provided. Shin learned that Kim personally vetted in advance each film proposed for showing in the country. Kim phoned the couple every day, dialing directly rather than having his secretary make the calls. "How are you? Is your health OK? If there"s anything you need, just tell me." Shin developed considerable respect for Kim"s film knowledge and sensibility, deciding that the young ruler was "smarter than his directors and writers."
One day Kim phoned Shin, thanked him for his help and said he had a favor to ask. Kim had done the preliminary planning for a film and wanted Shin to direct it and enter it in an international contest. At the same time he said he was preparing an office for Shin at Pyongyang"s Choson Film Studios. When Shin saw it he was astonished. "It was a wonderful office, three stories, of semi-European architecture, lined in marble." Shin was doubly happy: Not only would he be able to resume movie-making, he would also be given a pa.s.sport, which meant there might be a chance for escape eventually.
At the time of his kidnapping Shin had been on the outs politically with the military-backed government of South Korea. He and Choi knew that if they should ever escape and try to return to the South they would need proof to persuade the tough and suspicious anti-communist officials of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency that they had not defected willingly So they adopted an extremely risky gambit. When they visited Kim Jong-il in his office at party headquarters for an audience on Shin"s fifty-first birthday, Choi secreted a tape recorder in her handbag and managed to record forty-five minutes of the three-hour conversation. The date was October 19, 1983-ten days after the Rangoon bombing (and just a few days before I saw and panned the China trip doc.u.mentary that had been a.s.sembled by far lesser talents than Shin). Choi noted with interest that Kim had monitors mounted on his office wall showing three South Korean television net-works.
More than a decade later the South Korean monthly magazine Wolgan Choson Wolgan Choson combined the tapes of this conversation and some subsequent tapings onto a ca.s.sette and distributed it in connection with a magazine special report. As one South Korean listener commented to me, the Kim on the tapes talked "volubly" and "straightforwardly." He "doesn"t embellish but just comes out and says what he wants to." His voice was "normally pitched, resonant and pleasant. But he speaks with a slight stutter and the words don"t always fit together. He jumps around." Kim seemed to like to talk-on the tape he left little time for others to talk. Although the accented Korean spoken by people from the North and the South can be quite different, Kim "speaks with only a slight accent. He could communicate easily in the South." combined the tapes of this conversation and some subsequent tapings onto a ca.s.sette and distributed it in connection with a magazine special report. As one South Korean listener commented to me, the Kim on the tapes talked "volubly" and "straightforwardly." He "doesn"t embellish but just comes out and says what he wants to." His voice was "normally pitched, resonant and pleasant. But he speaks with a slight stutter and the words don"t always fit together. He jumps around." Kim seemed to like to talk-on the tape he left little time for others to talk. Although the accented Korean spoken by people from the North and the South can be quite different, Kim "speaks with only a slight accent. He could communicate easily in the South."16 In this first secretly taped conversation Kim offered an explanation, remarkably frank, of the thinking behind the kidnap plot. He had heard of Shin"s political troubles with the Seoul regime, which had resulted in revocation of the Shin Studio"s South Korean film license, he told the couple. Thus he figured that Shin, then spending time in Hong Kong and the United States, might be preparing to move his operation overseas. Shin had been born before liberation in the northern part of Korea, which also helped make him a plausible convert to the North Korean side. He doubted he could get Shin to come on his own, though, so Kim had ordered Choi brought to Pyongyang "to lure director Shin." Kim explained that "at the time, the thing I was advocating was: How can the people from the Southern part come to us, to our republic"s bosom, and with genuine freedom, genuine, uh, in producing films, do so without worries?"
Kim then launched into a soliloquy on why South Korea had achieved a higher standard of moviemaking than the North. The difference, he suggested, was that North Korean film industry people knew that the state would feed them even if they performed only minimally, so they didn"t try hard. Their Southern counterparts, mean-while, especially in earlier years when the economy was struggling, knew that they must work to eat. "Because they have to earn money," Kim said, Southern movie industry people expended blood, sweat and tears to get results. South Korean actors, he said, obviously had been aware that instant stardom wouldn"t last; they must workto improve their acting because the public soon would tire of just a pretty face. Newcomers to the North Korean screen lacked that understanding and motivation, and thus failed to make the effort to grow in their craft after making their film debuts, Kim said.
Besides recognizing the motivation problems in a socialist system, Kim in that conversation also acknowledged that the North"s insistence on national self-reliance made it difficult for others in the country to speak, as he was doing privately to Shin and Choi, about the superiority of outside ways. "If someone else says this, the others will criticize him for being a malcontent," the Dear Leader said. "He might be termed a toady." As a result, he said, filmmakers in the North worked dogmatically. "There are many repet.i.tive scenes and the stories are already schematized. ... There are so many crying scenes, like a funeral. Why aren"t there any movies without crying scenes?"
Kim told his forced guests, apologetically, that he could not have it known that he had kidnapped Shin and Choi to the country to upgrade the local film industry. "It is not propitious to talk about it truthfully," he said. Then he taught them the cover story they should use when meeting people from outside North Korea. They should say that "South Koreans do not have democracy. No freedom, no democracy. Next, say there is too much meddling when it comes to creative invention. The intervention is what you [in the South] call the anti-communist law. Uh, [in the South] they only tell you to do anti-communism, so there is anti-communism here and there and thus no freedom." Shin tried to interject a remark at that point but Kim ignored him and continued laying down his script for the couple to follow: "That is why, because there is no freedom, in seeking genuine freedom, pursuing genuine freedom, to be ensured freedom of creativity, you have come here. And as for the plot of a movie, we can start following the developed countries and even exceed what they have done. With this slogan, "exceeding," we will march forward. This way everything will be natural. It"s better than saying you came here by force."
Kim later explained his remark about movie plots, acknowledging that films made for internal propaganda purposes might not be suited for entry into international contests. Thus Shin would be permitted to select themes more likely to be accepted abroad. Kim told the couple a story of one contest in Cambodia, a country then ruled by Kim Il-sung"s close friend Prince Norodom Sihanouk, in which North Korea had tried to enter a guerrilla-themed film. Sihanouk was not amused. After all, Cambodia had rid itself only recently of the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal former guerrillas whose dead victims included some of Sihanouk"s children. Sihanouk complained that the pro-revolutionary North Korean entry was "a film opposing myself." Kim recalled that Sihanouk was "fuming with rage." North Korean representatives spent the rest of their time in Phnom Penh aplogizing. "It is evident," concluded Kim, "that we don"t have a properly made film to enter in a film festival."
Resuming his comparison, Kim said North Korea"s filmmakers were "like kindergarten students who just learned how to walk, but in the South they all possess mid- to high-level technologies. [The Southerners are] university-level, and we are kindergarten level, but still when new ideas are introduced they [North Korean film people] reject them and are firm about it." He worried that "in ten years, if-we don"t catch up, frankly speaking, in an international perspective, because our movies are so back-wards, we might rank number one among the most back-ward films. Ah, I"m saying that we might be the last among the lagging films."
Shin started work October 20, 1983, at his new office. Kim provided Shin with millions of dollars, practically a blank check, for the quest to win international film awards. Once the couple went abroad together, under close guard, and gave a press conference in which they denied having been kidnapped, claiming that they had gone voluntarily to Pyongyang. They had no choice at the time, they were to write later. But lying at that press conference helped them prepare for their eventual escape (-which came in 1986), by persuading Kim that they were loyal and need not be guarded so closely when they traveled.
The Choi-Shin episode revealed much about Kim Jong-il"s personality and work style. When it came to his favorite subject, movies, Kim proved to be not so rigid an ideologue as might have been expected based on his attacks on others who fell short of ideological purity. His published movie writings focus tightly on promoting the unitary system, yet he told Shin not to worry about political statements but just to make prize-winning films that would show off North Korea.
The liberal att.i.tudes that Kim showed to Shin and Choi could have been role-playing, to an extent. The couple reported that Kim described Shin"s harsh treatment in jail as a dreadful mistake, the result of poorly performing security personnel who provoked Shin"s rebellion. In that case the Dear Leader seems to have sought to present his "good cop" face. Following in the footsteps of his father, he would make frequent use of the device of publicly blaming subordinates for failed policies-and punishing them-even though the policies were his.
Note the unashamed tendency to play G.o.d, planning the lives of people under his control, as when Kim suggested that Choi and Shin remarry even though Shin still had a legal second "wife in the South. (The second "wife subsequently died in a motor accident.) And there is the fact that, even with a whole country to look out for as the co-ruler, Kim Jong-il still spent a great deal of his time and effort on movies. Subordinates seeking to justify his fascination with foreign movies might explain it as a means to learn English and thus learn about Western economic methods. But that hardly accounts for his having received four critiques a day from Shin, for example. One may question how much time and effort he had left over to spend on improving the people"s livelihood-aside from exhorting them to work ever harder and faster.17 Shortly after Kim Jong-il"s formal elevation to the heirship in 1980, Pyongyang"s Central News Agency praised the "Party Center" for an "economic agitation campaign" through which "a leaping advance has been made in economic development."18 The people of North Korea would have had to be instructed where to look for evidence of such an "advance." Agitation was the old, top-down motivation method used in the Chollima campaign, Kim Il-sung"s knockoff of China"s Great Leap Forward. By the 1980s the method had lost much of its usefulness, but the elder Kim had been loath to adopt the un-socialist Western approaches that were being introduced into other communist economies. The people of North Korea would have had to be instructed where to look for evidence of such an "advance." Agitation was the old, top-down motivation method used in the Chollima campaign, Kim Il-sung"s knockoff of China"s Great Leap Forward. By the 1980s the method had lost much of its usefulness, but the elder Kim had been loath to adopt the un-socialist Western approaches that were being introduced into other communist economies.
As the poorly traveled Kim Jong-il gained power over his country"s affairs, the top-down, closed-to-the-outside-world approach was all that he had been taught, all he knew. It was during this period that his committee of sympathetic biographers troubled to tell us, in Great Leader Kim Jong-il, Great Leader Kim Jong-il, that as a primary school pupil in the period immediately after the 1953 armistice the junior Kim often visited private rice shops in the market and "made a close study of rice prices and citizens" purchasing power. At night, he showed to his father his pocketbook in which the prices of goods were written down." By the time he was a political economy major at Kim Il-sung University, private shops were a thing of the past and Kim Jong-il was lending his talents to the regime"s micromanagement of the economy. He would, his biographers say, drop into a mountain food shop, check the soybean paste, find it sour and deliver a speech urging shop employees to protect consumers by cracking down on suppliers "when there are shortages of goods or the goods supplied are inferior in quality." that as a primary school pupil in the period immediately after the 1953 armistice the junior Kim often visited private rice shops in the market and "made a close study of rice prices and citizens" purchasing power. At night, he showed to his father his pocketbook in which the prices of goods were written down." By the time he was a political economy major at Kim Il-sung University, private shops were a thing of the past and Kim Jong-il was lending his talents to the regime"s micromanagement of the economy. He would, his biographers say, drop into a mountain food shop, check the soybean paste, find it sour and deliver a speech urging shop employees to protect consumers by cracking down on suppliers "when there are shortages of goods or the goods supplied are inferior in quality."
It was the Chinese who now tried to teach Kim Jong-il some different ideas about economic development. And he listened, at least to an extent. But much of-what he heard seems to have worried him, or baffled him, as much as it inspired him. He began talking of plans to open North Korea soon after returning from his 1983 trip to China. In the recorded portion of his October 19 conversation that year with film couple Shin and Choi, Kim noted that China like Yugoslavia had "opened itself up. ... Hu Yaobang said: "Now here, uh, Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao, when Mao Zedong was still around, the doors were tightly locked and thus [the Chinese] people saw nothing. When they see other people"s things they say without consideration that the other people"s goods are good while theirs are bad. In reality, their goods aren"t so bad. They have to make efforts to improve theirs to do better than others, but instead of making efforts they continually claim that the other person"s goods are good, which is a major problem. After opening up a little, what do they learn first, instead of Western technology? They learn to grow beards and [long] hair. Ah, tell them to acquire technology but all they do is take in external things, thus they have nothing in them yet. The education system should generally be reformed." That"s what Hu Yaobang said to me."
Kim talked then about how the lesson applied to North Korea: "It"s the same in our case," he told the couple. "If-we continually show Western films on television, show them without restraint, then only nihilistic thoughts can come about. Eh, then, in a situation where we are divided, how can our national pride and next patriotic struggle-all those things, patriotism, patriotism--we have to increase this, but we only make them idolize Western things, Western things. So we must advance the technology before opening, but this is one of the problems that cause us to fall into internal contradictions." His conclusion was a cautious compromise: "Eh, thus, because of this, I want to give rights to a limited degree. That is my intention."
Kim then returned to his concern about the failure of the regime"s incentives to make North Korean movie industry people work hard. He had more than an inkling that the North Korean system was at fault. "What I"m saying is that this-ever since the end of the Korean War, speaking in materialistic terms, what you call, eh-unless we make them have desires, uh-I think it is related with the system. What I"m saying is that even if only one piece is written in a year, living expenses are still given. When a piece is written, only the cost of the paper can be earned. It should be their main job but it is only a side job. Eh--what one has to really, really do [for a living], that is a side job while even if one does not do this, living expenses are still given by the government. Thus the people have no desire or need. So if we say, "Write three pieces a year," thus they"ve already become too full in the stomach. Then they say that they can"t write it at their home and thus request that they be sent to a resort. That"s how people have become." Once, Kim said, "I called on my propaganda department workers and said to them that the socialist system is said to be good, but that there are a lot of internal discrepancies that must be resolved. Yes. So what I"m trying to say is that they have no motivation to work."
Months later, after one of their new films won an award at a festival in Czechoslovakia, Kim invited Choi and Shin to his office-and again the couple managed to tape the conversation. This time, Kim broadened his economic a.n.a.lysis a bit to touch upon aspects beyond his beloved movie studios: "Ten years ago, twenty years ago, what did we say? "People should tighten their belts. In a situation where the North and the South are separated, we must ourselves prepare a revolutionary capacity. Thus we must tighten our belts and work to build our defense." "
From this historical note Kim abruptly shifted his thoughts to the compet.i.tion from South Korea, which was then getting favorable world-wide publicity for its success in launching an indigenous automobile industry. Kim felt the praise was undeserved because the Southern automakers relied heavily on overseas suppliers of components. "Localization, localization is what they claim, but in engine development the South Koreans, the South Korean people, in producing a motorcycle they import the engine, bring in this and that. ... It is basically an a.s.sembled good. The automobiles, what do they call it [perhaps he was attempting to recall the name of the Hyundai Pony which was the Model-T Ford of South Korean industrialization], even those are completely a.s.sembled. What they claim as localization is only 40 percent. How can they call what they a.s.semble localization? They themselves--we shouldn"t do it that way We must show the machines in the planning stages. Show this, show them from the first stages, then the reporters will go to the South and will compare our factory to the South Korean one."
Kim then returned to his earlier theme: "So now, in what direction are we heading? Yes, the defense industry or heavy industries are our priority. While encouraging this, what else should we do? It"s time to raise the living standards of the people. This is because tightening the belts of socialist people is-I have said already. Look at our comrades."
Kim continued his monologue, harking back to popular support for the socialist system at the time of the Korean War-and in the process acknowledging to Shin that the North had attacked the South, something that the South Korean would have known very well but that most North Koreans were not permitted to know. "How were the sentiments of our people when the war broke out in 1950?" he asked rhetorically. At the time, he a.s.serted, people in both North and South had favored the Northern system and opposed what he a.s.serted was the system below the 38th parallel: "a society for a minority of capitalists and mid-level people. Thus because they said the [socialist] system at the time was favorable at the time, what did we have? There were only a few weapons given by the Soviets. Because we knew that the system was good, we went out to secure it. Thus in South Korea there were capitalists, landlords and comprador capitalists. Thus we said, "Let"s go and liberate.""
Things had changed, though, in the