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| Korea |
| Naked girls, caviar and dog stew - Kim Jong-Il lives it up |
| 2003-07-20 |
| Kim Jong-Il, the leader of North Korea and the most dangerous remnant of George Bush’s "axis of evil", orders his troupe of female dancers to strip for guests and dines on the finest imported foods while most of his countrymen starve to death in his famine-plagued land. In a rare insight into his life of privilege and excess, Kim’s former executive chef has described how the "Dear Leader" washes down exotic sushi, Iranian caviar and gourmet shark fin soup with vintage French wines from his 10,000-bottle cellar before treating himself to his favourite tipple, Hennessy XO cognac. The diminutive dictator with the bouffant hair is also partial to the traditional Korean delicacy of dog stew. Yet his desperately impoverished people have been reduced to making gruel from wild roots and tree bark - and even eating human flesh on sale at farmers’ markets, according to some recent reports. The fascinating revelations about Kim’s personal extravagances, culinary indulgences and temper tantrums appear in the memoir of Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese chef who became a friend and gambling partner of the North Korean leader. Mr Fujimoto (a pseudonym) wrote Kim Jong-Il’s Chef after fleeing back to his homeland in fear of his life in 2001. During his 13 years of service in Pyongyang, he travelled the world to purchase mouth-watering treats for Kim and his cronies: caviar from Iran and Uzbekistan, melons and grapes from China, durian fruit from Malaysia, papaya from Singapore, bacon from Denmark and beer from the former Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the North’s disastrous communist policies - the average annual income is just £430 a year - exacerbated by drought, caused a famine that claimed two million lives and left large swathes of the country almost entirely reliant on World Food Programme supplies. Asked about the problems of life in Pyongyang, one diplomat remarked that "obesity is not one of them". Kim’s "Pleasure Group" of female singers and dancers are a staple attraction at all-night banquets prepared by dozens of highly-trained chefs. On one occasion witnessed by Mr Fujimoto, Kim ordered the girls to strip naked, then made his guests dance with them, but warned them to go no further. "Dancing is okay but you can’t touch. If you touch, it’s theft," the Dear Leader told them. Kim, he writes, specifically forbade his underlings to sleep with members of the Pleasure Group. Mr Fujimoto later married one of the troupe’s entertainers whom he first glimpsed singing at one of Kim’s late night banquets; the next time he saw her, she was boxing other women for the amusement of guests. Kim adores toro sushi, the most expensive cut of tuna, and often called out to Mr Fujimoto in English for "one more" piece. He became a fanatical aficionado of shark fin soup, eating it three times a week. In summer, he eats the Korean speciality of dog stew on traditional feast days. All his dishes are first carefully tested for poison by food checkers. It was common for banquets to start as late as 2am. Kim also considers himself a practical joker, summoning Mr Fujimoto the day after his wedding to inquire if he had any hair "down there". Mr Fujimoto then found that he had been shaved after drinking himself into a stupor and passing out. "That is what we do at North Korean weddings," Kim told him. There are also some weightier revelations in the book, including a telling insight into Kim’s nuclear ambitions. When Kim asked Mr Fujimoto if he thought North Korea should have nuclear weapons, the chef replied that - coming from the only country that had suffered atomic attack - he felt such armaments were wrong. Kim yelled back that North Korea required nuclear weapons for its own defence. Mr Fujimoto also disclosed that Kim’s wife feared he might commit suicide after he became depressed following the death of his father, Kim Il-Sung, in 1994. The chef, now 55, had been working in Tokyo before he was lured away to become Kim’s sushi supremo on a salary of £3,000 a month plus tips of hundreds of pounds each time he cooked. He was rewarded with a Mercedes-Benz, a luxurious home and high-quality suits imported from England. He once flew to Japan for Kim simply to buy 100 Daifuku rice cakes - usually costing about 50p each - from a specialist Tokyo store. He even persuaded the Korean dictator to switch his favourite brand of beer from Kirin to Asahi Super Dry by telling him it was more popular in Japan. Mr Fujimoto initially felt excited and honoured to serve a man he admired, but came to fear for his life after witnessing the power of life and death that Kim held over his underlings. Now he lives in secrecy in Japan after escaping North Korea by tempting Kim with tales of the gorgeous taste of sea urchins from Japan’s far north. When he was sent to buy some, he took his chance to disappear. Mr Fujimoto gradually realised the horrendous inequalities of life in the self-styled "workers’ paradise". He wrote: "I know of no country on earth with a bigger gap between rich and poor. If you are from a labourer’s family, however clever you are, you will always be a labourer, working with a shovel in minus 20 degrees." It’s bordering Peshawar, but was too engrossing to EFL. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #3 Better dog than the long-pig some of his slaves eat, I suppose. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-7-20 8:25:48 PM |
| #2 Well, the guy likes dog-meat stew. I guess he can't be that bad now then, can he? http://marmot.blog-city.com/read/129237.htm |
| Posted by: The Marmot 2003-7-20 7:08:00 PM |
| #1 Other than the LLL, who does this surprise? (Probably doesn't surprise the LLL, but they'll be busy denying or excusing it anyway.) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2003-7-20 5:09:50 PM |