The other day, Seeing Eye Blog mentioned the auto accident involving Kim Jong-il’s “wife,” Ko Yong-hi, and today a coworker of mine here at Kwangju U sent me this piece from The Independent. Pretty interesting read, I must say. Here’s a snippet:
Yesterday, the Japanese daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun shed a chink of light on the lurid private life of the man behind the nuclear threat. It quoted a “Korean peninsula source” for its report on Ms Ko’s road accident, but had no other details. Since the latest nuclear standoff began, growing numbers of high-ranking North Koreans have fled to the South, including Mr Kim’s cook, his bodyguard and his hairdresser.
All have revealed astonishing details of a bizarre and feudal regime run as the private fiefdom of Mr Kim.
Kim Jong Il’s younger sister runs the family’s businesses which include gold, zinc and anthracite mining operations and the smuggling of opium, heroin and amphetamines. The CIA estimates that the family is worth $4bn [??2.4bn] apparently managed by a Swiss bank.
This wealth enables Mr Kim to lead the life of a leisured aristocrat with thoroughbred horses, speed boats, racing cars, a private pool in his residence and a cellar of vintage French wines and Hennessy Cognac plus a library with 16,000 films and a multinational team of personal chefs.
The most revealing stories have come from relatives of Sung Hae Rim, the former movie actress and a former wife. They reveal Mr Kim to be a man once tortured by romantic passion who later turned into a sex and food obsessed gourmet. Ms Sung was a glamorous starlet when she met the portly potentate in 1970, a time when he was obsessed with films.
Their love affair was kept secret for 20 years because she was the daughter of a wealthy South Korean landlord.
Sex and food obseesed gourmet? Hey, perhaps the “portly potentate” ain’t such a bad guy to hang with, after all.
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Marmot