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Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef
- Taylorious 13y agoI don't normally upvote non-tech things on HN, but that was one of the most fascinating articles I have read in awhile. I started to idly read it, but immediately become engrossed.
- PuercoPop 13y agoI normally flag non-tech things on HN. Even if I enjoy them. Just planting the seeds.
- zorpner 13y agoThat's explicitly contrary to the HN guidelines, as is your comment. ...as is this comment of mine. I'll show myself out.
- dreen 13y agoAgreed, very good read.
- dnautics 13y agocheck out the vice guide to north korea, also fascinating.
- avgarrison 13y agoYou might like the book "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea." There's quite a few jaw dropping stories from people who defected from NK. It's such a mysterious country, I am completely fascinated by it. edit: a word
- tjr 13y agoI just read that book last week. Amazing stories.
- Taylorious 13y agoThanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check it out. Although, I have trouble reading those types of books (and articles) because they tend to be a bittersweet experience. On the one hand I feel like it is sort of like a sin to be willfully ignorant of the terrible things happening in places like NK, but it is also incredibly depressing learning about these things and being so powerless. For some reason the brutality women face in these places seems to upset me the most. A few weeks ago I read a very descriptive article on witch hunting in Papua New Guinea and thinking about it still keeps me up at night.
- markdown 13y agoDid you learn of the PNG situation from the article that was submitted to HN? Did you know that since that article was shared here, the PNG govt is trying to push forward very tough laws to clamp down on the nastiness that goes on there. They're bringing back the death penalty, and it will now also apply to rape, violent robbery, etc. > The prime minister also announced that the government would repeal the controversial 1971 Sorcery Act, which acknowledges the accusation of sorcery as a plausible defence in murder cases > Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said violent crimes were becoming too frequent and that "draconian" measures were required. > "There will be maximum penalties that have never been seen before in this country" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22366075 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22366075 > Parliament last week resurrected the long-dormant death penalty and approved five methods of execution: hanging, firing squad, electrocution, lethal injection and asphyxiation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22698668 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22698668
- amartinsu13 13y agoIt was written by Adam Johnson, an English Professor at Stanford who just won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for a book, not coincidentally, inspired by North Korea.
- joyeuse6701 13y agoI read this in a print version of GQ (call me old fashioned), and as it turns out, they come out with pretty fascinating topics regularly. I think the urban explorers article or coast guard rescue a few years back piqued my interest.
- Wingman4l7 13y agoFor those who were interested in reading the urban explorers article, like I was: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban-explorers-gq-march-2013?printable=true http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban-expl...
- kdave 13y agoHow do I vote the non tech things on HN
- uvdiv 13y agoAfter eight years in captivity, she made a life-or-death escape from her guards after being sent to Vienna to promote Kim's latest film. Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders? Is this some sort of diplomatic privilege? This would be 1986 [1]. edit: Or a parallel (?) situation, Cuban athletes "escaping" from government minders inside the USA (2002 [2]). What power do foreign government agents have in these situations? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choi_Eun-hee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choi_Eun-hee [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuban_soccer_players_who_have_defected_to_the_United_States#2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuban_soccer_players_w...
- mc-lovin 13y agoI second that, this is very curious.
- khuey 13y agoI don't know about these cases specifically, but usually it is done by threatening their families back in the other country.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bricestacey 13y agoElsewhere in the story the translator had a Dominican passport. It seems likely they traveled using forged documents and first, to Japan. Kind of like how Americans go to Mexico in order to get to Cuba and vice versa.
- jpatokal 13y agoHmm? The eight years in captivity was in North Korea. She convinced her minders to allow her to visit Austria, and made her escape after soon as she could once she landed.
- DominikR 13y ago
- rdtsc 13y agoAgree with others here, a very captivating read. Couldn't stop reading once I started. The personality of the protagonist is interesting to think about. Disturbed individual or hero? Both? We are presented with his actions, wonder what was going on in his head. Left his wife and kids to live for 3 years in a strange country. Did it again for 10 years. Remarried there to someone who doesn't speak his language. Had other kids. Left them. A hero because, I guess there are few who would do that. Provided an interesting insight into the inner circle (but I don't the sacrifice for humanity's lack of information on Kim's family is what drove him). Very disturbed person as well. The childhood probably left some pretty large scars on him. Abandoning his family many times over is disgusting to think about, the scars it will leave on his children are no less harsh than those left on him by his father.
- SoftwareMaven 13y agoI have a hard time calling anybody who could leave his family like that a hero. He wasn't doing it to better their circumstances; he was doing it to satisfy himself.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- javert 13y agoLeaving your family is _nothing_ compared to providing emotional support for someone running concentration camps, abducting sex slaves, and all the other stuff.
- rdtsc 13y agoMaybe a hero is the wrong word, and I personally don't consider him that, but I left that possibility as I can see how others can see him that way. Maybe in the same category as having someone wanting to climb the Everest and then almost dying up there. They didn't have to do it, but they did it, put their lives at risk, seemingly for the sense of accomplishment / fame, even though at home they might have their friends and loved ones waiting for them.
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- oneiric 13y agoCan someone explain the situation that started this? "he signed a one-year contract to teach sushi-making skills to young chefs in Pyongyang" Was this just in the classified ads? I thought North Korea was closed off from the world and Japan an enemy. Was this a low point in military tensions? Similarly what kind of flights went between Japan and DPRK?
- dreen 13y agoI am guessing this was during the reign of Kim Il-sun when the country was apparently faring a bit better, and there were less sanctions etc. Also, did everybody in USA stop consuming sushi during war with Japan? Was it forbidden after the Pearl Harbor?
- indiecore 13y agoI don't think they had sushi in the west then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in_the_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in... Wikipedia was pretty unhelpful but there don't seem to be many western references until the 1950s and it probably wasn't popular until the 80s when Japanese culture started getting big.
- nitrogen 13y agoQuoting a dead comment: indiecore 14 minutes ago | link [dead] I don't think they had sushi in the west then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in_the_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in... Wikipedia was pretty unhelpful but there don't seem to be many western references until the 1950s and it probably wasn't popular until the 80s when Japanese culture started getting big. The term "sushi" does seem to skyrocket around 1980: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sushi http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sushi
- indiecore 13y agoJust out of curiosity but are all my posts dead or did the wiki link just trip the spam filter?
- mitchi 13y agoI'm still amazed at how he stayed there 20+ years and never learned Korean.
- vinceguidry 13y agoHe probably realized early on that it wasn't in his best interests to, and so just turned that part of his brain off. Curiosity seems like a dangerous thing in North Korea.
- marshray 13y agoPeople's sense of self-interest is a strange strange thing.
- yitchelle 13y agoI was wondering about the same thing. Could it be a self protecting strategy? In the article, it mentioned that the Kims see him as an outsider, and by continuing speaking to them via a translator, it kept the sense of him being an outside for the 20+ years.
- yoster 13y agoWith an interpreter there, why would he need to?
- SilasX 13y agoKim Jong-il reveled in his enjoyment of sushi!? Does that strike anyone else as just ... distasteful, even by his standards? That would be like Japan opening up a McDonald's right where one of the A-bombs went off.
- jpatokal 13y agoRaw fish is an integral part of Korean cuisine as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoe_(dish) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoe_(dish)
- snogglethorpe 13y agoOf course, technically sushi doesn't refer to raw fish...
- jpatokal 13y agoTry telling that to Kim Jong-il.
- thejsjunky 13y agoProbably not the best analogy as there are in fact McDonald's restaurants in Hiroshima (and I would imagine Nagasaki). There's one not far from the Peace Park towards Hiroshima Castle. It's fair to be somewhat puzzled over it though; as mentioned in the article even today there is still quite a lot of animosity towards Japan in North Korea. I suppose it just goes to show that either the top Korean officials don't totally buy their own propaganda or that people are capable of amicably interacting with other people on a personal level even when they are at odds in the greater scheme of things - or some combination thereof.
- swartz 13y agoGreat read...truly enjoyed it.
- iblaine 13y agoRead every word...amazing story, even if some of it is embellished.
- rosser 13y agoAs noted by many of the other comments, this is a fascinating article in so many different respects, but the most interesting take-away for me personally is a little detail that shows just how far the ripples cast from a seemingly small action can reach. If one day, decades ago, a teenaged boy's co-worker and friend hadn't wanted to live like "normal" folks instead of scroungers, and shared a sushi dinner with his friend, Dennis Rodman probably wouldn't have ended up visiting the DPRK decades later, causing all the resulting foofaraw. But for that one little choice, a subsequent event that at least flashed across the awareness of most of the First World, and who knows how much of the rest of it, wouldn't have happened. It's not necessarily something of geo-political consequence, but if that's not the notional "butterfly flapping its wings in China", I'm not sure what is.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoIt's a wonderful life, isn't it? Personally I find complex systems of cause and effect to be inherently fascinating. We basically don't understand how they work, at least not in a rigorous way. People are working on models, for example in systems biology, but it's early work.
- varjag 13y agoIn some way, the butterfly effect highlights that North Korea is in meta-stable state, and relatively minor events on few select people can effect its political course. In the modern world, much less is governed by outliers of chance, simply by virtue of many more agents involved.
- Retric 13y agoI suspect there where many minor changes that could have prevented any of the recent presidents from entering politics or at least running for president. Or more strangely Bush could have easily lost the an election with a minor change to the ballot design in a tiny area in a vary important state. Overall I suspect that's for more impact than who's making sushi in NK as I don't think most presidents would have gone back to Iraq for instance. And without the Iraq war I don't think we would have the backlash that lead to healthcare reform etc.
- egonschiele 13y agoAwesome article, awesome author. Adam Johnson's 'The Orphan Master's Son' is about North Korea and it's the best book I've read this year: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Masters-Son-ebook/dp/B004X6PRO6/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Masters-Son-ebook/dp/B004X6...
- malkia 13y agoCouldn't stop reading! It reminds of "The Last King of Scotland" movie - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/ about Idi Amin's personal physician.
- midas 13y agoWas anyone else surprised by the quality of food that the elites were/are eating? It doesn't surprise me that they had tons of expensive possessions and services, but I would've thought the perishable nature of food would make getting the ingredients for gourmet cuisine nearly impossible!
- yoster 13y agoThis article is fantastic. I did not like the fact that the sushi chef was a scumbag who created families in different countries and abandoned them which the author called out. He even complicated doing it a third time at the end of the article due to his greediness. I hope he does go back to North Korea and runs out of luck.
- yoster 13y agocontemplated
- pasechnikk 13y agoHow come the article's publishing date is July 2013?
- mseebach 13y agoIt will probably appear in the July edition of the magazine, which might actually be out now. [month/year] editions rarely seem to track the actually calendar very tightly, just like you can buy the 2014 models of cars now.
- gurkendoktor 13y agoOT, but ... I absolutely love to read articles like this one, yet I'm not interested in subscribing to GQ or buying anyone's full book. I wish there was a tip jar below each long-form article. :(
- epaga 13y agoThe sushi chef was leaving his apartment when he noticed the stranger outside. He could tell by the man's suit—black and badly made—that he was North Korean. Right away, the chef was nervous. Even in his midsixties, the chef is a formidable man: He has thick shoulders, a broad chest; the rings on his strong hands would one day have to be cut off. But he'd long since quit wearing his bulletproof vest, and the last time a North Korean made the journey to visit him in Japan, a decade ago, he was there to kill him. Incredibly well-written first paragraph, it's been a while since I've read such an engrossing opening to an article.
- luke_s 13y agoThe article is definitely great - but it never said what happened with the stranger outside his apartment!
- Stupendous 13y agoKim Jong Il's wife convinced him not to do it: "Kim Jong-il soon summoned him. Yes, Shogun-sama admitted, he'd sent an assassin to Okinawa, but he urged Fujimoto to forget about it. He was still alive, wasn't he? It was Kim's wife, Ko Young-hee, who'd reminded him of how funny and lovable his Japanese friend had been. Thus the killer was recalled."
- TobbenTM 13y agoNo, that was the man who visited him later. "..and the last time a North Korean made the journey to visit him in Japan, a decade ago, he was there to kill him."
- bussiere 13y agohe may also have a kind of stockholm syndrome also.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y agoisn't Stockholm Syndrome caused by circumstances vs. having it ? I.e. in certain circumstances - like being dictator's direct employee - we all suffer from stockholm syndrome?
- d23 13y agoYes, but once you get it you have it :-)
- MisterBastahrd 13y agoThe sushi chef in question was beaten and terrorized by his drunken war-hero father as a child. He was conditioned from birth to deal with terrible men who had great power over him.