Much Ado about Bush (2004): Mafia goons take over the White House

 "The Bush Uproar" [부쉬소동], or my preferred translation "Much Ado about Bush," is a sci-fi story by blog favorite Ŏm Ho Sam that appeared in Chŏngnyŏn Munhak in March 2004. I'd had my eye out for this one for a long time, and I finally got access to a copy. It did not disappoint.

Despite collecting a pretty exhaustive database, I've found no up-close depictions of President George W. Bush in any of the high-profile Imperishable Series novels. By contrast, Clinton appears in several, and Obama appears in two. Bush, it seems, was relegated to a handful of mocking poems and this one imaginative short story by a low-ranked writer who specializes in sci-fi (the same author would go on to write An Ordinary Day and Dignity). This was published in Chongnyon Munhak, the Party's literary magazine for emerging writers, indicating the author was less experienced than the typical Chosŏn Munhak writer and likely had less access to foreign reference materials – and it shows.

The story depicts a plot by a vaguely defined "middle eastern mafia organization" to kidnap President George W. Bush and replace him with an imposter, using technology similar to the kind that allowed Nicholas Cage and John Travolta to switch faces in the 1997 classic "Face/Off." 

The story features fanciful depictions of a dysfunctional First Family, NSA Condoleezza Rice leading a helicopter attack squadron in full combat gear, a chaotic proceeding before the US Supreme Court, and an alternate-reality Dick Cheney who willingly declines power.

The Plot

The story opens with Bush at his lakeside retreat, getting an unexpected early-morning visit from his daughter Jenna. They banter playfully, and he guesses (accurately) that she wants money. They chat via video call with Laura Bush, who is in Mexico City viewing a beauty pageant; Bush teases that she should enter the competition: "If you wear a bikini, I bet you'll win first prize." 

They are interrupted by Special Advisor Rice (특별보좌관 라이스), who says she has urgent business. Bush gives his daughter $20,000 (via "internet money transfer"), and Jenna flounces off, delighted.

Rice reports that some intruders were spotted lurking on the grounds. The guards chased after them but  only recovered a cryptic note: "A new adventure begins!"

Reading the note, Bush suddenly looks thoughtful – arousing Rice's suspicions. "Bush's eyes, which always looked gloomy or dull, now had the look of a gambler at a card table or a bank robber opening a safe full of cash. When she looked again, it was just his normal face, void of any sense of intelligence." 

Even more suspiciously, he tells her that the intruders are "part of a mafia group connected to Al Qaeda" and that they’re "targeting the hardliners who have declared war on terrorism," including himself. Without revealing where he got the information, he tells her that this mafia has a secret base at an isolated villa in the Rocky Mountains and orders her to "personally command the FBI and the Defense Department Special Forces" to "wipe them out mercilessly."

Two days later, Rice comes to report to Bush at the White House, fresh from the assault and still in her combat gear. Bush is eager for video confirmation that the compound has been destroyed. We get a birds-eye view of the attack on the compound, which has a lot of satisfying explosions and automatic weapons fire. Toward the end, there is a brief glimpse of two special forces soldiers supporting a limping man covered in blood. 

   “Wait, who is that?” Bush froze the screen and demanded, looking anxious.

   “That’s a man who’d been kidnapped. Luckily he was confined in the basement of the villa, so he survived, but he suffered severe injuries, memory loss, and speech paralysis. We haven't even determined his name and address yet.”

   “Shut up,” Bush suddenly snapped. Startled, Rice jumped up from her chair. Bush's profanity kicked up a notch. [...] “How many times must I repeat it before you understand? These terrorists are targeting American politicians. However, no one from the White House or Congress has yet been kidnapped. So that man must be a terrorist. Where is he now?”

   Rice could not hide her surprise when Bush's speech showed a glimmer of logic, however faint. When was the president ever so wise? In a crisis, does a dimwit suddenly sprout intelligence? 

Despite her suspicions, Rice promises to take care of it. Half an hour later, she returns with the disquieting news that the man apparently fled from a "charity hospital" where he'd been taken for treatment. The doctors believed he was mentally unstable. Bush appears upset at this news and orders that the man be found immediately and "shot on sight, whether he is out of his mind or not." 

Hoping to cheer him up, Rice hands him a letter that just arrived for him, "from a college classmate, I think." Bush waits until she leaves before tearing it open:

   “Paul, you know what betrayal means in our organization. Death will visit you within a few days. Understand that evading it is futile! Jefferson.”

   His face darkened as he read the lines.

   Paul was the real name of the man who was now pretending to be president. Jefferson was a senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment and a leading member of the mafia.

   (So, Jefferson still lives? Oh, right, there were only 8 bodies found. So, two are still alive. Ah, I forgot how cunning Jefferson is…)

    The fake Bush/Paul tore at his hair with both hands...

The story shifts to the Washington DC suburbs, where a lonely policeman is nodding off at his station, daydreaming of winning the lottery and traveling to see the world. His daydreams are interrupted when a weak, disheveled figure lumbers into the doorway and stutters, "I... am… Pre-si-dent... Bush..." Squinting, the cop recognizes his face from "a promotional photo" that was posted in town a few years ago during the presidential election (because really, how else would a random American know what their president looks like?). Before losing consciousness, this Bush just manages to explain "The man pretending to be president is a mafia member named Paul."

The last act takes place at the US Supreme Court [미련방최고재판소], where "an unprecedented trial was taking place to determine who was the real President of the United States." The trial is presided over by a single "chief of court" [재판소장]. The chief is anxious not to screw this up, because he knows the whole country is watching, and "As a father with five daughters all past the age of marriage, he was concerned that a mistake at this trial could leave him humiliated and unemployed." If only Supreme Court justices could be dismissed so easily...

Two identical Bushes sit in the dock. In the witness stand are five people: First Lady Laura Bush, her twin daughters "Jenna and Bamara," Condoleezza Rice, and the suburban policeman who discovered the other Bush. 

The cop looks bewildered and terrified. Before the prosecutor can finish reading the indictment, he flees the courtroom, declaring: "I won’t say anything. I don’t know which of these bums– I mean, which of these men is the real president, and it doesn't matter to me. There is nothing to be gained for me here. America is the land of freedom, so I’m free to testify or not. Anyway, I feel dirty for getting involved in this messy game. Ahh- [spits]."

The trial proceeds, but the witnesses will only give vague and noncommittal answers. Meanwhile, the two Bushes keep shouting profanities, each insisting that he is "the real Bush." This is getting nowhere, so the chief justice changes strategies. He instructs each of the witnesses to try asking questions only the real Bush would know. 

Rice tries first:

   “Mr. President, where did we first meet?”

   “I don’t know,” answered the Bush on the right. “Wasn’t it a brothel?” followed the Bush on the left.     

   Laughter erupted from the audience.

   Rice, her face red, pursed her lips and sat down. Now the president's eldest daughter, Jenna, stood up confidently.

   “Father, what do your daughters love most?”

   “Alcohol and money,” the two Bushes answered simultaneously, as if they had planned it.

   “Then, what about Mom?” asked younger sister Bamara, not giving anyone a chance to react.

   “Men,” both Bushes again answered in unison. Loud laughter erupted in the hall.

Then a random person from the audience stands up, introduces himself as "Dr. Arthur of XXX Biological Research Institute" and  suggests that they "conduct genetic tests comparing the blood of two indictees with that of the president’s twin daughters, Miss Jenna and Miss Bamara. Then we will be able to find out who the real President Bush is."

The chief justice looks delighted at this idea; but Laura Bush turns pale. "As a woman who had many affairs in her youth, she was not even sure whose blood her twin daughters had inherited."

Luckily for her, at this point the Bush on the left interrupts: "Wait. There’s no need for that." He tells the astonished court, "Neither of us is President Bush. My name is Jefferson, and his name is Paul." The whole court listens in stunned silence to his tale.

   "You will all be wondering how the two of us have the same face as President Bush. But these are not our real faces. Paul had facial surgery a few months ago in order to kidnap the President and set him up in his place. And I got a muscular injection a few days ago to change my face.

   "The reason I sought to become President Bush, knowing of this plot, was to expose the identity of Paul, after he betrayed and brutally murdered his comrades. How ridiculous is it, that this mere pimp who owns a brothel in New York should pretend to be president? Of course, in the United States, there is no law that says a brothel owner cannot become president." In Jefferson's last words there was a note of sadness.

   The chief of court, finally regaining his senses, asked: “Then where is the real President Bush?”

   “Advisor Rice will know more about that. He was admitted to a charity hospital,” said Paul, who had been holding his peace until now.

   Rice gaped wide-eyed, seemingly forgetting the very tense atmosphere in the courtroom. After a moment, her clever mind began moving properly again, and she hastily apologized. “I really didn’t know. During the military attack on the mafia, one man was rescued; I guess that must have been President Bush. At that time, the president's face looked different, either damaged in the attack or altered by some drug. Also, a severe concussion had caused him to lose his memory and paralyzed his speech functions, making it impossible to identify him. But anyway, even if that man is the real president, I don't know where he is now. He ran away from the charity hospital. The doctors reported he did not appear in his right mind.”

With the president's whereabouts unknown, an emergency meeting of the National Security Council is convened in "a secret conference room at the White House" to decide on a transition. Rice begins, “I fully support Vice President Cheney taking over all powers of the President in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.” 

However, to everyone's bafflement, Cheney votes against himself. His initial thrill at the prospect of becoming president had given way to fear that he too could be kidnapped. Also, he has no desire to "take over the American government and economy that Bush had ruined."

The story ends with a plaintive scene:

   Right as this NSC meeting was taking place, a charity organization was providing free meals to the poor in the park before the main gate of the White House.

   Among the rows of unemployed and homeless, there was a man with the slack-jawed look of a mental patient. After an hour of waiting, the man finally took an empty bowl and approached the cook.

   Perhaps because his speech was paralyzed, the man just grinned appealingly at the cook who served the porridge. The server, observing his pitiful appearance, served him a second ladleful. This was quite special “consideration.” Thanks to the massive military spending recently approved by the president, even the watery soup distributed by charity organizations had to be greatly reduced.

   The man was so sad that he hung his head. The man had suffered amnesia, and until a few days ago he did not even know that he could have done something good for the unemployed and homeless people gathered here. This man was the real Bush. Bush, the President of the United States, who was abandoned by everyone in the world...

Mafia

The bad guys behind the abduction plot are repeatedly described as "mafia" [마피아조직], but this does not seem to refer to the American mafia. Rather, it is implied that their organization is based somewhere in the Middle East. Bizarrely, they are in league with the Carnegie Endowment [카네기기금], where Jefferson is a senior fellow. (The Carnegie Endowment was also randomly implicated in the secret plot in Raise Your Bayonets with the CIA and candidate Bob Dole, but there it was misspelled 카네디기금). 

In his dramatic courtroom confession, Jefferson reveals that the head of their organization, a man named "Kent," is Middle-Eastern, as is Paul. At first I suspected this was intended to depict some Israeli agency, possibly the Mossad. Antisemitic conspiracy theories sometimes find their way into North Korean novels.

But then Jefferson clarifies that Kent's real name is Muhammed al-Hid. Asked if their group has ties to Al Qaeda, Jefferson says he does not know, but "cannot rule out the possibility." Jefferson himself is unsure of the true objective of the kidnapping plot, but he theorizes that as a Middle Easterner, Kent would have wanted to reverse "the hard-line, high-pressure stance of President Bush and other politicians toward the Islamic world."

During Fake Bush/Paul's brief tenure, Rice becomes suspicious at one point when he unexpectedly vetoes some bills related to the Iraq War. As she gapes incredulously, the fake president explains: "Rice, I want to stop the military build-up against Iraq and launch a strong military attack against North Korea. If we overthrow North Korea, our great enemy, won't the countries that have disrespected us become more obedient?"

This is the only mention of North Korea in the story, and it raises more questions than answers about the intended message of this tale. Other KWU novels have consistently pushed the notion that the US wars in the Middle East were always intended as a sly way to justify military buildup and move troops and hardware into place for an ultimate end-goal of invading North Korea. This story, admittedly by a much lower-ranked author, suggests instead that Bush's invasion of Iraq actually diverted resources away from North Korea, and then it was up to these mysterious Middle-Easterners to steer the focus of US defense strategy back onto North Korea.

Condoleezza Rice herself is no dove, but she vehemently opposes this shift, thinking: "North Korea was different from Iraq. A misstep with North Korea would not just seal the president's fate, but could spell the end of the entire US. Were it not so, Rice herself, the advocate of the 'strong policy,' would not have approved those documents..."

Condoleezza Rice

Bush's National Security Advisor has many entertaining scenes. She seems to act as a power-behind-the-throne and sometimes baby-sitter to the infantile President Bush, "overflowing with pride in herself as the real power of that great nation called the United States and always ridiculing Bush’s low intellect." She is repeatedly described as a "nyŏgŏl" which is an old Korean term for a female warrior. 

Privately in their Oval Office meeting, the president compliments her, "People wonder why my special adviser is a woman, but in reality, Rice, you are a nyŏgŏl who handles 80% – no, all – of my presidential work."

When the false Bush makes some uncharacteristically clever repartee, his wife Laura teases, "Who knew that our President has such an extraordinary sense of humor? I thought you were this great statesman who couldn't say one proper word without Rice."

The text oddly identifies Rice as "혼혈" (mixed-race) rather than black. Physically she is depicted as having a military bearing and "thick, utterly unfeminine lips." When she comes straight from the attack on the Colorado compound, still in her special forces uniform, the false Bush compliments her: "Rice, military garb suits you." 

North Korea has no equivalent of a civilian national security official. They would perhaps thinks of this as equivalent to their Minister of State Security (보위부, the "secret police"), who is always a high-ranking military officer and always appears in uniform with a chest full of medals.

Former Minister of State Security Kim Won Hong, 
who was dismissed in Feb 2017 (src: KCNA/Reuters)

First Family 

North Korean media must have covered some of the more tabloid-esque stories of the Bush era; the story mentions Jenna Bush's underaged drinking scandal and the time President Bush passed out choking on a "beer cracker." But some things have apparently been lost in translation; for instance, Jenna's sister Barbara's name is repeatedly mis-rendered in Korean as "Bamara" [바마라]. 

Korean language runs into a problem when dealing with twins, because relative age matters in deciding which terms to use. There's no good word for just "sister" independent of age. Usually the one born first will be referred to as "elder sister" and "eldest daughter," etc. In this story, the author seems to have decided that Jenna was born first, but I'm not sure if that is accurate.

Laura Bush is for some reason depicted as a man-hungry bimbo. She preens when W. suggests she enter the Mexican beauty contest. At the trial, she panics at talk of using DNA samples, suspecting her twins might have had a different father. 

For various selfish reasons, the Bush women are not particularly motivated to identify the real Bush at trial. The twins just hope that "the generous man who had given them so much money at the presidential villa" will be their father from now on. Laura just hopes to avoid "criticism that she couldn't even recognize her husband." 

We have seen First Daughters depicted as spoiled princesses before. This seems to be part of the general directive to emasculate and humble the US president, by showing that even his own family has little respect for him beyond the money and glamour his position provides. The depiction of a First Lady as a woman of loose morals is a new one, at least to my knowledge. It is more likely to be a product of this particular author's sense of humor than any top-down directive.

The Red Flash: North Korean scientists discover a thing in Antarctica

 "The Red Flash" (붉은 섬광) is a science fiction story by Ri Kŭm Chŏl that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in September 2002.

I was originally drawn to this story after skimming over it quickly and catching phrases like "Antarctica," "Graham Land Research Station," "unexplained phenomenon," "Ph.D. in molecular chemistry," plus a lot of talk about penguins and molecules. Having just recently rewatched John Carpenter's The Thing, I briefly fantasized about discovering a North Korean rendition of the cult classic, which sent me down a spiral of hopeful speculation. What sort of unique test would North Koreans come up with for detecting who is the Thing? How would the Thing manage to infiltrate a group of North Koreans, who are famously always practicing mutual surveillance? How might the Thing be transformed for the better after absorbing Juche thought from their brains?

But sadly, it was not to be. In fact the bulk of the story takes place not in Antarctica but in a South Pacific port and aboard a docked cruise ship. It is less sci-fi horror and more procedural detective story with sci-fi elements. 

The two main characters are a pair of investigators named Helen and Jasmine who are clearly romantically entangled, which got me excited again for a few paragraphs as I wondered if I had stumbled upon the first openly lesbian protagonists in North Korean fiction – until I realized that, against all odds, the character named Jasmine [쟈스민] is an extremely heteronormative man. More on their relationship in the notes below. But first:

The Plot

Late one night on the small South Pacific island nation of Asir, a sudden explosion rips through the commercial port, setting off a fire that spreads rapidly. As the flames approach a huge stockpile of fuel oil barrels with “USA” stenciled on their sides, witnesses observe a US military helicopter appear to drop several black spherical objects. But rather than being extinguished, the flames burn even higher. Just as the fire is about to hit the fuel barrels, a strange reddish light flashes in the sky over the dock. Then, mysteriously, the raging inferno dies down to nothing in seconds.

The next morning, two investigators are on the scene: "Female Prosecutor Helen" of the Asir Prosecutor's Office and "Inspector Jasmine" from the Metropolitan Police Department. 

Their attention quickly turns to the Penguin, a fancy passenger cruise ship docked in the port on its return from an Antarctic excursion. They already have one clue – the quick-acting port authorities have dragged the port area and recovered a metal tube from the seabed near the Penguin [they did this overnight, I guess?]. They speculate that it may be the remnant of a projectile weapon. 

A cruise ship in Antarctica
(src: AdventureSmith Explorations) 

Checking the Penguin's manifest, the investigators become suspicious of three passengers the ship picked up in Antarctica. These are no bourgeois luxury cruise patrons, but North Korean scientists catching a ride home after a stint at Graham Land Research Base in Antarctica. They are all experts in molecular chemistry, and their research involves finding ways to repair the hole in the ozone layer. 

Reviewing surveillance camera footage of the panicked passengers milling on the deck during the incident, they spot one of the North Koreans acting suspiciously calm as he speaks into a mobile phone just moments before the red flash.  Helen goes aboard and meets with the captain, who produces the man, Dr. Kim Hak Sŏng, for her to interview.

Dr. Kim is an extremely handsome 30-something man with Ph.D. in molecular chemical engineering who readily answers Helen's questions. He suggests to her that those black spheres from the US military helicopter, which everyone else thinks helped to extinguish the fire, were actually intended to push it toward the oil barrels. 

This actually puts even more suspicion on him, because the science-loving Helen knows that "if the fire was guided, it would mean Substance M was present to increase oxygen molecules in the air," and his team's research project is known to involve "Substance M." But, Dr. Kim points out, "Substance M is also produced at US research bases."  He also points out that the US military helicopter could not have arrived on-scene so quickly if it had not somehow anticipated the fire.

He urges her to think carefully before jumping to conclusions, and cryptically claims that the US military stands most to gain from the port fire, even though its own oil barrels were endangered. His reasoning:  "Because the US military placed its strategic materials in a civilian port, if they were to explode, your authorities would be held responsible. Then, not only would you have to pay enormous damage compensation, but you would no longer be able to make such strong demands for the US forces to withdraw... So, the US military will continue to sit on this island of Asir like it owns the place, while receiving full payment for value of the exploded fuel."

From the Penguin's captain, Helen learns that somebody had reported "thieves breaking into the luggage hold" during the conflagration. She gathers all the passengers who have large trunks in the hold, weighs each trunk, and compares the results against the weights recorded at boarding. She finds only one disparity - the North Koreans'  trunk is 4.8 kg lighter than when it came aboard at Graham Land.

Graham Land Research Station, Antarctica
Src: istockphoto

Meanwhile, Jasmine has processed the video footage of Dr. Kim's phone call using a lip-reading algorithm and managed to isolate a few phrases: "… Port fire... oil container explosion... using the research product… flames…" All the other detectives think this is pretty incriminating, but Helen points out that he could also be saying, "extinguish the flames by using the research product." The other investigators laughingly suggest that this "young female prosecutor" must have fallen in love with the Korean scientist, who they have all noticed is extremely handsome.

They obtain a few more clues from the surveillance video: Just after the red flash, they can hear a brief sputtering from the ship's engine (which had been hastily started in an attempt to back away from the flames); and at the same time, some of the passengers standing on the deck appear to briefly gasp for breath. Meanwhile, Jasmine has confirmed that the black spheres from the helicopter did in fact contain Substance M.

It's enough to raise suspicions, but for proof they will need access to the US military port. Here Jasmine heroically steps up, calling in a favor from a US military counterintelligence officer with a gambling addiction who owes him $8,000 - the exact price of a base entry pass. This substantially raises his profile in Helen's eyes.

Just as the Penguin is readying to depart, Helen meets Dr. Kim on deck and informs him that they've solved the case. To his surprise, she shows him her classified report. They have found irrefutable proof that the US military was responsible for the port fire: "In the wake of growing anti-American sentiment on a global scale and increasingly calls for American troops to withdraw from Asir, the US military carried out a planned conspiracy. ... The plot was to rationalize the US military's presence in Asir by bringing oil containers into Asir port and exploding them, passing the blame to the local authorities."

Further, her clever sleuthing has concluded that the red flash was caused by the North Koreans deploying their research product to extinguish the fire. Their research involved developing a projectile-delivered flash that [several paragraphs of molecular chemistry talk here] essentially reshapes the oxygen molecules so that they are less flammable. The crucial clues were the 4.8 kg missing from their trunk (the weight of the device), as well as the ship's engine sputtering and the people on deck briefly gasping for air, which are side effects of the phenomenon.

She only has one question: why did they try to hide their altruistic deed, which saved untold lives? Dr. Kim answers humbly: “I did not want to make the research public. You see, it hasn't been shown in my home country yet. However, after getting my emergency report about the fire in Asir Port, our country unhesitatingly instructed us to deploy it. Their concern was for the lives and property of Asir’s people.”

Helen is awed by his patriotism and sense of mission. Before his eyes, she sets fire to her notebook, destroying the record of her findings. “Please forgive me," she says. "When your research product is reproduced and released to the world, I will write this report again. Until then, know that the Asir people will never forget your benevolence.”

Asir

The main port of Fiji in the South Pacific

The fictional setting of Asir [아씨르] is described as a small island nation in the South Pacific on which the US military maintains an unwelcome presence. This could be intended as a stand-in for one of several real-life US security dependencies such as Palau, the Marshall Islands, the FSM, etc. It is not, however, an incorporated US territory like Guam or American Samoa.

This makes for some confusion about  Helen's and Jasmine's identities and loyalties. As civilian port officials seemingly independent of (and at odds with) the US military, they are presumably locals. And yet their names, and Helen's long blonde hair, do not fit with any Pacific islanders I know of. Jasmine used to be a man's name in France, so I guess it's possible they are French descendants somewhere in French Polynesia; but then I don't see how the US military could have a port there.

Helen and Jasmine

Helen's femininity is firmly established early and reemphasized often. She is referred to throughout as "처녀", which can mean either "virgin" or "young, unmarried woman" (as in most East Asian languages, these two things are linguistically indistinguishable in Korean). When her job title is mentioned, she is always "young woman prosecutor" (처녀검사) and never just "prosecutor." She is beautiful and passionate, but strives to maintain appropriate professional distance around both male colleagues and male suspects, however handsome they may be.

Jasmine, on the other hand, is identified as an "inspector" [경부] with the Asir Metropolitan Police. Since Korean pronouns are not necessarily gendered, I held on for some time to the hope that Jasmine might be female, even after he was described several times as "manly" [사나이다운], but eventually I accepted that he must be a man. He flagrantly flirts with Helen, despite her pleas to keep things professional. Her rebukes just make him all the more determined to "shake this beauty's heart with his wisdom and ability as a police officer, as well as his manly temperament and perseverance" [사나이다운 기질과 인내력]. He sees the port fire investigation as his chance to impress her.

When Jasmine suggests that they work together on the investigation, Helen readily agrees but says that they should split up to approach the case from different angles: "When it comes to hunting wild animals, it’s more effective to stab them in two places at once rather than twice in the same place.” She also cites "Eastern scripture" [동방의 성구] which teaches that one must “Look at the beginning and the end at the same time."

Jasmine seizes upon this opportunity for some cringeworthy dialogue: 

   “Helen, if our two lines of investigation intersect at one point, do you suppose that intersection will become our romance (love)?” [그것이 우리들의 로맨스 (사랑) 로 되지 않을가요?]
   “Please don’t look at me that way, it isn't proper.” 

   A coy smile twitched across Jasmine’s lips.
   “I have a feeling that intersection point will be the intersection of our two fates, which have run parallel until now. How about it?"
   "Well. Will our investigations intersect? But I also look forward to that.” 

   In an instant, Jasmine's broad, flat face brightened like a floodlight.

After he heroically steps in to help solve the case at significant financial cost to himself, Helen "looked at Jasmine with fresh eyes" and seems more amenable to his romantic hopes, although we do not see this come to fruition. The story closes with Jasmine comforting a misty-eyed Helen on the dock, after she has finished waving farewell to handsome Dr. Kim as he and his ship recede into the horizon. It's clear who she would rather be with, if she had her 'druthers.

Shipping Delays

Our heroes are under tremendous pressure to solve the case quickly; in particular, they are told they must not detain the Penguin past its scheduled 2pm departure.

The reason is financial; the longer they detain the ship, the more expenses will be incurred by shipping delays  - expenses that must be borne by the port of Asir. Capitalism is indeed a ruthless taskmaster.

For a vacation cruise ship returning from an unpopulated continent, the Penguin carries a surprising amount of time-sensitive commercial cargo and high-pressure corporate shark types. As Helen is interviewing the captain on the deck, several passengers come up and remind the captain how much money a delay would cost them. One says he has a contract with something called "Voltaire" [maybe a magazine?] to do an interview about Antarctic tourism, and asks if the captain will take responsibility [i.e., compensate him] if the contract gets cancelled. Another says, “My shareholders [주권들] are racing against time. We can’t delay here.” The captain gloomily turns to Helen: “You see, miss, to me, time is money. We will lose $800,000 every day our return is delayed.”

These appeals are, of course, intended to illustrate the heartlessness of global capitalism in the face of human tragedy. Standing up to this pressure, Helen asks the captain to consider the cost in lives and property lost in the fire. Even though she is a non-Korean, Helen here takes on the voice of the righteous socialist warrior that is normally exclusive to North Korean characters.

Tech Overkill

The author takes advantage of the story's "sci-fi" categorization to insert some needlessly high-tech gadgetry. Although nothing in the essential plot requires it to be set very far into the future, it seems that it must be so, because the detectives use some tools that make no sense otherwise. 

Remember tricorders?

For instance, Jasmine brings up the port fire surveillance video on a "small portable computer" [자그마한 휴대용콤퓨터], which at the time of publication in 2002 would have seemed quite futuristic. When Helen weighs the luggage in the hold, she does so using a "portable mass sensor" [휴대용질량측정기] which she simply places on top of each trunk. If I recall my high school physics correctly, the difference between mass and weight only becomes relevant as distance from the planet's center varies – and since the luggage is at sea level the entire time, it is unclear why she would need to measure the trunks' mass and not just weigh them on a plain old scale. If such a gadget were readily available, it would save time, I guess.

Bonus Link

Congratulations on reaching the bottom of this post. Since I lured you in by false pretenses (like the American jackal that I am), please enjoy this clip from a classic cinematic masterpiece as compensation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMgBIy6mTo

Kwangmyongsong-30: North Koreans Fight Americans in Outer Space

"The Signal that Flew from Kwangmyongsong-30" (《광명성-30》호에서 날아온 전파) is a science fiction story by Shin Sŭng Gu (신승구) that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in August 2016.

I stumbled across this story as I was searching for references to radiation [방사능,방사선,방사성] in North Korean literature for a forthcoming paper; more on that soon maybe.

This story has everything you typically ask for in a space drama: explosions, flying debris, solar flares, high-stakes meticulous telemetry calculations, a race against the clock, unscrupulous asteroid miners, dizzying space walks, an improbably young and beautiful astrophysicist, a brilliant mission control team scrambling ad-hoc solutions to life-or-death problems... and, of course, antimatter.

But I get ahead of myself. First, let us examine:

The Plot

Satellite Research Institute Director Jang Hyŏk is busily managing the final stages of his institute's biggest project to date - a massive solar array in outer Earth orbit that will collect energy from the sun's rays and beam it back to the surface via laser. This achievement is made possible by the satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-30, the culmination of decades of satellites launched by the North Korean space program.

They switch on the big screen, where an astronaut is floating in space, putting the final touches on the array. It’s Director Jang Hyŏk’s son, Yŏng Jun, freshly graduated from Astrophysics University and up on his first space mission.

As his son floats dizzyingly above the earth, he reports on the final repairs, and the two speculate that the enemy will "go apoplectic" [까무라치고말것입니다] when they hear of the array's completion tomorrow. Grinning, they terminate the connection.

Director JH is counting on Yŏng Jun for more than just the space array; he hopes his unmarried son will soon find a nice young daughter-in-law to come live with them [JH's anticipation of this is full-on creepy].

Just as he is thinking these thoughts, a gorgeous vision of womanhood enters his office. She seems familiar, and he immediately guesses she must be a reporter, or perhaps an actress; she shakes her head.

“I’ve come for a job.”

“A job? This is a space satellite research center.”

“I’m aware.”

“That is, one must have manly qualities to work here. Bold, gutsy…”

“That’s why I’ve come.”

She dug into her bag and presented her assignment papers; his eyes widened. “Graduated with top marks from the doctoral program of Astrophysics University? That’s fantastic, for one so young!”

After she leaves, an unnamed senior technician [기사장] speaks up: He was Comrade Ran Hee's graduate advisor, and knew her to be a passionate researcher, always in the library. Twice she’d won gold medals in international exibitions. JH sees how her expertise could complement their work; but still he worries that this "delicate greenhouse flower of a girl" [온실의 꽃과 같이 연약한 처녀] may not be tough enough for this stressful job. 

Director JH continues coordinating power grid issues late into the night. Just after 4 am, they receive a disturbing report from their space observation lab: A chunk of unknown material has flown off Asteroid 233, a 500-m diameter object between Mars and Jupiter. Measuring 50 m diameter, the chunk appears to be headed for Earth. 

North Korean satellite launch control 
center (Src: BBC)

JH is initially unconcerned; at that size it should burn up in the atmosphere – unless it is made up of solid nickel or iron, but those are rare. But the spacelab manager is suspicious; the trajectory is odd, as if the asteroid was aimed straight at their solar array. JH bangs away at his computer a bit and brings up the space view on the big screen. There: that bright red speck is the chunk from Asteroid 233. 

The sub-asteroid is unmistakably headed straight at Kwangmyongsong-30. Spacelab Manager recalls that yesterday’s imagery from the high-powered telescope on the space station had shown what looked like an explosion on A233, where the enemy had planted its flag. Our people on the space station had inquired and been told that they were extracting minerals. Now it seems likely that they had blown off a chunk to fire at Kwangmyongsong-30.

"What sneaky bastards. To calculate precisely all the variables – the asteroid’s position, the earth’s revolution and rotation, the speed of the projectile – they must have used a supercomputer [고성능초대형콤퓨터] to aim so precisely at Kwangmyongsong-30 and get the timing just right. If we do nothing, in hours it will blast our solar power station to smithereens."

Spacelab Manager spots another cause for concern; if it is composed of nickel and doesn’t burn up in the atmosphere, the asteroid is on course to strike North Korean territory. The estimated impact would be apocalyptic for the country. “The bastards are trying to kill two birds with one stone [일거량득],” Director JH observes.

Spacelab Manager suddenly brightens, remembering that they positioned defensive attack rockets around the array for just such a scenario. But JH says no; even if they blow it up, the fragments will continue on the same path. Even a small fragment could shatter the array they’ve worked so hard to build.

“But sir, what about Comrade Yŏng Jun?” Spacelab Manager seems about to cry.

People gather around, filled with determination to save the director’s son; but Jang stubbornly ignores their suggestions. Via satellite link, Yong Jun too rejects the team's offers to send a shuttle  [우주왕복선] to save him: “Thanks for your concern. But my fate lies with Kwangmyongsong-30. Do not fear.” 

Some time later, the unnamed tech who was Ran Hee's graduate advisor shows up, looking sweaty and out of breath. JH scolds him for being truant in their darkest hour, but Unnamed Tech just grins and says he was finishing up a project at the university with Ran Hee. He says they've found a way to save Comrade YJ and the space station.

At an emergency strategy meeting, they announce their audacious plan to "turn this asteroid into a tool to strike back against the enemy.”

Ran Hee elaborates: “I propose we use solar sails [태양돛] to change the meteorite’s path and avoid a collision. [...] A solar sail is a thin, filmy sail about 50 m wide and 0.075 mm thick; it can guide an object in the desired direction by using the power of sunlight. If such a sail could be attached to the asteroid, we could then use the angle of the sail to change its path.”

Src: nasa.gov

The room erupts in animated chatter; Unnamed Tech raps for attention. “It’s a simple problem. The force from sunlight is subtle, but in the weightlessness of space there is no resistance. The sail could move as fast as 200 km/s, and so catch up with this asteroid that is doing about 30 km/s.”

JH looks at the pair wonderingly. Is this what they’d been up to at the university this morning? Have they already built some sort of sail assembly? Suddenly he remembers where he’s seen her before: she was his son’s teammate at the international inventor’s competition, where they won gold! The photo is in his album at home. And his son had spoken fondly of "a doctoral student at the university." Could they be more than just colleagues?

   The First Team Leader spoke up: “Researcher Ran Hee’s idea is a good one. But… how do we get the sail to the asteroid’s position? Solid rockets [고체로케트] won’t work…”

   “That’s why we’re going to use the antimatter thruster [반물질추진기],” Ran Hee quietly replied. 

   The room erupted in agitated murmuring; as rocket scientists, they all knew that antimatter reacted violently when put in contact with regular matter, producing energy 1000 times greater than nuclear fusion. But where to find it? It existed when the universe was formed 13.7 billion years ago, but now there was no trace of it anywhere. 

The antimatter canister
from Angels & Demons

   You could hear a pindrop, as everyone hung on her next words: "That's right. The vehicle to transport the solar sail should be an antimatter craft, not a solid fuel rocket. It is a known fact that antimatter forms in clouds during thunderstorms. The problem is that the substance disappears almost immediately. But working with Comrade Yong Jun, I’ve developed a device to recover that antimatter. In fact, we have built an antimatter powered craft. I will fly this craft into space.”

   More disbelieving murmurs. “That delicate girl, flying up into space?” “But there are no female astronauts…” “But you’re supposed to have three months’ training before you can go up.”

    Jang Hyok’s voice cut through the noise. “No way. Absolutely not!”

   “Why – because I’m a woman? But if this is going to work, I have to be at Yong Jun’s side.”

   “Why is that?”

Unable to answer, she blushes and looks down. Coming to her rescue, Unnamed Tech explains that YJ and RH have always worked best together; "like a pair of meshed gears... they need to engage together to work." Reluctantly, Director JH approves the plan.

At sunrise, the antimatter craft launches with RH aboard. Moving at tremendous speed, it breaches the atmosphere in the blink of an eye and then begins a complicated rotation maneuver meant to unfurl the sail. Watching from mission control, JH tenses, knowing that solar sail deployment requires a meticulous calculation of the subtle correlation between the sail area and the vehicle’s rotational speed. 

After several rotations, it becomes clear that the sail is not unfurling properly. RH struggles at the controls, growing more frantic. Then a masculine voice cuts through her panic: “Ran Hee, listen to me. You have to adjust your rotation period to 3 seconds. Remember that this sail has a much larger area!” It's YJ, transmitting from Kwangmyongsong-30.

 

Everyone holds their breath. 3 seconds is a terribly fast rotation speed; can this mere slip of a girl withstand the centrifugal forces?

She does. The ship spins like a top, the sail unfurls magnificently, and she shoots off toward K30. There, YJ comes aboard and joins her at the controls, and they take off again, headed straight for the sub-asteroid. Closer and closer it comes, but they don't slow down. Finally, at the last possible moment, the craft executes a neat 180 degree turn and bites into the asteroid’s rear.

Clad in spacesuits, YJ and RH step out onto the asteroid. Despite the ferocious speed at which the rock is traveling, they can stand on it without any difficulty, because there is no atmosphere in the vacuum of space. 

Now they just need to install the solar sail. But instead, the pair seem preoccupied with setting up some instruments on the rocky surface. What the hell are they playing around with? 

   Jang Hyŏk screamed in frustration. “Get that sail set up. The asteroid’s nearing the power station.” 

   “Shouldn’t we check its composition though?”

   What? Check the asteroid's composition? When we're almost out of time... looking for evidence of the enemy’s scheme... The balls on these kids! [아, 얼마나 담이 큰 젊은이들인가?]

  Soon after, Yong Jun stood up. “This asteroid is a chunk of iron and nickel broken off from A233. It appears that the enemy laid explosive charges to blast it off. They wanted to obliterate Kwangmyongsong-30 and our space power station. And then, our country…”

   Jang Hyok shook with fury. “You old cowards, are you scared of our strong socialist nation? Surely not.”

   On the wall, the clock ticked mercilessly on toward disaster. Only 5 minutes from impact! And still the seconds ticked by. Finally the pair stood up from their labor.

   “Now to adjust the sail’s angle. What should it be?”

   “Do you have to ask? You know what our people want.”

   “Understood. We’ll send this rock back to A233, to crush it into oblivion. How’s that?”

   Jang Hyok and the technician shouted in unison. “That’s it! Even against this enemy who blocks us at every move, we’ve got to be smart about how we settle the score. Got it?”

   “Roger that!”

With the angle set, YJ and RH return to their ship and head back to K30. The asteroid slowly turns, narrowly avoiding hitting the solar panel, and heads back toward A233. In short order, that hive of enemy scheming will be shattered.

Soon after, YJ and RH come on the speaker together to report that the space power station is now fully operational. Their signal comes from Kwangmyongsong-30! 

Ah, how many trials and sacrifices led to this moment? How hard was the road? Hello world, can you hear it? The glorious shout of the victors who stand at the very pinnacle as a scientific and technological great power [과학기술강국]!

JH gives the triumphant order to switch on the power station. Instantly, the giant power transmission towers buzz and the grid comes alive, sending power out to every corner of the country.

Cosmos

There's a fair amount of geeky space science in this story; Neil DeGrasse Tyson groupies should take note.  Kwangmyongsong-30's mission is described in detail:

30% of solar energy gets blocked by the atmosphere and clouds, never reaching the earth’s surface… That is the advantage of going to space. Now many countries are trying to develop space power stations, but none has achieved the transmission system [송전체계] our country has. The transmission system that we developed is not a microwave-converted electromagnetic wave, but a laser light transmission cable [레이자빛수송관], and there is no need for noisy construction on the ground for a reception site.

In this way, the story deftly takes the country's expensive Kwangmyongsong missile program and makes it seem as if at some point in the future this will lead to a bottomless source of renewable energy that will benefit the whole country. The orbiting solar power plant described in the story resembles one that China has recently announced plans to build.

The story also alludes to North Korean astronauts working alongside non-Koreans at a "Space Station" [우주정류소] housing the high-powered telescope [대형우주망원경] that initially detects the explosion on A233; it is unclear if this is referring to the International Space Station or some fictional future endeavor.

 

Elsewhere, the topic of solar flares and radiation comes up:

Setting up a huge solar array in space was tremendously difficult. The greatest danger was the flares; these had become highly active recently on the solar surface, and they caused unpredictable magnetic phenomena. No matter how well protected, the astronauts were always absorbing radiation. Still, someone had to go; but who to send? After much deliberation, [Director Jang Hyuk] decided to send his own son, who had just graduated from Astrophysics University. 

Later, when First Team Leader discovers that the asteroid is on course to hit North Korea, he explains the  magnitude of the threat by using a classic astronomy geek reference:

“Consider past history. In the early 20th century an asteroid 50 m in diameter struck in an eastern European forest. The fires and windstorms from the impact destroyed hundreds of sq km of forest, and all plant and animal life within 60 km was wiped out. The strong blast from impact was felt 700 km away, and airwaves were even detected by atmospheric pressure gauges thousands of km away in England. The smoke and fumes flew high in the sky, spreading dust pollution across all of Europe making the sky dark as night. The impact force from that 50 m object was equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT [뜨로찔].”

Despite the reference to "Eastern Europe," this passage is clearly referring to the Tunguska event which struck central Siberia in 1908. 

The science behind asteroid composition, solar sails, and antimatter is all described with a level of detail that could have been lifted from Scientific American or Cosmos. The gravity issues of landing and standing on a 50m asteroid are glossed over, but I prefer to think of that as an homage to the tradition of 20th century space operas. If this author is not a Trekkie, I'll eat my hat.

In Space, Everyone Is Equal

Most of the time, reading North Korean fictional depictions of technological advances can be pretty sad, especially the CNC stuff. It's clear that those stories come from the fantasies of people who are accustomed to struggling with ancient Soviet hand-me-down tech and pirated software patches that never work as they should. Everything is a little too shiny and perfect.

But here, the narrative has moved so far into the future that it has escaped the stratosphere of prosaic technological expectations. Let's face it, most space sci-fi doesn't stand up under any real scientific scrutiny. We're always thinking That would never work as planned and That would've definitely broken down by now and Gravity doesn't work that way. Most of us learn to turn off our brains so we can enjoy the story. 

On balance, this story does a pretty good job of working within the realm of the scientifically plausible. Obviously the antimatter part is pretty pseudoscience-y; but if we're going to bust them for that, we'd have to throw out half of Star Trek. The descriptions of the solar power station and the physics of unfurling the solar sail struck me as fairly believable and cleverly woven into the story.

The political rhetoric is subtle, almost invisible. The idea of the sun's power coming to their aid would definitely appeal to the lyrical sensibilities of well-read North Koreans, tying into the imagery of Kim Il Sung as "the eternal Sun" watching over his people from the cosmos. The author seems to hint at this at one point but never quite comes out and says it directly. I blinked for a moment when I read that the astronauts needed to "check the asteroid's composition" [성분을 확인해보아야 할] since "songbun checks" are so often encountered in a very different context in research about North Korea.

"The Enemy"

The title of this post implies that America is the bad guy in this story. But reading back over it, I belatedly realized that the author has done something very clever - not once does he actually mention America by name. The characters only refer to "the enemies" [적들] or "the bastards" [놈들]. The context [and the entire history of NK literature] leads the reader to assume that this refers to America, but the author has taken pains not to say so explicitly. And the ending, with the astronauts striking back at the asteroid mining operation on A233 rather than an Earthbound location, seems designed to leave "the enemy"'s homeland ambiguous. 

My reaction when I realized this

We can only speculate on why this might be. Other NK fiction has certainly never shied away from naming America as the enemy, and in the context of space conflict as we currently imagine it, who else could it be? 

But this story takes place in the fairly distant future; considering that it took NK about 20 years to get to Kwangmyongsong-4, we can project that  Kwangmyongsong-30 might roll onto the launchpad sometime around 2150. At that point, if we stretch our imaginations enough, "the enemy" could be almost anyone - China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Botswana... even aliens! I've decided it's almost definitely aliens.

I truly enjoyed reading this story. I even slow-clapped when the antimatter thing came up. And when I realized that they were going to get control of the asteroid, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see where they would send it. Four stars.

"Gold Medal": Kim Jong Un teaches his athletes the power of positive thinking

North Korean athletes Kim Jŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl compete
in the 2013 Table Tennis Mixed Doubles World Championship.
Src: Yahoo! News Singapore

"Gold Medal" (금메달) is a story by Han Jŏng Ah that appeared in the May 2017 issue of Chŏngrŏn Munhak. It tells the story of a mixed-doubles table tennis team and their coach as they prepare for the World Championships, with more than a little help from the Great Leader.

The plot is fairly standard, but the story demonstrates how the new prioritization of sports under KJU's leadership has to some degree supplanted the old priorities of film and the arts. It is also a good example of the use of military metaphors to describe non-military endeavors.

Most of all, this story is a prime example of how recent events (usually 4-7 years in the past) are re-interpreted via fiction in a way that reflects maximum glory on the Leader.

The Plot

The story opens with a familiar trope from North Korean fiction: The leader (KJU in this case) stops his motorcade on a country road to offer an elderly citizen a ride. Not realizing that she is in the presence of her Leader, the old woman airs her family laundry. She is headed to Pyongyang to fetch her granddaughter, Kim Yŏng, a table tennis player who recently failed spectacularly at the Pyongyang Invitational, before she can further embarrass her nation on the world stage. Without revealing his identity, KJU convinces her to return to her worried family, reassuring her that her granddaughter will soon be victorious.

The 4.25 Sports Club is most well-known for its soccer
team, but it includes many sports. It is named for the day
the KPA's predecessor was first formed.
Src: Choson Shinbo

The perspective shifts to Pyongyang, where Kim Chŏl Guk is the coach of the mixed-doubles table tennis team at the prestigious 4.25 Sports Club (4.25 체육단). His team consists of Kim Yŏng, a woman approaching 30 without marriage as she devotes herself to the goal of winning a championship, and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl, a married man with a 1-year-old son and a wife who has grown impatient for him to give up the life of a professional athlete and get a real job.

Coach Kim has been working with them on a radical new game strategy that messes with the traditional gender dynamics of mixed doubles; instead of having the female set up for the male's attack, he has them both attacking. Unfortunately this requires more physical stamina than his players have in them, and they suffer a humiliating defeat at the 2011 Pyongyang Invitational.

Even though his team has earned a place at the 2013 World Championships, they are getting on in years, and many of the other coaches argue that they should retire rather than face another humiliation on the world stage. Coach K is inclined to agree.

But then one day, on the lonely stretch of mountain road where he has his players doing strength training, he is met by none other than Kim Jong Un. Still in grief over the recent National Tragedy (the death of his father Kim Jong Il), the Leader nonetheless makes time to give the coach and his players a pep talk.

He says he just came from a visit to the front lines, and the athletes remind him of the soldiers he met there. Both are fighting to defend their homeland; one from military conquest, the other from humiliation in the eyes of the world.

After this pep talk, both coach and players attack their training with renewed vigor. Kim Yŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl both ask to extend their training hours even beyond what they are already doing.

KJU speaks at the 4th Meeting of Secretaries of
Party Cells (제4차 세포비서대회) in January 2013

KJU's intervention goes beyond mere pep talks. At the 4th Meeting of Secretaries of Cells of the Korean Workers' Party, among all the other momentous new policies, KJU unveils a plan to boost all areas of sports in the country. He has top equipment sent to each athletic training center, including TVs and DVD players so that they can learn from recordings of leading world competitors and develop "Our-style Attack Methods."

He also has an aide personally deliver a record to Coach K, one that he says will surely inspire them to victory. It's a song the soldiers used to sing during the Fatherland Liberation War, "My Song from the Trenches" (전호속의 나의 노래).

With the world championships just months away, the athletes train hard against other players who mimic the features of leading foreign competitors. They get better and better. But still, Kim Yŏng's strength fails in the face of a strong attack from a male competitor.

Then just when Coach K's faith is ebbing low, he gets a call out of the blue from KJU. He has reviewed the tapes and identified the problem. Kim Yŏng's failure is not due to her advanced age, but rather a lack of spirit. The Leader notices that she starts out strong but loses all hope after a few mistakes.

KJU then makes a speech that I'm pretty sure is ripped verbatim from one of the Rocky movies, about how true champions are people who can get knocked down and get right back up again. He also tells the story of seven soldiers during the War who fought to the last man to defend a certain hill from the enemy. That last man? Kim Yŏng's grandfather.

North Korean champions on the medal stand at the 2013
World Table Tennis Championships in Paris.
Src: Sina 

At last the team takes the stage at the world championships in Paris. They make a gutsy comeback against Hong Kong in the semifinals before going on to beat South Korea in the finals.

The story lingers on the scene of the athletes saluting from atop the podium as their national flag flies high overhead and foreign sportscasters look on in uncomprehending awe.



Fact and Fiction

This story provides a good example of the limits on naming names of actual people in North Korean fiction. As this blog has noted many times before, with the exception of the Leader Kims, characters based on identifiable individuals are usually given pseudonyms. In this case, the actual athletes who won the mixed doubles table tennis event at the 2013 World Championships, Kim Jŏng and Kim Hyŏk Bong, are given the pseudonyms Kim Yŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl respectively.

It's anyone's guess what the average North Korean reader makes of these name changes. By all accounts the two champions were feted with a lavish homecoming after their victory and are presumably household names. It seems impossible that anyone could mistake the characters for some other mixed doubles table tennis players who won gold at the World Championships in 2013.

Giving them pseudonyms perhaps allows the author some artistic license with the details of the players' lives; for instance, the real Kim Jŏng would have been only 22 when the story opens in 2011, not "approaching the summit of 30" (서른고개에 접어들고있었다) as the story has her, making her lack of marriage prospects and flagging strength more immediate concerns. But other facts about the player, like the fact that she is left-handed, are reflected accurately in the story.

Pak Yŏng Sun was a North Korean table tennis star in the 1970s.
Src: Choson Shinbo

Other, slightly more distant, sports figures are mentioned in the story by their real names: "Table tennis queens" Pak Yŏng Sun, Ri Bun Hui, and Yu Sun Bok, as well as track star Shin Kŭm Dan, speed skater Han Pil Hwa, and marathon runner Jŏng Sŏng Ok. All are mentioned in passing as examples of North Korea's dominance on the world sports stage in times past.

The story accurately states that the North Koreans played the strong Hong Kong team in the semi-finals, and that they lost the first three rounds before coming back to win in a stunning upset. It also mentions that they defeated the South Korean team in the finals, which had earlier defeated the "top-ranked" Chinese team. At the end, the story adds that the pair went on to win gold at the Asian Games the next year.

Choson Shinbo uploaded a video from Choson Central TV in 2015 in which you can see the real Kim Jŏng talking about how her mother encouraged her to play table tennis against her grandmother's wishes, how it felt to meet the Leader, and her relationship with her boyfriend. There is also a video of the real Kim Hyŏk Bong talking about his inspirations in the sport, how his career affects his marriage, and his hopes for his young son, as well as deflecting a pointed question about his relationship with teammate Kim Jŏng. They both confess to crying when they met the Leader, though they don't mention having ever met him before becoming world champions.

Athletes as War Heroes

The story hammers again and again at the theme that athletes are like soldiers fighting in a war. KJU diverts his motorcade to meet Coach K and his players with the words "Comrades, let's meet our warriors of the sports battlefield" (우리 체육전장의 전우들을 잠간 만납시다). Observing Coach K's glum look on the practice field, KJU jokes, "How grim is the commander's face before battle." When he meets the athletes he tells them,

   "When our people sent their sons and husbands to war, what did they hope for most? That even if they gave their lives, they would acquit themselves without shame before the nation.
   "You could say that sports are a battlefield without the sound of gunfire. There's no other arena where people come together in peacetime to compete for the right to fly their nation's flag and play their nation's song.
   "Athletes who compete at international championships are just like soldiers on the front lines defending their county. And so I think of you as my war comrades (전우) just the same as those soldiers defending our most forward outposts."

"War comrades" (전우) have a special meaning in North Korean propaganda as the only kind of common folk with a direct connection to the Leaders.

The players are amazed that KJU knows all the details of their family lives. He tells them, "Family bonds are what give our athletes their strength. During the Fatherland Liberation War, even when communications were at their worst, the Great Leader made sure to keep the mail cars running above all else."

He recalls that Kim Yŏng's grandmother mentioned that her husband died during the war defending a place called Chŏlbong pass, near Hill 1211. He tells them, "You have inherited the legacy of victory from the heroic soldiers of the Fatherland Liberation War."

At the Party Secretaries' Meeting, he tells the assembled KWP leaders: "The athletes who represent our country in international competition are just like soldiers fighting on a battlefield. Therefore you should treat their families just like KPA soldiers' families." Later Kim Yŏng is amazed to hear that the provincial authorities have been lavishing attention on her relatives "just as if they were a soldier's family" (후방가족과 같다).

Coach K, contemplating his players' sacrifices, thinks to himself: "Just as our soldiers fought for the day when they could stand proudly before their families wearing their medals, our athletes also fight as sons and daughters of the nation."


The Power of Positive Thinking

The other big message of this story is that if you can visualize victory in your mind, you will achieve it in real life. In his pep talk to the athletes, KJU says:

   "I just came from a forward outpost, and I was amazed by what I saw there. Those soldiers, even as they faced down the enemy, held the Dear General (KJI) in their hearts and were overflowing with faith in their victory.
   "The patriotism of the Dear General who gave his life for our nation has taught us this: that if we are firm in our faith, victory is certain. That is the wellspring of the strength of our people, who don't know the meaning of 'impossible.' Before technique, before physical strength, it is our faith in victory that allows us to win under any circumstances."

Through this pep talk, Coach K realizes what he was missing: he had lost faith that his athletes could win.

KJU also tells his athletes,

   "A gold medal is not just a symbol of being number one, it is like a gold brick in the fortress of our nation's psyche. The more gold medals we pile up, the stronger we will be in spirit. There is nothing stronger than a nation with a strong spirit.
   "In our history, our nation was strongest during the Koguryo Era, when martial spirit (상무기풍) was at its zenith.
   "Therefore athletes must develop their spirit alongside their physical skill." 

KJU leaves them with this parting thought: 

   "Our nation's history has been nothing but victory since the day of its founding, and we will continue to be victorious. But to win we must first have victory in our hearts.
   "When the Great Fatherly Leader organized his first platoon, even though it was tiny compared to the million-strong Japanese army, he already had a vision of his ultimate victory. And the Dear General,  even during the darkest days of the Arduous March, already foresaw a strong and prosperous nation and spared no expense investing in cutting edge technology.
   "Comrades, if we fight with the indomitable will of the Great Leader, we will surely be victorious."

New Emphasis on Sports

This story bears many of the hallmarks of past stories heralding the nation's achievements in the arts and sciences. One can clearly see how the new priority for sports achievement has been layered onto the same story format that was used in the past for artistic priorities like architecture and the mass games. The story also takes pains to explain how sports achievements will benefit the nation as a whole.

A new facility for the 4.25 gymnastics team, shown in 2018.
Src: Sogwang

In an early scene, Coach K remembers the late KJI visiting the 4.25 Sports Club syhortly before his death and giving the following speech:

   "In the near future our nation must achieve the status of a sport powerhouse. In order to do that, we must first promote events where we have a good chance of winning, before expanding to other sports. Table tennis is one of those events. After all, we've won two world championships in the past.
   "Sports are important to give our people pride and confidence in the task of socialist construction. With every victory our athletes achieve, our national status rises and our whole nation basks in the glory of victory."

The story takes pains to mention that it was KJI who first took an interest in the sports club and in
Coach K in particular before his death, and that KJU is just carrying through with his late father's wishes.

Later KJU is shown thinking to himself,

   Lately, as the military pressure and sanctions by the imperialist forces has thrown up barriers to our economic construction, some in the sports field have given in to defeatist thinking - suggesting limiting our delegations to championships and paring down the renovations of sports facilities.... But in hard times past, like the Chollima era and the time of the Arduous March, how many great sports figures emerged? ... All these victories were made possible by the victorious spirit passed down from the Great Leader through the anti-Japanese struggle and the Fatherland Liberation War. Without faith in the victory of our Revolution, our people would have no confidence. 

KJU views an archery demonstration
at the 4.25 Sports Club in 2013.
Src: UriDongpo

At the 4th Meeting of the Secretaries of Cells of the KWP, which was held a little over a year into KJU's reign and was one of the first publicly televised party meetings under his command, KJU delivers a speech to the assembled Party secretaries in which he says:

   "Sports aid our people's solidarity and sense of collective purpose.
   "A year ago, when I asked a local party secretary how the county electric grid was completed so quickly, he said it was through the power of athletics. It seemed he had led a rope-pulling team (바줄당기기, a traditional Korean sport) to victory in the regional championships. They'd always been dead last in the past, so that victory inspired everyone. In the end, the people of Sangan County learned that if they set their minds to it, they can accomplish anything (마음만 멀으면 못할 일이 없다).
   "And yet, there are some party secretaries who don't even know how many athletes from their province are on the national team."

In conclusion, KJU tells the Party secretaries to devote their energy to developing sports in all regions, and to treat athlete's families with as much respect as front-line soldiers' families.