Sense of Civilization (2000): Seoul snobs get roasted in North Korean comedy

As we have seen before, North Korean literary works can sometimes be unintentionally humorous. However, there are also certain works that are intentionally labeled as "satire" [풍자] by the Party's own publishers. Stories and poems with the "satire" label are rare in North Korean literary magazines nowadays, but they appeared with some regularity in the early 2000s, often lampooning the US president, like this poem and this story previously reviewed. 

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It is often said that a defining feature of dictatorships is that they lack a sense of humor, and this seems generally true of the DPRK regime - but that does not mean they never attempt it. The following is an example of one story that was officially determined to be funny by the powers that be.

"Sense of Civilization" [문명감각] by Kim Ch'ŏng Nam was published as a satirical short story [풍자단편소설] in Chosŏn Munhak in August 2000. It tells the tale of a well-heeled South Korean couple who try a little too hard to imitate Americans, with tragicomic results. The thrust of story's humor is aimed at a certain type of South Korean elite in the Northern imagination, but along the way it also reveals some prevailing attitudes about marital dynamics, masculinity, aesthetic beauty, cosmetic surgery, globalization, and what it means to "look American." 

The protagonists are Paek Sŏng-dal, a Harvard-educated South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and his wife Mun Myŏng-suk. They enjoy a comfortable elite lifestyle, driven around in a black Ford and living in the “high-ranking officials’ housing district” [고관촌] in a big house surrounded by barbed wire [철책], with a garden "designed in exactingly American style" and servants to attend to their every whim. Myŏng-suk goes to great lengths to “look just like an American,” which to her means White. She maintains a milky complexion, wears a blonde wig and “the clothes and makeup of an American woman,” speaks exclusively in English wherever she goes, and dotes on her pet dog.

Myŏng-suk is disappointed in her husband, whose career has stagnated for years in various vice ministerial positions. Their plan to improve matters hinges on getting him a spot in the official entourage for the president’s upcoming trip to the US. Once there, he hopes to “actively engage in ‘backstage diplomacy’ with influential figures in US politics, paving the way for a promotion to the ministerial level or higher.” Myŏng-suk promises: “If you go to America as part of the ‘President's’ entourage, I'll even get a nose job to look just like any American woman and help you with your work there.”

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The couple’s other big concern lately has been getting their beloved daughter Alice accepted into a certain ballet school in America, but they’ve just received the crushing news that she was rejected in the final round. The school's rejection letter stated that she “came up short on the entrance exam and personality test”. But Paek still thinks they can work something out once he wins that coveted spot in the president’s entourage.

Paek has been firmly under his wife’s heel since they met as students at Harvard. People at work have taken to calling him "Madame's Shadow" [마담의 그림자] and "Wife's Manservant" [처의 노복]. One time he answered the phone with such flustered servility (“Yes… I see… I understand… I’ll get right on it!”) that everyone assumed it was the president calling, but it turned out to be his wife. 

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He doesn’t mind the mockery, however, since he privately admits his wife is his intellectual superior: “She possessed powers of observation and judgment that surpassed even a businessman’s acumen. She was well-versed in reason and worldly knowledge and boasted a world-class ’sense of civilization’.” Whenever Paek is frustrated or outmaneuvered at work, he tells himself, “No need to overthink it. Once again, my wife will step up and make it happen.” 

Tall and elegant, Myŏng-suk even competed in a national beauty pageant but lost because her nose was slightly too small. She scorns her fellow Koreans as “unenlightened creatures” [미개한 <한국>것들] and once caused a mini-riot by loudly proclaiming, “I consider it shameful that I was born ‘Korean’ and not American!” ('Korean' is in scare quotes because she uses the South Korean word 한국, which was not normalized in North Korean usage until 2024).

When Paek arrives home and admits he has not yet secured a spot in the entourage, Myŏng-suk subjects her husband to the sort of withering harangue that Korean dramas excel at, doling out such epithets as "무골충" (spineless) and "멍텅구리" (dunderhead). Rather than arguing back, Paek immediately admits his inadequacy and begs for her help. “Whenever he spoke to his wife, for some reason, Paek always became so humble that even he himself found it absurd. He seemed to have long ago forgotten his pride, his self-esteem, and his own sense of self, without even realizing it.” 

Annoyed by her husband's lack of initiative, Myŏng-su dashes off in search of more appealing company and calls on her friend Thomas at the American Cultural Center. She finds him in his office, entertaining himself watching a flipped-over cockroach struggling on his desk.

   “Oh, Mr. Thomas, another ‘Jolly Game’! Is that really such fun?” 

   “Madam, I get a strange pleasure watching a cockroach die because it can’t do a simple flip.”
   “Haha… Mr. Thomas, have you ever tried the ‘Jolly Game’ where you cut the wings off a fly and watch it crawl?”
   “I just finished that ‘Game’. The fly died right away with its wings cut off. It was a weak thing. [...] Come, Madam, sit!” Thomas gestured to an armchair by the window. The woman sat with her legs crossed, carelessly revealing pale white legs to above her knees.
   "Madam, would you like cognac or whiskey?"
   "I'll take the cognac."
   "Ah, yes, you like your cognac strong, don’t you, Madam." Thomas chuckled softly, returning with a fancy-labeled bottle and glasses from the cabinet. "Madam, it's strange, but every time I sit with you, it feels like a bright spring day. Like I always say, you're a flower that never wilts!" Thomas gave the blonde a furtive smile as he set the glasses on the table and poured.

   "Oh, stop it with your nonsense, Mr. Thomas! It's unbecoming of you." Belying her words, the woman giggled as she sipped her drink. 

After some more flirting and drinking, Myŏng-suk dishes about her recent troubles: her daughter's rejection from ballet school, her husband's fading hopes for promotion, her own sense of helplessness. Thomas listens sympathetically and then makes a quick call to the US embassy, easily securing spots for the couple in the president's travel entourage. Myŏng-suk is incandescent with joy, and together they raise a toast to her family's future happiness and "the prosperity of mighty America".

   "Oh, Mr. Thomas, there's one other matter I'd like your esteemed opinion on. It’s nothing I can’t decide on my own, of course... But somehow, I still want to hear your precious advice!" Clinging to Thomas in her habitual way, the woman pleaded in a playful sing-song. Thomas nodded as if thanking her for her confidence.

   "Mr. Thomas, before I leave for my beloved America, I'm planning to get a nose job. I want to walk that dear American land with the big-nosed face of a perfect American woman."

   "I entirely agree!" Thomas cheered, now examining her nose intently. "Madam, if I may be honest, the first time I saw you, I nearly mistook you for an American woman. Impeccable, refined English, a tall, sleek physique, blonde hair, and a bright, fair face… But the moment I saw that small nose, I thought 'Alas, she must be Asian.' Of course it would have been rude and ungentlemanly to point out that flaw in Madam's beauty, so I've held my peace until now. But since you yourself brought it up, today I'll share with you my thoughts on the importance of the human nose – not just aesthetically, but also in terms of civilization!'"

   Thomas leapt up and began to pace, launching into a sermon like a pastor preaching to his congregation. "Madam, a few years ago, I read a book by the famous American physiologist Dr. Jackson. [...] Dr. Jackson defined the human nose as a barometer of evolution and civilization. As the doctor wrote: 'The more highly evolved and civilized human beings become, the more pronounced their noses are. Look at cows and pigs; their noses are flat and blunt, nostrils facing forward. The same distinction exists among races. Anyone can see this for themselves by comparing the noses of Westerners, Easterners, and Africans. The conclusion is that human thought, civilization, and evolution are directly related to the shape of the nose.’ I remain convinced that Dr. Jackson's argument is valid and a unique scientific discovery! It's a compelling way of looking at human evolution and civilization. As for the nose's enormous effect in a woman's aesthetic appearance, I will suffice to quote the famous words of Pascal, 'If the Egyptian Cleopatra's nose had been a tiny bit shorter, the map of Europe would be quite different.' Do I have that right, Madam?”

   "Oho... Mr. Thomas, you are truly a Rennaissance man!" The woman laughed along, clutching her belly, even though she didn't really understand what was funny.

Thomas helps Myŏng-suk schedule a surgery for the very next day at Severance Hospital, selected because it was "founded by an American" and Thomas knows a cosmetic surgeon there, his good friend Dr. John. The following morning, Myŏng-suk and her husband meet with Dr. John to discuss the surgical options.

   [Dr. John:] "First, there's the traditional method of bone grafting, which uses bone to raise and enlarge the nose. The second is a recently developed surgical technique using silicone resin instead. Which is your preference, Madam?"

   "Dr. John, which one do the world-class American hospitals use?"
   "Ah, these days, silicone resin is generally used instead of traditional grafting. That's what most of our clients request."
   "Then I’ll have the same!" exclaimed the woman, her white nose visibly trembling.
   Vice Minister Paek, who had been nodding off beside her, suddenly spoke up. “That’s right! That's the one. If it's what they do in American hospitals, the pinnacle of modern medicine…”
   “Understood. We’re decided on silicone resin then. But the most important thing is the proportions, that is, how much to lift the nose and enlarge it in proportion to the current facial shape, for the best aesthetic effect… Madam, that’s up to you!” Dr. John concluded in a workmanlike manner, scrutinizing the woman’s face like a portrait artist contemplating a subject.
   “Well, I’ll leave that to the esteemed Dr. John. I simply ask that you make me look exactly like those American women. That’s all I want!”

Myŏng-suk orders her husband to skedaddle back to work as she is prepped for surgery. The procedure is painful but successful. Afterward, she cannot stop admiring herself in the mirror: "Lustrous blonde hair, long eyelashes, a large nose rising high from a milky white face… the unmistakable image of an American woman." 

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She enjoys showing off her new nose to friends around town, but there's little time to relax as she and her husband must now prepare for their upcoming trip to America. They busily shuttle around to different banks and department stores "to secure the money and gifts they would surely need to bribe influential figures in US politics and to resolve the matter of their daughter's failed ballet school exam." Then one day, while shopping at a luxury fashion boutique, she starts to detect a strange smell emanating from the people all around her – "a bit like moldy, rotten soybean paste, a bit like rank, rotten meat." The offensive odor seems to come from everywhere and grows more potent as time goes on.

   "Hey, stand back. Why do you smell so foul? How can you even stand it?" Sitting across from Vice Minister Paek drinking coffee after dinner one evening, the woman finally lost her temper and hurled her coffee cup down on the table with a thud.
    Paek bolted up as if smacked with a rolling pin and stared at her bewildered. "What's with you all of a sudden? You know full well I spray world-famous French cologne over my whole body every day..."
   "Then why do you stink worse and worse lately?!" The woman tossed her well-groomed blonde locks in irritation.
   "Huh, I dunno... Did this all start after you had the nose job?"

   "What?" The woman frowned, blinking her long lashes.
   "Ah, now I get it..." Paek crowed as if he'd made some kind of significant discovery, taking a satisfied look at the woman's prominent nose. "This is excellent proof that your nose has now become a perfect American woman's nose!"

   "What the–  I can't even listen to such nonsense."

   "Come on, hear me out. You know how Americans, they’re always saying that ‘Koreans’ smell weird because we’ve been eating soybean paste, soy sauce, green onions, garlic, and kimchi all our lives. And we ‘Koreans’ think they stink from eating so much milk, beans, and meat. So what you're smelling now is probably the soybean paste and soy sauce smell from ‘Koreans’ like me. Just wait and see. As soon as you set foot on American soil, that unpleasant stink will melt away like snow in spring!"

Myŏng-suk is temporarily mollified and even pleased with this explanation. But the smells just keep getting worse, and then right before they are to depart for America, she gets laid up with a high fever and agonizing pain in her nose. Seeing his wife writhe in agony, Paek summons Thomas and Dr. John to her bedside.

Dr. John examines her and discovers that her surgical incision has become badly infected, to the point that the tissues inside her nose are actually rotting away. "Madam, why didn't you come see me before it got to this point?" he demands. "Well, I simply trusted in modern American medical science," she wails in reply.

The trip to America is off; she needs emergency restoration surgery. Thomas hastily assures her that she is still welcome to visit America anytime, but he cannot seem to get away fast enough. Before the couple can even absorb this horrific turn of events, they get another shock: an urgent telegram [지급전보] informs them that their daughter in America has committed suicide. This triggers Myŏng-suk to have a psychotic break. 

The story ends with Paek collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage as his hallucinating wife raves: "Ahaha, we've finally arrived in America, the America we've missed for so long... Ahahaha, darling, you were right! The moment we entered America, that disgusting, putrid smell vanished, and now I feel so refreshed... Oh, here's our daughter running towards us. Hey, Alice! Alice!"

In the Year 2000

It's important to take the timing of this story into account. Published just two months after the historic leadership summit between Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il, it was a heady, optimistic time for inter-Korean relations in which various cultural, economic, and infrastructure cooperation plans were being mapped out. Aside from the summit itself, many other meaningful inter-Korean exchanges took place in that era, including joint concerts, reunions of separated families, joint development of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, Mt. Kumgang tourism, annual "unification festivals" in Pyongyang from 2001-2007, numerous exhibition sporting events on both sides, and even, in 2005, an Inter-Korean Writers’ Conference [민족작가대회] in Pyongyang where North and South Korean literary writers got to mingle for the first (and sadly last) time. 

North and South delegations singing the unification song
at June 2000 summit banquet (src)

South Korean Kim Hun (left) and North Korean Nam Dae Hyŏn 
emotionally reconnect at the 2005 Inter-Korean Writers’ Conference.
 They were once elementary school classmates in Seoul, and both
became celebrated novelists on opposite sides (src)

As these various unprecedented projects were being set in motion, for Pyongyang's elites 2000 would have been a year full of complicated and uncomfortable emotions, as many of them had their first close encounters with significant numbers of mid-level South Korean officials, administrators, investors, event planners, and other visitors. Even with the authorities doing their level best to control interactions and stick to the script, there would no doubt have been some unpredictable moments of cultural dissonance.

Many South Korean attendees, particularly at the earlier joint concerts, expressed dismay at the profound cultural and linguistic differences they observed. Over five decades of division, both sides had changed as they moved within different foreign cultural spheres on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. Exacerbating the problem, propaganda on both sides had been stubbornly promoting an exaggerated vision of common inherited traits and unbreakable fraternal bonds, which was a good strategy for restoring goodwill after so much bloodshed and hostility, but at the same time raised untenable expectations for a smooth reintegration. Some South Korean commentators at the time lamented that the North Korean culture on display seemed more Chinese or Russian, their dance and theater performances confusing or even offensive bastardizations of Korean traditional forms. There must have been similar reactions going in the opposite direction on the other side. To the North Koreans, the Southerners must have seemed intolerably Americanized.

American Cultural Center

The inclusion of the American Cultural Center [서울주재 미국문화원] is interesting and, if taken literally, sets the time frame of the story back quite a bit. As the pro-democracy movement got more intertwined with anti-US sentiment after the Kwangju Massacre, the ACC became a focal point for student activism and featured in some of the more violent clashes of the 1980s. There were arson attacks on the ACCs in Kwangju and Pusan in 1980 and 1982 respectively, a deadly bombing at the one in Taegu in 1983, and the Seoul ACC was occupied for a four-day student sit-in in 1985. That building, which seems to be the one described in the story, was shuttered from 1985 and repurposed in 1990.

Student sit-in at the American Cultural Center in 
Seoul, May 1985 (src)

I won't speculate about why the author would choose to name this institution, or what North Korean readers are expected to make of it. But certainly any South Korean radical leftist worth their salt would recognize the name, and probably wonder why it is depicted as if still operating 15 years after its very prominent demise.

Cultural aesthetics of noses

The real quote from 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal is "The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed." Long noses were considered attractive in Cleopatra's time, so what Pascal meant was that if Cleopatra had been slightly less attractive due to a smaller nose, she might not have seduced Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Much like those ancient Romans, many South Koreans have a clear and outspoken preference for "high" (i.e. big but straight) noses, which can be hard for some Westerners to reckon with. This blogger has been the unhappy recipient of many "compliments" from strangers about my own gigantic schnoz over the years, in both Japan and South Korea. 

Here are some real South Korean rhinoplasty advertisements to give you the idea of what is desired:

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This story goes to farcical extremes, but South Korea indeed has a flourishing market for cosmetic surgery, with reportedly the world's highest rate of procedures per capita. For South Koreans, the most farcical aspects of this story would probably be A) that Myŏng-suk was able to get a next-day appointment for a nose job at Severance, and B) that a woman like her did not already get it done years earlier. I also found it interesting that the story decribes Myŏng-suk getting an anesthetic injection but still feeling "sharp, flesh-piercing physical pain" (뜨끔뜨금 살을 에이는 육체적인 아픔) during surgery. I've heard reliable sources claim that North Koreans routinely undergo simpler surgeries without anesthetic.

Additional Links

For more examples of  "officially sanctioned humor" in authoritarian dictatorships, check out this excellent 2015 paper which gives side-by-side analyses of works from Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia: "Laughing Out Loud: 'Official' Humour in Three Dictatorships" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43917314)

For a very thorough look at another millieu of North Korean state-produced humor, check out the book Laughing North Koreans: The Culture of Comedy Films (2020) by Immanuel Kim.

A bleaker but also good source is Marching through Suffering (2019) by Sandra Fahy, which among other things describes how North Koreans used humor to process their experiences during the famine of the 1990s.

Pyongyang's pro-dimple agenda revisited

Years ago on this blog, I posted a commentary on the 2016 short story Night Path in which I made the case that one of the characters is a supposed to be a stand-in for Kim Jong Un, on the grounds that he "knows everything, loves basketball, and has a dimpled smile" (my words). The dimples in question are mentioned incessantly throughout the story and comprise the greater part of this character's development. I knew there had to be a deeper meaning behind those omnipresent dimples, and when I noticed the character displaying other conspicuous qualities usually associated with the Leaders, I thought I had it solved.

However, I was forced to question everything after an uncomfortable fact was pointed out to me: Kim Jong Un has no dimples. 

There are plenty of photos circulating online of him grinning ear-to-ear with nary the ghost of a dimple to be seen, and yet many stories describe his dimpled smile. I wondered: do Koreans have a different concept of what dimples are? Or perhaps have I been mistranslating 볼우물? But a Google Images search of the term confirmed it means just what I think it means, at least for South Koreans.

Either way, I had to confront the inescapable question: why did I think he had dimples? I didn't even question it at the time, even though I remember searching for a good photo to illustrate his dimples and coming up empty. 

After much soul-searching, I have come to the conclusion that I was brainwashed. Yes, moi, semi-professional analyst of North Korean propaganda, fell for one of their most insidious lies. 

Countless North Korean novels mention dimples appearing when the Leader smiles. I must have read enough of those stories to unconsciously absorb the image. And yet I cannot find photographic evidence of a dimple ever popping up on any of the three Leader Kims' faces. Kim Il Sung comes closest, appearing to have a slight indentation on his right cheek in some photos, but it may just be a fat crease:

I can think of no better illustration of the awesome power of propaganda than this – that it can blind you to the truth even when truth is literally staring you in the face.

A search of my digital collection found 105 references to dimples in 78 different North Korean novels and short stories. At a glance, it appears that about a quarter of these belong to the Leaders, and the others all apply to very positive and heroic characters. It seems there are no dimpled villains in North Korean literature (or perhaps they're just hidden beneath all the mustaches?). Their usage seems somewhat gendered, denoting sweetness in females and confidence/health in males, but virtuous spirit in both.

If none of the three Leaders to date ever had dimples, then why does North Korean literature make such an unsupportable effort to convince readers that they do? And why work so hard to portray dimples as a reliable sign of inherent goodness, when the Leaders themselves do not have them? 

There are only two possible explanations I can see: 1) Pyongyang's pro-dimple agenda goes deeper than I had previously thought – perhaps it is a Korean stereotype predating the Kim regime, one so firmly entrenched that it was easier to just retroactively graft imaginary dimples onto the Leaders' faces than to attempt to subvert the stereotype; or 2) There is a sizable group of North Korean writers who are secretly opposed to the regime, and this is their sneaky way of signaling to attentive readers that their words should not be trusted.

Whichever it is, my devoted followers, you'll just have to decide for yourselves. Meanwhile, stay vigilant, question everything, and don't believe the hype about dimples!

Female Journalist (2014): A rare American heroine in a North Korean novel

Moon Myŏng-ja with Kim Il Sung
in 1992

Female Journalist (녀기자) is a novel by Cho Sŭng Chan first published in 2014 that covers the life of Korean-American journalist Moon Myŏng-ja. I was eager to obtain a copy because the title kept popping up in my research, and I had been told by several sources that this is one of the more popular domestic novels in North Korea - partly because they are fascinated by the scenes set in America. Somewhat unusually for a non-Imperishable Series novel, it had a second printing just two years after the first.

It is also worth noting that this novel is one of 11 North Korean novels selected by the Inter-Korean Economic Federation and Unification Agricultural Cooperative (남북경총통일농사협동조합), a South Korean left-wing civic group, for a planned book series to be sold in South Korea. This ill-fated endeavor was shut down because the group had failed to get permission from the Ministry of Unification to import and distribute materials of North Korean origin, as required by law. In March 2024, a court ruled them in violation of the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act and fined them 3 million won (about $2000 USD). Last December, an appellate court upheld the ruling but reduced the fine.

Moon Myŏng-ja's memoir: Park Chung-hee
 and Kim Dae-jung as I Saw Them (1999)

Moon herself wrote a memoir that was published (in Korean) in 1999. It is long out of print, although some excerpts can be found online, and the Japanese version is still available from good old Amazon. Although Female Journalist makes her out to seem pretty fanatically pro-communist (and some of her later writings back that up), Moon's published memoir offers no hint that she particularly admired North Korea's leaders or ideology – indeed, they are hardly mentioned. But she was certainly very opposed to the murderous regime that ruled South Korea until 1986.

Here's what is definitely true: Moon Myŏng-ja (a.k.a. Moon Myŏng-ju, a.k.a. Julie Moon) was born in North Kyŏngsang Province in 1930, went to Japan during the war to study at Meiji University and then Waseda University's Graduate School of Law, and served for five years as Tokyo Bureau Chief for the Korean women's magazine Yŏwŏn before getting hired as Washington correspondent for Chosun Ilbo. She joined the White House Press Corps in April 1961, just two months after Helen Thomas, and for decades they were in a close two-woman race for longest-serving White House correspondent. The pivotal moment in her life came in 1973 when she reported on the abduction of exiled dissident leader and future president Kim Dae-jung from Japan by KCIA thugs. Soon after, she was warned by friends that the authorities were waiting to arrest her if she returned to South Korea, so she had no choice but to apply for political asylum in the US. She later became a naturalized US citizen. Officially, she is the first American journalist to have done standalone interviews with two sitting DPRK leaders: Kim Il Sung in 1992 and again in 1994, and Kim Jong Il in 2000. And yet, I asked several American journalists with deep knowledge of North Korea and found that none of them had ever heard of her. Even in South Korea, I could find no in-depth media profiles of her, in either Korean or English. 

Christmas 1998 photo from Moon's memoir

There is so much meat to analyze in this novel. Normally when I read a foreign-setting story like this, I am left endlessly puzzling over the provenance of odd details and mistakes. In this case, I can confidently assume that they used Moon's own memoir as a baseline – she would have given them a copy when she visited in 2000 if they didn't already have one. They wouldn't have even had to have it translated. One need only look at how Moon described things in her memoir to see exactly what the North Korean author had to work with and pinpoint where he let his imagination take over.

Crimes of Fashion

For instance, there is this scene, which takes place during Park Chung-hee's first visit to DC after seizing power in the 5.16 coup:

   When the day of Park Chung-hee’s arrival in Washington came at last, Moon Myŏng-ju went out to the airport with her colleagues. The airport was crowded with officials from the US government who had come to greet him, officials from the South Korean embassy, their families, and reporters from various countries.

   When the plane finally arrived and the door opened, a short, skinny, unkempt man wearing sunglasses slowly descended the stairs. It was Park Chung-hee. Upon closer inspection, he was dressed in a shabby outfit with his pants not even creased, and he looked awkward meeting and greeting the American politicians, just like a country bumpkin who’d come to Seoul.

   How can this be the representative of my country?

   She felt indignant at the thought of her country’s democracy being trampled because of this brat. She wanted to go right up and tell him to straighten up his act. But she couldn’t act rashly at such a venue, so she just kept stewing to herself.

   She was unable to meet Park Chung-hee that day. After getting off the plane and greeting the American officials, he quickly got into a waiting car and left. The next day, Park held a banquet at the South Korean Embassy to which Moon was invited. It was a golden opportunity to meet him. She waited in the banquet hall until Park entered, once more wearing tinted lenses. As he approached, Moon stepped forward.

   “Chairman Park, it’s nice to meet you,” she greeted him politely. Park Chung-hee halted. The ambassador following alongside him blanched, fearing whatever poisonous words Moon might utter. Undaunted, Moon said everything that was on her mind.

   “It’s rude to meet a foreign head of state while wearing sunglasses. Is it because you lack confidence that you do this?” 

   The ambassador was taken aback and tried to interrupt, but it was no use. Park struggled to maintain his composure, saying “You said you are Reporter Moon?” 

   “Yes, Mr. Chairman!”

   “I forget, is that considered rude here?”

   “Maybe not in Seoul, but here it is. Please don’t wear them tomorrow!”

As my devoted followers may recall, I covered the Korean cultural taboo against sunglasses in a previous post. The above excerpt puts an interesting new twist on it, seemingly implying that this is not a Korean taboo at all but a standard Western rule of etiquette that only uncouth country bumpkins might not be aware of. I had thought this scene was a purely North Korean invention, but then I found a nearly identical scene in Moon's memoir. According to her own recollection, she did scold PCH for wearing sunglasses when he arrived in Washington in 1961. 

PCH meeting the Kennedys in Nov. 1961, wearing
the forbidden lenses. I will concede that it is odd
to wear them indoors, but that distinction was not
made in the novel

Reading this, I cannot help but wonder once again what today's North Koreans make of their current leader's penchant for shades. And a very small part of me wonders if the author was trying to say something, writing such a thing at a time when KJU's tastes in this regard were already established.

Kim Jong Un in April 2014 (src: The Atlantic)

Because the above excerpt so closely mirrors Moon's memoir, it's a good opportunity to compare how various expressions by Daegu-native Moon were revised by the North Korean author:

Moon’s memoir:	NK novel:
서울 온 촌놈	서울에 온 촌닭 한가지
깡마르고 까무잡잡한	강마르고 가무잡잡한
선글라스, 색안경	색안경
바지선도 세우지 않은 후줄근한 차림	바지주름도 잡지 않은 후줄근한 차림

Loose Lips Sink the State Department's Media Surveillance Program

Another section that closely follows Moon's memoir, but mysteriously deviates on a few key details, is the following:

   One day, just as Moon Myŏng-ju leaving the Library of Congress after checking some information, she encountered Thomas Hubbard. A stocky man of average height, he greeted her with a grin. He had a friendly and easygoing personality, and Moon had known him for a long time. He was friendly, but his words were often vague and lacked substance.

   "Reporter Moon, I heard you're breaking news constantly these days?"

   "Hmm!" She ignored the question as Thomas fell in step beside her.

   "You think I don't know? Another anti-Park article, I hear. Saying that he embezzled a ton of money by stealing US military supplies?" 

   "What?" Moon Myŏng-ju stopped dead in her tracks. That article wouldn’t be published for another few days. "Where did you hear that?"

   Thomas's eyes widened in confusion at Moon's question. "What's wrong?"

   "Out with it. Where did you hear that?" To her fiery, pressing questions, Thomas reluctantly replied that he'd seen it at the State Department.

   At the State Department?!

   Something clicked in her mind. This was an alarming revelation. Did the State Department review every article written by foreign correspondents?

   That evening, she went home and said to her husband, who had just returned from work, "Honey, it seems that Telex sends all articles by foreign correspondents over to the State Department. I just heard from Thomas..."

   Before she could even finish, her husband gave her a dumbfounded look. "Didn't you know that already?"

   "But what about American democracy, which claims to guarantee freedom of the press? Is it all a lie?"

   "Huh, you've wasted your time as a correspondent. You're so clueless about the US, you're just bumbling around, that's the problem!"

   That was true. Moon had been oblivious about the US. At that moment, she could not think. But the fact that the State Department was reviewing every article by foreign correspondents felt like a big deal, and she could feel the illusions and expectations she had long harbored about America being shattered. 

   I need to wake up and look at the world. How many slick and flowery words are running rampant in this world, distorting the truth?

With hangulized foreign names I always have to use my judgement, and 하바드 could be either "Hubbard" or "Harvard". If the former, though, this could refer to real-life person Thomas Hubbard, a long-serving State Department officer who played a leading role in several complicated negotiations with North Korea in the 1990s and then was US Ambassador to South Korea from 2001-2004. Hubbard is mentioned briefly in the North Korean novel Gun Barrel [총대] as "presidential special envoy Hubbard" [대통령특사 하바드] spelled the same way. 

Moon's memoir is no help solving this mystery. It includes a nearly identical scene, down to the later conversation with her husband and her self-realization that she has been "oblivious" about the US. The only differences are 1) the article in question concerned ROK press intimidation and had nothing to do with military embezzlement, and 2) the person who told her about it was actually the reporter Spencer Davis, who was AP's State Department correspondent at the time. 

Left: AP reporter Spencer Davis;
Right: Former Ambassador Thomas Hubbard

Why would they swap out Davis for Hubbard? Did they prefer for this revelation to come from a State Department worker rather than a fellow reporter? If this is intended to be that Thomas Hubbard, he would have been a freshly minted junior foreign service officer at the time. Is this an attempt to write an origin story for someone who would go on to be so involved with Korea? If so, why didn't they do more with this character? I have wracked my brain but cannot come up with any satisfactory answers.

As for the monitoring of foreign reporters' cable dispatches, from what I can find online, this was part of Operation Shamrock, a WWII relic that kept operating in peacetime because nobody cared enough to shut it down until it was publicly exposed in 1975. It can be thought of as an early precursor to the NSA surveillance scandal. Once again, one wonders what the North Korean writer may have been subtlely trying to say here, given that government monitoring of communications is standard operating procedure in their Republic, particularly for foreign journalists.

Creative License

Moon with Kim Jong Il in 2000

To be clear, large portions of the novel do not overlap at all with Moon's memoir, particularly the parts dealing with her personal life and the scenes set in North Korea. There's an interesting scene where she's arguing with her husband over whether to abort her second child for the sake of her career, hinting at North Korean views of wifely duty and the proper balance between career and family. There is also a harrowing early scene where she gets abducted from Tokyo and brutally tortured by agents of Syngman Rhee, which I can find nowhere in her memoir - but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. 

Moon's memoir focused on her work as a journalist and various political events in the US and South Korea that she witnessed. This novel has a different focus, centered around the occasion of her first visit to Pyongyang in 1992 and her emotional encounter with Kim Il Sung. While there, she reunites with a cousin (likely fictional) who went North before the war, and the story unfolds through the mechanism of her telling him the story of her life, interspersed with periodic cut-aways to the present whenever he prompts her with clarifying questions.

As Moon regales her cousin with her life story, she also shares some of her observations about American society and the immigrant experience, including the following:

   “The Los Angeles Times published data from the city police department stating that among the 70 or so ethnic groups living in the city, Koreans had the highest crime rate. Reading the article, I was initially ashamed, then enraged. To think that South Korean society itself was so rotten and decaying that even those who emigrated abroad were violently breaking the law and disrupting society, drawing criticism and disgracing the nation.

   "At around that time, The New York Times published an article about a Chinese national charged with child abuse, sparking a huge public uproar. It turns out the child abuse charge stemmed from the parents of the family raising their voices and swearing at their child while bathing him because he was whining. An American neighbor witnessed this and reported it to the police, resulting in a week-long detention and a fine. In the East, swearing at your child while bathing them is not considered a crime, it's a sign of love. But under American law, that's considered a violation of human rights and subject to legal action! Faced with such absurdity, something suddenly occurred to me. I rushed down there and studied the Los Angeles Police Department's report on "Koreans' Crimes" and met with several of the individuals involved. There were some who’d done real crimes such as prostitution, drugs, illegal entry, and shoplifting, but more than half of them received legal punishment for ridiculous things like the Chinese person's 'child abuse crime'.

   "One Korean immigrant, who hadn't been there long and didn't speak English, was sentenced for an outrageous crime, fined hundreds of dollars, and couldn't even protest.

   "This is how Americans view Asians, and especially our people."

This particular anecdote does not appear anywhere in Moon's memoir, but again the memoir focused mainly on political events. Perhaps she wrote about this elsewhere; it certainly sounds like something that might have happened. It's just interesting to wonder what North Korean readers made of this.

Sources and links

Over at Jaju Shibo, the columnist 중국시민 has an in-depth analysis of this novel as part of their regular North Korea literature series, worth a look if you read Korean. 

Moon's memoir itself is worth a read. I was unable to obtain the out-of-print Korean version, but I found the Japanese version on Amazon. After Moon's death, a sort of "director's cut" version was posted online with permission from her husband. Based on the Japanese edition, I confirmed that the online version is largely true to the original (with some omissions). Skimming through it, I encountered some passages that gave off a strong feeling of deja vu. Sure enough, some sentences and even whole paragraphs reappear nearly verbatim in other KWU novels published after 2002. North Korean authors seem to rely on this book as a resource particularly for describing Washington DC, the White House, the Press Corps, and various government institutions and people.

Moon's interviews with the North Korean leaders are hard to track down. They were only published in Korean, all for Wŏlgan Mal, the same journal that published her memoir. A leftist bookseller has put some old issues of Wŏlgan Mal up online but not those ones apparently. I found a seemingly full transcript of the Kim Il Sung 1994 interview that Wŏlgan Mal reposted online when Moon died in 2008, and Seoul Shinmun posted her interview with Kim Jong Il in 2000 in the leadup to the first inter-Korean summit. Both interviews show the North Korean leaders in a favorable light, but the 1994 one is less obsequious and asks some cautiously challenging questions about food shortages. The 2000 interview is so fawning and so closely mimics the North Korean media's style that I almost wonder if Moon wrote it all herself.

Looking over the totality of her writings, it is hard to say what her true feelings were. I get the sense that she was a woman stuck in a bitter and unhappy exile, who missed her homeland but had long since abandoned hope of a future the South, and who was inclined to accept whatever good face that North Korea put on for her without looking deeper, lest she alienate the first fellow Koreans with real political power to ever treat her favorably.

Mount Osŏng (2012): Bush and the Axis of Evil

Mount Osŏng is an "Imperishable Leadership" series novel by Pak Yun that was published in 2012. Set in 2002, this novel handles the important tasks of introducing the US War on Terror and explaining how, despite its seeming preoccupation with the Middle East, the US military is still very imminently planning a conquest of North Korea. 

This one evaded my attention for a long time because it was never put up on any of North Korea's open websites to download, and none of my contacts had a digital copy either, just a pdf in a non-portable font. Without a digital copy to feed into my bespoke text analysis tools, I had to wait until I had time to read it the slow old-fashioned way, using my slimy human eyeballs like a caveman. 

Once I dipped my toes in, I was immediately kicking myself for not getting to this one sooner. I should have known better, since the same author also created a memorable depiction of the late Clinton era in Gun Barrel [총대] (2003). This author is a master of cleverly weaving together disparate real-life events from around the same time period into a fiendishly cloak-and-dagger plot with wily mustache-twirling villains and sexy femme fatales. In this case, the plot weaves together: George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” State of the Union speech, the 2002 World Cup jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea, the inter-Korean diplomacy of the Kim Dae-jung era, and the Second West Sea Battle.

On the US side, there are quality speaking parts for George W. Bush, Laura Bush, George H.W. Bush, NSA Condoleezza Rice, SecState Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Rev. Franklin Graham, Speechwriter Michael Gerson, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld, VP Dick Cheney, CIA Director George Tenet, CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks, Assistant Secretary of State William Kelly, Barack Obama, and a couple of purely fictional goons named "Saul" and "Elsa" who do the administration's dirty work in Korea. George W. Bush, Gerson, and Powell each serve as POV characters in different chapters.

High-powered palaver down at the ranch

We first encounter W. relaxing at "Clifford Ranch" in Texas the weekend after the Axis of Evil speech. Several Cabinet officials gather there to comment on the speech and its ramifications, along with a glowering Bush Senior and "long-time Bush family friends" Henry Kissinger and Rev. Franklin Graham. The famously tee-totaling Bush Jr is depicted here sipping on Scotch poured by his indulgent wife Laura. Powell and Rumsfeld enter together and begin a heated discussion:

   [Rumsfeld:] "Gentlemen, the President's annual speech has thrown the world's media into a frenzy. This is truly the first sensation of the new century. Jiji, Reuters, NTV, CNN, and even Xinhua are all in awe and dismay. This could be called the first salvo of our neoliberal movement." Secretary Rumsfeld had abandoned his usual cool demeanor and was madly gesticulating.

   Bush felt a strange, inexplicable sigh of relief escape him. He locked eyes with Secretary of State Powell, standing behind the Secretary of Defense. Powell nodded and cautiously approached the empty seat at the table.

   "The problem, Mr. Rumsfeld, is that I think it’s too early for celebration. The idea to divide the world ideologically and propagate values through military superiority is not a new one. It’s a relic of the so-called Cold War. A few days ago, I met with Brzezinski, and he expressed concern about the lack of a new geopolitical strategy and expressed great discomfort with the new administration’s neoliberal approach and anti-terror policy. The strategy of deliberately targeting potential enemies on all sides and attacking them is doomed to failure."

   Kissinger's calm words left Bush inwardly dismayed. He sensed this was Kissinger's cunning attempt to indirectly criticize him by citing the views of Brzezinski, a renowned political scientist and special adviser on national security under President Carter.

   Abruptly, Powell glanced at Kissinger and retorted, "But Brzezinski's logic betrays a lack of strategic insight to accurately analyze and assess today's world. Hasn't it already been disproven by last year's shocking September 11th incident?"

   The moderate Powell stood in stark contrast to Vice President Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were considered hardliners in the political world. Bush felt immediately bolstered by Powell's astute diplomatic thinking in support of the president's foreign policy.

   Kissinger glanced at Bush Sr., sitting impassively in silence with a glass of wine, and at Graham, who was slicing a hamburger with a knife, a relaxed smile on his face. He licked his lips. 

   "Mr. Powell, I’m speechless at you applying such a dichotomy. In fact, we must recognize that the very concept of the war on terror itself bears a profound contradiction. Democrats regard it as a police action, while the current administration has revealed its intention to mobilize the military. The ‘axis of evil’ has been designated as the target of this test. Critics have argued from the beginning that since terrorism is a methodology, it cannot constitute a real concrete enemy of the US. While Al Qaeda may be viewed logically as a kind of secret organization, experts consider it more of a spiritual entity. This fact could render all strategies based on neoliberal principles meaningless."

Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney at 
Crawford Ranch, Aug 2003 
(src: White House Archives)

The conversation continues for a full chapter. There's a lot of good material in here that illuminates how North Korea views the US War on Terror, the secret ulterior motive behind calls for economic reform in NK, the interplay of church and state in US politics, and W.'s feelings of inadequacy toward his father. The excerpt above is noteworthy not just because Kissinger is brought onstage as the voice of wisdom, but because they have him quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski to drive his point home; in real life, the two men were long-time rivals. North Korea would probably favor Brzezinski for his connection to Carter, but they have also been surprisingly generous in past depictions of Kissinger.

Rev. Graham is present to discuss his upcoming trip to North Korea; he thinks he can serve a diplomatic role since he is "our nation’s religious leader" and "For some reason, since the time of Chairman Kim Il-sung the Graham family had enjoyed Pyongyang's warmest welcome" (I've previously covered Rev. Billy Graham's depiction in a different novel). Condoleeza Rice contributes her insight on Pyongyang's internal politics. Bush Sr. offers historical perspective as the man who "ended the Gulf War and brought down the socialist Eastern Bloc" but left America's most formidable foe (guess who) untouched. 

But I can't get into those details here, because I must skip ahead to share an even more quotable scene. 

People of Color

Powell and Obama in 2010
(AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

In Chapter 10, a young upstart senator named "Obama" pays a visit to Foggy Bottom for an impromptu chat with Secretary Powell and Assistant Secretary Perry. Although it is noted that they represent opposing parties, they seem chummy enough – Obama praises Powell for breaking barriers as America's first black secretary of state, and Powell privately regards Obama to have "an IQ that was, if not Einstein level, then at least comparable to, say, Kennedy or Clinton." They proceed with a wide-ranging discussion that illuminates Obama's political philosophy and future aspirations, including this tidbit:

   [Powell:] "I hear you're pushing for a world without nuclear weapons? Those nuclear weapons are America's lever, the great hope of American-style governance. You’re a master of utopian pragmatism, but if you keep going on like this, you'll really get labeled a socialist! Fidel spoke highly of you, he says he thinks you’re a new kind of American politician. Better keep your feet on the ground."

   At Powell's friendly advice, Obama grinned, revealing his white teeth, and raised his Cognac glass. "You hit the nail on the head. There was even a cartoon in the paper labeling me Osama bin Laden's younger brother. Hahaha. If a confrontation with North Korea actually helps boost America's position as a world leader, I welcome it. But do you really think socialism will disappear from this planet so easily?"

There follows a lengthy discussion of late Soviet era intrigues, Perestroika, Yeltsin & Putin. Eventually Obama turns to the topic he came to discuss:

   "I met Jay Kim a few days ago, and he brought up something I think you’ll definitely want to address…"

   "Jay Kim?…" Powell looked up, thinking the name was somehow familiar.

   "You know, Kim Chang-jun, the Korean-American congressman from California's 41st Congressional District." 

   "Ah, the mayor of Diamond Bar! He's the Korean-American congressman who won a landslide victory over Democratic candidate Mom Macker [Bob Baker] by a margin of 59 to 35 percent, in a district with few people of color and a significant middle-class white population. What about him?"

   Obama smiled faintly at Powell's interest. "The 2002 World Cup, the greatest sports festival of the new century, will soon be held in Seoul. Coincidentally, our US team is in the same group as the South Korean team. Jay Kim is concerned that this could be the fuse that will trigger an eruption of anti-American sentiment."

   Powell had yet to grasp Obama's true intent, but he began to sense a faint flicker in the darkness. He tensed, like a rodent sensing a tectonic shift. Was this some kind of African instinct?

   "The World Cup... this summer... It's a very interesting concern," Powell muttered, his eyes blank.

Here is another example of how different events are massaged into a timeline to fit a narrative. In 2002, Barack Obama was still just a humble Illinois state senator, and Jay Kim was already long gone. It is of course possible that North Korea does not understand the concept of each state having its own legislature and assumes all "senators" work in Washington.

Jay Kim in Congress, Oct 1998

Kim was indeed the first Korean American elected to Congress, but he was primaried out in 1998 after some illegal campaign financing came to light. California's 41st is a majority white district, but it is also pretty solidly conservative. As the Republican candidate and a wealthy businessman, it was not surprising that he handily defeated his Democratic rival. Kim's positive portrayal here is surprising as he is not someone North Korea would normally approve of; he served in the South Korean military, was fiercely anti-communist, immigrated to the US, and remained a staunch supporter of South Korea's conservative party. In California, one of the issues he ran on was repealing the 10% luxury tax; he argued, “If you work hard and become a millionaire and buy a boat, what’s wrong with that? Is this a socialized country or something?”

As always, and especially with these high-profile Series novels, it is important to be mindful of what was happening at the time of publication. Though the events depicted take place in 2002, when this novel was published in 2012, North Korea would have been much more concerned with creating a coherent vision of why Barack Obama is bad than with relitigating Bush-era policies. This novel seems to particularly linger on American race politics in a way I have rarely seen before or since.

Sports and boats

Sports play a significant role in this novel, as several sports controversies contributed to the rising anti-American ferment in South Korea at that time. The novel even gives brief shout-outs to Olympic speed-skater Apollo Anton Ohno and comedian Jay Leno - if you don't know what they did to piss of all of South Korea in 2002, you can Google it. Of course, the novel devotes more attention (and deservedly so) to the tragic killing of two Korean schoolgirls by a US military armored vehicle that year and to Bush's Axis of Evil rhetoric, which rubbed many South Koreans the wrong way at a time when inter-Korean relations had been making historic progress. Overall, 2002 was a rough year for US-ROK relations.

This all coalesces in massive protests surrounding the US embassy in Seoul, which did happen in real life. In the novel, the unrest prompts the Bush administration to take the drastic measure of engineering a fatal clash between the two Korean navies in order to redirect South Koreans' hatred safely back toward the North again. This, of course, is the Second West Sea Battle, which in reality happened several months before the embassy protests. This skirmish, in which several KPA ships infiltrated south of the NLL and opened fire on a ROK patrol boat causing the deaths of six sailors, was the subject of the 2015 South Korean feature film Northern Limit Line (연평해전). The attack is widely believed to have been planned as retaliation for the KPA's heavy losses in the First West Sea Battle back in 1999, although undoubtedly the timing of the clash - during the World Cup finals - was also designed to darken South Korea's moment in the world spotlight.

Soccer scenes in North Korean novels

I'm willing to bet that in every culture, sports stories are used to impress values upon young people, or in other words to indoctrinate them. And what sport is more universally beloved across cultures than soccer? 

The Beautiful Game has been featured in many North Korean novels over the years. Here are some of my favorite scenes:

North Korean team training session during the
2010 World Cup in Johannesburg
Src: Frank Augstein/AP

Young Kim Il Sung teaches value of teamwork

The important novel 1000-ri Road of Learning (1971) by Kang Hyo Soon features a scene in which a very young Kim Il Sung observes a middle school soccer match in colonial Pyongyang alongside his schoolmates. Although he is canonically about 11 in this scene, he is referred to throughout as the Great Marshal (대원수님). 

I discussed the significance of this novel before a while back. As I explained then, it is not technically part of the "Imperishable History" Series, but the first edition was published one year before the first official Series novel, and it can be considered a precursor and model for what the Series would become. It is certainly an established classic of the leader representation genre, and I understand that North Korean schoolchildren usually read it in sixth grade, around the age that Kim was in the story.

   The spectators were watching intently, as the match was close from the start. Both teams, Kwangsŏng and Sŏngdŏk, attracted large audiences and were formidable opponents.

   15 minutes into the first half, Sŏngdŏk scored a goal with good form. The audience cheered and applauded. A middle-aged man, apparently a Sŏngdŏk parent, walked out in front of the students and did a little dance, swishing the fringes of his durumaki jacket.

   The game continued. The Kwangsŏng team, unwavering in their determination, encouraged one another and fought fiercely. Near the end of the first half, Kwangsŏng scored a goal. Thus, the first half ended 1-1.

   The second half began. Both sides were formidable. The teams pushed back and forth, sweating profusely, but neither could find a way to score. Then, with only five minutes remaining, the Kwangsŏng team finally got a shot in. Instantly, excitement boiled over in the stadium. In this way, the victory was won by Kwangsŏng School. 

   The Great Marshal thought about many things while watching the game.

   Clearly, in terms of individual skills, Sŏngdŏk was better than Kwangsŏng. However, the Sŏngdŏk athletes had grown arrogant after scoring that goal in the first half, and they then lost their lead to Kwangsŏng while busy showing off their individual skills. On the other hand, the Kwangsŏng team excelled in teamwork rather than individual skills.

   As a soccer team captain, the Great Marshal felt inspired to make a lesson of this. 

   He observed the Kwangsŏng School players in their black overalls and red shirts, and saw that Number 6 was the standout. Whenever the ball came to his side, he'd rush in to snatch it, and when it went to the other team, he'd dash over and kick it away. When the ball hovered around the center, he'd rush to steal it and kick it to a teammate. Number 6 also scored the final goal. When he scored, the crowd roared with joy, and the Kwangsŏng students banged drums, waved flags, and shouted cheers until their eardrums were about to burst. 

   "Dŏkbŏm, if you practice a little, you can probably kick like that Kwangsŏng number 6 player, right?" The Great Marshal asked.

   "No, I've still got a long way to go," said Dŏkbŏm, shaking his head.

   "Are those kids so special? If we work at it hard, we can do even better!" replied Yun Byŏng.

   "Yun Byŏng’s right. We’ve got to resolve ourselves to do better. Do that, and there's nothing we can't accomplish."

   These were the words of the Great Marshal.

   It wasn't just to watch a soccer match that the Great Marshal came into town with His comrades that day. His purpose was to stir their resolve and spirits by showing them the skills of great athletes.

A soccer match in colonial Pyongyang, July 1925
(src: 마니아타임즈)

The motif of teamwork triumphing over "arrogant" players "showing off their individual skills" sounded very familiar to me, and sure enough, a North Korean veteran athlete uses exactly the same language as this novel, almost word-for-word, in describing his team's triumph over Australia in the documentary "The Game of Their Lives." To be fair, it sounds like that is a pretty good summary of what actually went down. It's tough to say who inspired whom here - the Australia match happened in 1965, this novel was first published in 1971, and the documentary aired in 2002.

The little band of friends featured here does more than just kick some balls around - young Kim organizes them into an underground study group before leaving again for Manchuria. It was important for the Party to maintain the legend of an alternate domestic leftist group founded by Kim Il Sung and independent of Pak Hŏn Yŏng's Korean Communist Party. But KIS left Korea in 1925 at age 13 and did not return until after liberation. So, as unlikely as it sounds, this rambunctious gang of pre-teens goes on to form the core of a fabled Pyongyang-based faction of socialist agitators operating so deep underground that nobody heard about them until the 1960s. And what better way to have a young boy teach his mates the spirit of the collective than via sports analogies.

Even younger Kim Jong Il also teaches teamwork 

Fire Cloud (1991) by Pak Hyŏn is the second entry in the Imperishable Leadership series but the first in chronological order, set in 1950-53. And I can hear you asking: But that series focuses on the deeds of Kim Jong Il, so how can it possibly cover a period when he was only about 8-10 years old? Well, good question! Fire Cloud is probably the best book for examining how North Korea's novelists handle the tricky task of depicting one of their revered leaders in his Pokemon days. 

Kim Jong Il in 1950 
(Src: Sipa Press / Rex Features)

It seems like nobody definitively knows where the younger Kim spent the war years, but in this scene he is staying in a remote northern town along with his sister and a guardian. It is implied that this is somewhere well away from the fighting but still within North Korea's borders.

As always, the capitalized He/Him pronouns indicate the leader Kim (Kim Jong Il in this case), mirroring the honorific pronoun 그이 in the original. The author relies on these honorifics to an unusual degree in the text below to distinguish KJI from the other children. The author makes strenuous efforts to avoid having any of the children address KJI by a name, meaning ironically that they sometimes have to actually say "hey you" [야] to get his attention. It isn't even clear what name they might know him by, as it's implied that nobody in the village except a few trusted guardians know of his true identity. The omnipotent narrator however always refers to KJI as "young leader comrade" [어리신 지도자동지] with full honorific verbs.

This scene starts as KJI is called to join an impromptu soccer game by a hot-tempered young scamp named Ki Ryong, the local blacksmith's grandson. They're getting their butts kicked by another team led by a boy named Sang Su, and Ki Ryong is desperate for help:

   In the spacious front yard of Sang Su's house, beneath an old zelkova tree, the neighborhood children crowded together. They’d made goals out of some hats placed atop large rocks, and they were pushing and screaming, jostling each other, locked in a fierce battle.
   The two goalkeepers, who each had pieces of cardboard with the number 1 stuck on their backs, had already rolled on the ground several times and were looking just as ragged as Ki Ryong, but neither one took the time to dust off their clothes as they leaned forward, tensely watching the ball roll around.  

   Sang Su, wearing high-topped shoes with tightly tied laces, was locked in a fierce battle. Strong and a skilled runner, he led his team's attackers in a fierce charge, drenched in sweat. The other team's barefoot defense crumbled and fell back.

   Aghast, Ki Ryong ran over with Him in tow.

   The young leader, upon seeing the soccer field, felt relaxed, invigorated even. He swiftly removed His jacket, hung it on a zelkova tree branch, rolled up His pants, and ran into the middle of the field.

   "Hey! You came."

   "That’s enough of that, now let’s see what we can do."

   At the sight of Him, Ki Ryong's grim-looking teammates suddenly brightened, raising their fists and shouting at the opposing team.

   On the other side, Sang Su's gang grew uneasy.

   "Hey, if somebody new joins, somebody else has to leave. You can't just do that," Sang Su pouted.

   "You don't have to say anything, you can just leave now if you’re scared," Ki Ryong shot back with a soft fart. But he looked around his team, debating who to weed out. Deeming Nam Myŏng the weakest, he called him to leave. But neither Nam Myŏng nor any of the other kids were willing to quit. After a brief tussle, another boy joined Sang Su's side, evening out the teams.

   "All right, game on!" Play resumed. Ki Ryong moved swiftly to intercept the ball headed for Sang Su and passed it to the young leader, who drove it swiftly forward, but then made a sneaky side pass to Nam Myŏng, who was wide-open running parallel to Him. 

   "Why'd you pass it to Nam Myŏng? He'll lose it right away!" Ki Ryong shouted, startled to see Sang Su suddenly right behind and rushing to intercept. But Nam Myŏng denied him the steal, driving straight towards the goal.

   "Pass to me, to me!" Ki Ryong shouted again. So frantic was his urging that Nam Myŏng passed it over, and Ki Ryong suddenly had a clear shot to the goal. But Ki Ryong, seeing this perfect opportunity, got flustered and whiffed, stumbling and landing on top of the ball.

   The keeper on Sang Su's side quickly picked up the worn ball and tossed it far downfield to his teammates.

   "Some captain, couldn't even put that in!" Ki Ryong's teammates grumbled.

   Sang Su took the ball, and the ball was kicked back and forth, precariously close to the goal.

   From what He could see, it seemed that Ki Ryong's losses were not solely due to Sang Su's aggressive play. As team captain, Ki Ryong made no effort to coordinate but just drove the ball all by himself, hungry for a chance at the goal. But the ball kept getting stolen away from him, causing constant chaos.

   "Hey, stop just driving forward. Pass it, pass it. Pass to Nam Myŏng!" [KJI] shouted eagerly, but to no avail. Soon they were down another goal.

Boys playing soccer in Pyongyang, 2011
(src: Getty Images/alexkuehni)

   The whistle shrilled. "6-0!" Chang Gil proclaimed. [...] 

   With a thorny temper like a spiny crab, Chang Gil was the natural referee of this soccer field. He wore a dignified expression, fully exercising his authority and observing proper etiquette. He would place the ball on the imaginary center line, ensuring that the players were in their proper positions, and only then would he blow his whistle to resume play.

   "The ball is for everyone to kick, but you keep trying to hog it all yourself, and then you keep losing it," He scolded Ki Ryong as they followed Chang Gil, once more carrying the ball to the center line.

   "You can’t hold off all these kids on your own. You need to keep passing. If you keep it going back and forth, Sang Su's guys will get worn out chasing it."

   Feeling guilty but unable to think of an excuse, Ki Ryong just blinked and mumbled incomprehensibly.

   [KJI] devised a strategy: He, Nam Myŏng, and Ki Ryong would form a triangle, passing among each other as they advanced. The other four would defend in the middle, providing support.

   He took the ball at the center line, calmly drove it forward a few steps, and then passed to Nam Myŏng, who waited for Sang Su's teammate to converge on him and then quickly sent it to Ki Ryong. This time, Ki Ryong heeded His advice. Instead of going solo, he drew the opposing players toward him like Nam Myŏng had done. He ran with it almost to the goal, then kicked it back to Him. At a run, He intercepted the ball as it flew towards Him and kicked with all His might. The ball shot between the gatekeeper's legs like a bullet.

   "Goal."

   Ki Ryong, who had been fuming from so many losses, now skipped and cheered.

   After that first goal, the whole team’s spirits lifted, and they continued their attack with renewed vigor. Soon after, Nam Myŏng sent the ball soaring impressively again.

   "Hey, you're quite a good kicker," Ki Ryong poked Nam Myŏng in the side.

   Because Nam Myŏng was so quiet and reserved, Ki Ryong had thought he’d lack the power for soccer, and he'd given him a hard time for every bad kick. But now, to his surprise, he saw that Nam Myŏng was quite agile and had decent ball handling skills.

   Nam Myŏng simply wiped the sweat from his face and smiled.

   Once they started to get pushed back, Sang Su's forces had a hard time fending off attacks from their better-coordinated rival. After half an hour, the score was tied at 11-11. As the odds evened out, the gameplay became more intense, with players from both teams colliding and falling more frequently.

   Sang Su gathered his players to whisper about some tactic, and whatever it was, the team's moves changed. They’d shake off every attacker and surround the ball so that it was impossible to approach, then drive forward with a collective shout.

   Caught off guard by this bizarre attack, Ki Ryong scrambled to counter it. He tried grabbing Sang Su's arms with both hands, and when that didn't work, he desperately tripped him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Several other boys fell on top of them in a heap, laughing. Just then Chang Gil came running up, eyes wide, whistle blaring.

   "What are you doing? That's a foul, a foul!" Chang Gil huffed and began rummaging through his pockets for something. When he couldn't find what he wanted, he pulled out the first thing at hand, a pocketknife, and solemnly held it up in front of Ki Ryong's nose.

   "What’s this?" Ki Ryong looked bewildered.

   "Don’t you know what this is? It's a referee's sign. You've got a warning."

   "Warning? What does that even mean?"

   "You don't know? Two warnings and you're off the field."

   "Is there even such a thing?"

   "Oh, come on. You don't even know the rules of soccer." Chang Gil gaped. "You tripped him on purpose. If this were a proper stadium game, you'd’ve been kicked out long ago."

   "Pfft, what for?"

   "What? Are you talking back to the referee? I'll send you off right now. Players must obey the referee no matter what. Don't you even know that?"

   Chang Gil's fierce scowl left Ki Ryong speechless, overwhelmed by his "sophisticated" soccer knowledge. As a referee, Chang Gil was indeed formidable. 

The gameplay continues until the boys' mothers begin calling them all in for supper. Sang Su has to almost be dragged off the field by his mother before he will accept defeat. Ki Ryong basks in the glow of victory until his own mother comes to fetch him. At last Kim Jong Il is left to walk home alone. None of the boys seem to realize that he has nobody to come for him – his mother is dead, and his father is far away at Central Command, desperately fighting for their country's future. The chapter ends poetically with young KJI sadly watching some geese fly southward.

The message here, once again, is practice teamwork, do not arrogantly try to seize all the glory for yourself, trust your teammates, learn their strengths, and also maybe try not to lose your temper on the field. Of course it goes without saying that it's the young leader who kicks in the only attributed goal. 

I liked the way he scored that goal between the legs of the goalkeeper, because that was my signature move in high school. I played forward, just like the young comrade leader, but I was an exceptionally clumsy child and could never master any kind of fancy footwork. So whenever I came up against a defender, I'd make as if planning some clever move but then just kick the ball straight ahead. It went right between the defender's legs every time, and then I'd just run past them. Of course I couldn't try that too many times in one game or they would catch on, but our team was so rarely on the offensive that it always worked out. Really demoralized the opponents too. I still feel kind of bad about it.

Soccer Fans on the High Seas

In between narrating the various Cold War crises of the late 1960s and engaging scenes involving major world leaders, Fate (2012) by Chŏng Ki Jong takes a break to cover North Korea's strong showing in the 1966 World Cup. First, we see Kim Il Sung putting off an important meeting with the new Hungarian ambassador to personally greet the players, whom he already seems well familiar with:

North Korea's 1966 World Cup team (Src: AP)

   The Great Leader, smiling brightly, looked around at each and every player sitting in the front row. “All our familiar comrades are here, eh? Pak Du Ik, Pak Sŭng Jin, Han Bong Jin, Ha Jŏng Won, and then Rim Sŏng Hui… and the comrade next to Rim Joong Sŏn is Ri Chan Myŏng, the keeper for our Korea! And this comrade is Ri Dong Won? No, no, it’s Yang Sŏng Guk. Ah, that’s Ri Dong Won over there, next to Comrade Kim Sŏng Il, right? So, Coach Yŏn Sŭng Chŏl, tell me. Have I correctly recognized all of our wonderful players?”

   Coach Yŏn Sŭng Chŏl sprung from his seat. “Yes, that’s all correct!” Yŏn shouted hoarsely, unable to control his overwhelming emotion. “Thank you, Great Leader!”

   Then, as if by plan, all the players whose names had been called stood up from their seats and shouted in unison: “Thank you, Great Leader!”

   Shouts loaded with emotion… The leader raised His hand again and told them all to sit down.

   “What? The entire nation knows your names, not just me. Come, sit. Sit down, I said. Actually, I should be the one thanking you, comrades. You have done a great thing. How incredible was that competition? Only one team can advance to the main tournament from all of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. I can't tell you how happy the entire nation is right now after hearing the news that our North Korean team will be going to the 8th World Cup Championship.”

   He recalled what happened in the Asian preliminaries of this 8th World Cup, which were held in the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh in November 1965. “When you played against the Australian team, which boasted of being the strongest in Asia, we were all on edge from the start waiting for news. Actually, even though Australia is in the Eastern Hemisphere, almost all of them are Anglo-Saxon descendants, are they not. So it would not be an exaggeration to say that we were playing against the English team. Sports Guidance Committee Chairman, am I right?”

   The chairman of the Sports Guidance Committee straightened his back and answered, “Yes, Great Leader. That’s right. Also, I hear they went somewhere in England where the climate is similar to Cambodia’s and trained hard for two months before the match.”

   “Hmm… And yet, we beat the Australian team 6-1 in the first match. I hear that the Cambodians cheered enthusiastically when we won?”

   “Yes, that's right,” the chairman of the Sports Guidance Committee replied. "In fact, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia had not forgotten that Australia fought in the Korean War as one of the 15 allied countries [추종국가]. So, considering that the two countries were enemies, he divided the Cambodian spectators into two cheering groups, wanting to ensure fairness. But when our team won, all the fans stood up and cheered.”

   He laughed aloud. “How refreshing. In the war, we defeated them with guns, but today, we’re doing it with a soccer ball.”

All of the players' names seem faithfully reproduced, except for no. 16 Ri Dong Won [리동원] whose real name seems to be 리동운, although that may be Wikipedia's mistake. Also, the team's head coach was Myŏng Nye Hyŏn [명례현], but Yŏn Sŭng Chŏl may have been some other administrator. I translated 책임지도원 as "coach" based on the context, but that could be the word for the party secretary in charge of the team.

It's true that FIFA rules that year only allowed a single team to advance to the main tournament from all of Asia, Africa, and Oceania for some BS reason. In protest of this rule, all of Africa and most of Asia boycotted, with the result being that Australia and North Korea were the only ones left to compete. Cambodia was chosen as neutral ground for the match, and the Cambodian fans were indeed split into two groups for fairness. The bit about Australians traveling to England for training is backwards though - in fact, that team was more English than Australian, and they chose a training ground near Cairns for its similarity to Cambodia's climate.

Later, the winning match against Italy is narrated in an interesting way from the POV of a leading character, Pak Yu Jin, who happens to be serving as political officer aboard a North Korean fishing trawler at the time. As the match plays over the shipboard radio, Pak and the crew listen with bated breath:

   “Our team's number 15, Yang Sŏng Guk, driving the ball, crosses the midline. Blocked by Italian No. 6, crosses left to Han Bong Jin, Han Bong Jin shoots with his left foot! Ah, crosses to number 8 Pak Sŭng Jin... Pak Sŭng Jin struggles as Italy's No. 3 player rushes at him... Brings the ball forward, and now number 9 takes it and shoots! This time the Italian keeper kicks the ball far over the halfway line on our side. Our No. 6 Rim Sŏng Hui runs in and intercepts... Italy's captain No. 12 moves in from the middle right to attack...” 

   His chest got so tight that it felt hard to even breathe. Beside Yu Jin, the captain kept grabbing his arm, crushing it. Behind him, [a sailor] pounded his back with hard fists, as if trying to crush him.  

   “Italy’s no. 9 and 10 are making short passes approaching our goal. Stealing past our numbers 5 and 3... Oh, that was too close. But here’s our final defender, number 2!... yes, good, finally stopped it... But the ball’s outside the line. Italy’s a strong team, and their numbers 9 and 10, who launched that joint strike, are the world-renowned Rivera and Mazzulta. Italy's number 6 throws the ball, number 9 connects, passing it back to number 10, and now they’re making short passes back and forth... Now here's number 10 coming in from deep to the right. Number 10 Mazzulta shoots! Ah, our Ri Chan Myŏng jumps up to meet it, but… the ball crossed over.”  [Probably: No. 14 Sandro Mazzola and No. 19 Gianni Rivera, both forwards]

   They'd lost all track of the flow of time. It was a game in which fate was staked, a game in which the honor, pride, and dignity of them all was staked.

   “Big brother,” [a sailor] said, sobbing. “I feel like I am going to die of suffocation and shaking. Big brother, what am I going to do?”

    “Shut up!” shouted Captain Tae Gyu, red-eyed.

    “Nearing the 34 minute mark, and so far, both teams have been fighting fiercely without a goal. It’s still a speed race for our team... Our number 11 Han Bong Jin passes to number 5 Rim Joong Sŏn, Rim Joong Sŏn to Pak Du Ik, Pak Du Ik to Pak Sŭng Jin... Pak Sŭng Jin breaks through the Italians’ defensive line. Italy's captain comes running in... Ah, he slides in to steal it... No, it's kicked away. Pak Sŭng Jin goes flying over him... But what’s this whistle? Is it a foul?!... Yes – 

Italy’s captain Bulgarelli gets a yellow card for deliberately kicking a leg. But… Now he's down and can't get up. While pretending slip during the steal, he kicked our player's leg, and Pak Sŭng Jin swiftly jumped over his body, but it seems he got hurt somewhere? The match has been suspended. Oh, finally, Italy's Captain Bulgarelli is being carried out on a stretcher."

Captain Bulgarelli injured on the field

   Pak Yu Jin jumped up and shook his fist and shouted, “Good job!― Pak Sŭng Jin!―” Never before had he shouted so loudly with such mad agitation. This wasn't just soccer, it was a war of fighting spirit, perseverance, and mental strength. 

   Then it happened. The dramatic words that Pak Yu Jin, the fishermen of trawler boat No. 56, and all people of our country would never forget for the rest of their lives finally passed over the airwaves.

   “Now at almost 41 minutes into game time, our team is on the attack again. Only speed, only attack... Ah, here’s a good chance... Number 7 Pak Du Ik gets the ball from the midfielder, rushes to the left flank, steals past Italy's number 3... Pak Du Ik has his arm grabbed by Italy's No. 3, but rushes through the gap like lightning and kicks with his right foot!

   “Shoo-oot!” The choked voice of the announcer passed through his heart like an electric current... By this point, Announcer Ri Sang Byŏk's tumultuous words mingled with the violent beating of his own heart.

   “Goooaaal! It’s in. Our Pak Du Ik finally made it to the Italian goal! Korea kicked a goal past the world-leading Italian team!”

   Everyone got up from their seats. Who was the first to cry out with a choked voice? “Goal! Goal!”

I can't find the whole game online, but from the clips I've seen, this seems to more or less follow the action of the real game. The times in particular are accurate. I know that the Italian captain was carried out with an injury, and that was a big moment in the game. Here's some actual footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqd20eUv9BI

After the goal is scored, the narration skips pretty quickly to the end of the game, when the crew all jump up and hug each other tearfully. 

Soon after, the sailors are startled to see a Soviet ship speeding in their direction. Luckily, Pak Yu Jin studied abroad and speaks fluent Russian:

    At that moment, the sound of a whistle echoed from a Soviet maritime patrol ship cutting through the waves. As he struggled to hear, a high shriek sounded from the loudspeaker of the approaching patrol boat.

   "Корейская команда!― Силинейшая! Поздравляем Корейских футболистов с победой над  итальянцами!"

   Yu Jin waved to them. “Спасибо."

   "What did they say?" shouted the captain.

   "They said Korea is very strong," Yu Jin shouted back. "They congratulate the Korean team on beating the Italians!"

The captain instructs a sailor to invite the Russians aboard. With Yu Jin acting as sole interpreter, the two groups enjoy a bi-national celebration on the high seas. 

The Russian language above was rendered in hangul in the novel, and has been painstakingly transposed here into (probably flawed) cyrillic for legibility. Because that's the kind of full-service translation you can expect here at dprklit.

Here are some good articles about North Korea in the 1966 World Cup: 

https://www.history.co.uk/article/north-korea-the-secret-heroes-of-the-1966-world-cup

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1998811-italy-world-cup-rewind-humiliation-at-the-hands-of-korea-1966

I also recommend checking out the aforementioned documentary The Game of Their Lives which includes interviews with the seven team members still surviving in 2002.