"Green Mountains, Green Fields" is a short story by Chŏng Yŏng Jo that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in November 2016.
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| KJU touring the Pyongyang Central Zoo in 2014. Src: VOA |
Also in this story, we get more glimpses of Kim Jong Un missing his late mother and having flashbacks of working alongside his father. It is implied that Kim Jong Un has been involved behind the scenes in fixing the country's environmental problems for a very long time. We learn of two more fields in which Kim Jong Un is unexpectedly more knowledgable than the so-called experts: zoo-keeping and botany.
Story Summary
KJU is in his office when he gets word that the dolphins he ordered for Rungna Park are en route by air (from wherever you get dolphins, presumably). Unthinkingly he picks up phone to tell KJI the good news. Then with a pang he remembers: his father has been dead for half a year. He calls a KWP CC official instead, orders the Central Zoo people to the airport to take charge of dolphins, then sets up a meeting with Dr. Cha Ho Gyŏng.
One of the country's top botanists, Dr. Cha has dedicated his life to studying forestry. KJU first met him years ago when he came to discuss the deforestation problem with his father.
The two men stroll around KJU's gardens they talk of the reforestation efforts and the recent Land Management Mobilization Event (국토관리총동원운동열성자대회). 
KJU visits the Central Tree Nursery, May 2015
Src: Chosŏn Shinb
Dr. Cha is surprised to see a strobus pine; he recalls that KJI had been particularly impressed by this tree on his last visit to the Central Tree Nursery (중앙양묘장), the October before he died. It seems that, to honor his father's memory, KJU had the seedling shipped to his private garden and raised it himself.
KJU reminisces about how, on guidance tours together, whenever they saw a particularly lush forest his father would always exclaim, "Green mountains, green fields!" He talks of the famed Russian botanist Timiryazev's theory on the relationship between sun, earth, and plants. Dr. Cha is suitably impressed that the Leader has mastered this very thick, high-level botanical text.
"But if a growing tree needs sunlight most," KJU continues, "then what is the most important thing for a full-grown forest?"
Dr. Cha is stumped. KJU suggests that he will find the answer at the Central Zoo in Pyongyang.
Two days later, Dr. Cha visits the Central Zoo. The zoo guide suggests he talk with "Mother Kim Soon Bok," an animal handler with 50 years of experience, known not only to KJU but to his father and grandfather as well.
Mother Kim turns out to be a blunt old battle-axe of a woman with little patience for social niceties. She tells him, "Animals and trees are like in-laws. It's not like they don't talk to each other..."
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| Children on a field trip to the Central Zoo in Pyongyang. Src: RFA |
Noticing that the crowd appears to be losing interest in the animals, Mother Kim and her assistants arrange to have the boars and bears brought into the tigers' enclosure. When Dr. Cha protests that the tigers will eat the bears, Mother Kim responds, "Bears are pretty tough. Those buggers can cover 100 li of forest in a day."
Dr. Cha's brow wrinkled. Such wisdom from a crazy old harridan! (이 늙다리멍청이!) Suddenly Comrade Kim Jong Un's words echoed in his mind: "What is the most important thing for a full-grown forest?"
A bear needs 100 li of forest in every direction to live. A tiger covers far more than that in its ceaseless search for food. But since the forests were cut down, tigers have disappeared from all but the most remote parts of Mt. Paekdu's forests.
He realized now that this was the conclusion Comrade Kim Jong Un had been leading him toward when he recommended that animal guidebook. The secret to lush, thriving forests. What was it the old woman said about forests and animals being like in-laws? It was so simple, and yet he'd been so walled off in his own narrow field that he hadn't seen it!
Just then Dr. Cha receives an urgent phone call. He's told that KJU is at the zoo entrance and wants to speak with him immediately.
Dr. Cha meets KJU by the main gate as the Leader and several officials are discussing dolphin storage problems with the elderly party secretary of the zoo. Together they tour the zoo, which is organized in order of evolution.
As they watch electric-powered cars and horse-drawn carriages zoom by filled with chattering visitors, the zoo manager notes that these were a gift from the late KJI.
KJU reflects on how much his father invested in this zoo - donating his own favorite white horse, sending his specially-designed animal transport aircraft all over the world to collect animals, devising scientifically advanced methods for their care and feeding, etc. He also misses his mother, who often took him to the zoo.
Vehicle drawn by miniature horses at
the Pyongyang Central Zoo.
Src: dprktoday.com
He asks Dr. Cha if he has solved the riddle yet. Dr. Cha replies that he figured it out with Mother Kim's help: a full-grown forest needs animals. KJU praises him for giving the correct answer, then takes his arm, saying "Come, let's go meet the king of this forest."
They meet up with Mother Kim, who is so thrilled to see the Leader that she is rendered speechless.
"Why, Mother of Beasts, we were just looking for you," KJU says, patting her familiarly on the back. "We must thank you for opening our dear doctor's eyes."
Overcome with emotion, she sobs noisily until he puts her at ease with a joke that the animals are losing respect for her. Then the whole group is distracted by the spectacle of a boar picking a fight with a bear in the tiger cage. They meet some cuddly baby bears, and KJU mansplains that Mother Kim should not be so careless around the dangerous animals, no matter how cute they are.
Comrade Kim Jong Un turned to Dr. Cha. "You've seen for yourself: the tiger is listless. Because of that, our Mother of Beasts has to contrive these dangerous escapades to keep her visitors entertained. Can you think of a solution?"
At a loss for words, Cha Ho Gyŏng just shifted nervously. Taking pity on him, Comrade Kim Jong Un jumped in: "A tiger that is taken out of the forest will lose its unique character and spirit. Instead of keeping him penned up like this, how about building a big tiger hill where he can hunt and run around to his heart's content?"
Dr Cha could not lift his head. While he'd been laughing and having a good time, Comrade Kim Jong Un had been ceaselessly pondering on the nature and habits of beasts, all to help out one old woman. And not only that - within his plan was a hint of the very forest he was planning to create!
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| A scene at the Pyongyang Central Zoo. Src: dprktoday.com |
At the end of their tour, KJU announces a major zoo renovation. "We'll put together the necessary funding and materials. With a dedicated construction crew, the whole thing should be done in 3-4 months. Well, what should we build?"
KJU then explains how the global concept of zoos has evolved "from simply displaying animals, to keeping them in their natural habitat so they can be returned to the wild." Therefore, instead of arranged exhibits following the standard evolutionary order, they should build enormous habitats where the animals can roam freely through lush forests.
Everybody is awed by the epic scale and grandeur of the leader's vision, and they burst into ecstatic cheers.
Dr. Cha stepped forward. "I see clearly at last. I'd been thinking if there's a forest, animals will just naturally appear. it hadn't occurred to me that it takes months for them to find a new habitat and adapt to it. Now I see a novel way to build a forest and breed animals at the same time."
Kim Jong Un smiled to see the doctor's brimming enthusiasm. "I'm glad you finally figured it out. Of course, your most urgent task is to cover our bald hills with trees that grow quickly, like larches and pines. But if we're to create a proper habitat for animals, then conifers alone are not enough. We should also mix in leafy trees and shrubs with nutrient-rich leaves and buds. Remember this: a rich forest with abundant support for life."
Riding home from the zoo in the twilight, KJU again catches himself reaching for a phone to call his late father. But why not? Isn't his father always with him in his heart?
Holding the receiver to his ear, he thinks a silent message: "General, today I took on another big task. It's a heavy burden. But our people take after You, with your selfless love of country and ceaseless forced march of extreme labor [초강도강행군길]. With the help of such people, I can solve anything. I shall define this selfless love of country as 'Kim Jong Il Patriotism'! [김정일애국주의]"
And with that, he had the seed of the idea for the great treatise that he would soon write.
Reforestation Efforts
One of things that most surprised me, in my graduate comparative communism courses, was learning just how devastating communist systems are to the environment. One might expect capitalist systems to be worse, with their greedy corporations chasing profits. But empirically, the damage done in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the USSR during the Cold War period and in China today dwarf anything seen in the capitalist world. Pollution and land overuse are the most common culprits in such systems.
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| A denuded hillside near Wonsan. Src: PBS Nova |
North Korea is no exception. The causes of its ecological disaster have been variously pinned on excessive tree-cutting for firewood, overuse of fertilizer, terrace farming and pollution. It's been well-reported that deforestation is behind the increasingly devastating flood damage the country suffers every year during the rainy season.
Several years ago Nova did a good report on North Korea's environmental problems. The report does a fabulous job of explaining how famine conditions lead to environmental destruction, using late medieval Europe as a comparison. It quotes foreign researchers who have noted the striking absence of animals, including frogs and birds, in the country since the famine.
Stories like this one show that North Korea has begun to take its deforestation problems seriously. Chosŏn Shinbo reported extensively on a visit KJU made to the Central Tree Nursery in May 2015, and Uriminzokkiri has posted numerous photos and reports on the project in the last four years. The Nursery was created in 1998 and is run by the Ministry of the Environment (국토환경보호성), but it got little attention until it was expanded and modernized in 2009. The first National Land Management Mobilization Conference (국토관리총동원운동열성자대회) was held in Pyongyang in 2012. At the Conference, KJU announced a mass mobilization plan for improving the country's environment. A report released two years later trumpeted progress in reforestation, road improvements, and river and stream ecology management.
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| The Central Tree Nursery. Src: Uriminzokkiri |
In the scene where KJU is remembering how he first met Dr. Cha, he recalls the ecologist complaining bitterly to his father about people cutting down trees: "No matter how hard their lives are, selling off our nation's forests to fill their bellies - it feels like a piece of my own flesh is being carved off." This is the only time that a cause is mentioned; the solution Dr. Cha offers later in the story talks only of what sort of trees they will plant and makes no mention of how they will stop the same thing from happening again.
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| Let's arm ourselves firmly with Kim Jong Il Patriotism! "What have I done for my homeland?" Src: Alamy photos |
Kim Jong Il Patriotism
In addition to the usual "Strong and Prosperous" and "cutting-edge" motifs, this story emphasizes two other new catchphrases. The Forced March of Extreme Labor [초강도강행군길] is North Korea's euphemism for how Kim Jong Il died. It carries echoes of the "Arduous March" [고난의행군], the euphemism for the famine of the 1990s that killed so many of his people. The story as North Koreans heard it is that the Leader collapsed on a train while traveling the country doing his endless sequence of on-site guidance visits, and that the strain of overwork killed him.
"Kim Jong Il Patriotism" [김정일애국주의] is another important new slogan of the Kim Jong Un era. South Korean scholars have spilled much ink already trying to interpret what this is supposed to mean. It seems to be tied to ideas of self-sacrifice and feats of extremely fast-paced labor. By attaching the name Kim Jong Il, the regime reminds people that their last leader allegedly killed himself by working too hard, setting that up as the ultimate example of patriotism. Thus, performing superhuman feats of labor is the best way to carry on the late Leader's legacy.
KJU did indeed write (or at least, was credited with) a treatise on the subject of "Kim Jong Il Patriotism" which he presented to the KPA Central Committee in July 2012. The full text can be downloaded by clicking this link. It seems that this story was intended in part to promote this treatise as Kim the Third's first great philosophical treatise, carrying on the tradition of his father's works on Juche film and literature and his grandfather's many works of political philosophy.
