Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'Kim Jong-il'

This is Your Wake-Up Call

December 19th, 2011 · Comments Off on This is Your Wake-Up Call

The realist in me is resigned to the fact that little will change for North Korea’s long-suffering citizens in the wake of Dear Leader’s demise. But upon learning the news late last night, I immediately thought of a strangely optimistc scene from Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy, one set in the immediate aftermath of Kim […]

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Tone Deaf

November 22nd, 2010 · 3 Comments

I spent much of the weekend zipping through The Reluctant Communist, former Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins‘ memoir of the 39 years he spent living in North Korea after walking across the demilitarized zone in 1965. It’s a harrowing read, primarily because it reveals the North Korean establishment to be even more deluded than I’d […]

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Ransom as Lifeblood

March 10th, 2010 · 7 Comments

For fairly obvious reasons, we find it unable to resist scholarly examinations of North Korea’s currency weirdness. Why would Dear Leader’s regime see fit to instantly vaporize what little wealth the Hermit Kingdom’s poor citizens have managed to scrape together? (We suspect the answer has something to do with the abuse of Hennessy, which has […]

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“A Monster of the People”

June 11th, 2009 · 1 Comment

As things get ever-weirder in the Hermit Kingdom, it’s worth remembering the gobsmacking tale of Shin Sang-ok, a Japanese filmmaker kidnapped by Kim Jong-il. Even if you’re already familiar with Shin’s ordeal, it’s worth revisiting this harrowing account from 2003. We could scarcely imagine a more savage indictment of Dear Leader’s crippling megalomania. Forced to […]

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