Ask a Korean! News: Assassination Attempt on Kim Jong-un, reported by Joo Seong-Ha

[Cross-posted on Sino-NK]

Mr. Joo Seong-ha deserves to be a personal UNESCO heritage site. The journalist has the most incredible life story: he was a professor at Kim Il-Sung University in North Korea, Then, realizing the tyranny of the North Korean regime, he escaped to China--and was captured, sent back to North Korea and survived the prison camp. On his second try, he succeeded in escaping North Korea for good and seeking asylum in South Korea. Now, as a reporter for one of the most prominent newspapers in South Korea, Joo utilizes his elite North Korea connection to give reports on the country like no one else can. TK has long been a fan of Mr. Joo: a complete list of Joo's articles, translated by TK, is available here.

Recently, Joo broke a story that was never known outside of a handful of North Korean elites: two years ago, there was an attempt at Kim Jong-un's life. Below is the story.

*               *              *

Two years ago, on November 3, 2012, there was an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. That day, Kim was scheduled to visit Munsu Street in Pyongyang. There, he was set to go to Ryugyeongwon, a health club; People’s Outdoor Skating Rink; and a rollerskating rink. These facilities were only several tens of meters away from one another, with a street in between them.

On the morning of that day, a loaded machine gun was discovered cleverly hidden under a low-growing juniper tree near Ryugyeongwon. The gun was immediately reported to the Ministry of State Security. It was clearly an attempt on Kim Jong-un’s life. The assassins were apparently aiming for Kim Jong-un’s visit to the area. Even so, Kim Jong-un summoned enough courage to visit as scheduled.

The North Korean regime never found who was responsible. But the predominant speculation is that a high-ranking person must have been behind it. Kim Jong-un’s line of movement is top secret, with few knowing where he is planned to be. Also, it had to be someone who could smuggle a machine gun in from abroad, as firearms are strictly controlled in North Korea.

(More after the jump)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Shin Hae-cheol's Quotes

(source)

Shin Hae-cheol was perhaps the freest talker in all of K-pop history. His fame was built on his ability to speak critically and incisively, as much as it was built on his innovative music. Here is a selection of his quotes that showed the manner of Shin Hae-cheol's speech.

• "The world will self-destruct if young people were never negative or cynical. The world needs the younger generation to look down on the older generation."
  
  
• "It's easy to think that achieving your dreams is the be-all, end-all. But I hope everyone remembers that there are things that you must not lose in the course of achieving your dreams, that the dreams do not necessarily lead to happiness. God does not care what dream you achieve; but he does enormously care whether you are happy."
  
  
• "I think talking about the society or the politics is all part of music. When you start thinking that politics and society have nothing to do with music, that's when music starts getting strange."
  
  
• "Some of the music by Rain and DBSK received a rating that says it is harmful for the youth. But right now, what's happening at the National Assembly is hardly instructive for the youth. The National Assembly should be designated as a harmful location for the youth; it should be rated R, and should not be shown on television, including the news, to protect the children."
  
  
• (To his wife) "Before I was married, I had such strong suicidal tendencies that I received therapy for it. Since we had children, I was naturally cured because I was so happy. Even in the next life, I want to be your husband. In the next life, let me be your son, your mother, your brother, your dog--anything to keep us tied."
  
  
• "We should not take revenge. We may not be able to forgive. In between those two, we can reconcile."
  
  
• "Not being embarrassed that you're worried, taking anxiety as a natural part of life--that, I think, is the first step toward resolving that anxiety. It's not as if your life gets truly better if that anxiety goes away.  . . .  But the worst thing is to lie to yourself, that you're not worried."
  
  
• "There is a lot of criticism toward the young generation, about how they are not willing to work hard. But there is a difference between working in a situation in which one can dream, and working in a situation in which one cannot see anything. Labor without future is not the answer. The young people are standing in darkness; they cannot tell if a cliff is just a foot away. It's not the case that they do not move because they are too tired; they cannot move because they cannot see ahead."
  

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Shin Hae-cheol, the K-Pop Icon

Fate can be cruelly ironic. Only a few days after TK covered him in this space, with hopes to cover him more going forward, Shin Hae-cheol passed away from cardiac arrest on October 27, 2014. He was only 46 years old.

As TK explained previously, Shin is K-pop’s greatest rock icon of the 1990s. Through his outspoken activism and direct communication with his loyal listeners, his influence extended well into the 2000s, and well beyond the consumers of pop culture. No one in the history of K-pop left a footprint quite like Shin’s. Though his life was tragically cut short, it deserves to be known to a wider audience who appreciates K-pop, and wishes to understand where it came from, where it has been.

*                *                *

K-pop nearly died in 1975. The Park Chung-hee dictatorship saw pop culture, especially rock music, as a threat to public order and ultimately its regime. When Shin Jung-hyeon [신중현], the greatest rocker of the time, refused to write a song praising the dictatorship, the government banned his music and arrested him on trumped-up drug charges. Numerous K-pop artists met the same fate.

Korean pop music, which stood near the forefront of global pop music trends in the 1970s, took a massive step back. Only the inoffensive, melodramatic soft rock could survive for the next decade, as the next dictator Chun Doo-hwan--whose rule ended in 1987--was hardly a fan of rock music either.

Perhaps it was not a coincidence that an upstart band, calling themselves the Infinite Track [무한궤도], came onto the stage as the last contestant of the MBC College Pop Music Festival in 1988, a year after Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship was toppled. The College Festival, which began in 1977, became the new path to stardom after the dictatorship decimated the existing pop music scene. But for a long time, the college bands that performed on the Festival mimicked the larger trend. Their music was soft and meek, tear-jerking without being daring.

That is, until the Infinite Track took the stage. The Infinite Track seemed to be an unlikely band to challenge the status quo--its members were the classic definition of elites, as they were students of Seoul National, Yonsei and Sogang. When the baby-faced lead singer and guitarist Shin Hae-cheol gave the pre-performance interview, few expected what was coming next.

Then the song began, with blaring fanfare. A rush of synthesizer followed. The drums crashed harder than they did all night. The lights of the freshly constructed Olympic stadium--which just finished serving its purpose in the Seoul Olympics--blinkered wildly to the beat. The song, called To You [그대에게], instantly owned the crowd. (It would continue to own the crowd for the next thirty years, as it is one of the favorite songs for Korea’s cheering sports fans today.) When the Infinite Track finished performing, there was no doubt about who won the 1988 College Pop Music Festival.

(More after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.