(yay! imported Chinese fans for a recent North Korea soccer friendly – and I kid you not!)

 
(our glorious football squad, presently pitying the world’s “other” soccer teams in Johannesburg)

Alright, so we lost our first Group G match yesterday, 2-1 against the mighty single-named Brazilians and their wonderful piece of Kaka. Hey, this is the group of death, kids, so can you even blame us for taking a few shots in the gauntlet?

Yet we showed considerable pluck throughout the 90 minutes. We battled like ancient Koryo warriors. We galloped up and down the pitch like the horsebacked drawers and water and hewers of wood, just like our holy ancestors did in Ancient Koryo, before we were defiled by foreigners. During the game we were duly inspired by the uplifting dreams of the delicious white rice and nutritious meat we might eat – if our Dear Leader considers us worthy enough of the privilege — back in our glorious socialist motherland at the foot of our Great Leader’s statue on Mansu Hill upon our return to the DPRK from this roiling capitalist cesspool, the inheritor to the imperialist apartheid state of South Africa.

(glorious Kim Il-sung pointing at incoming turds over on Mansu Hill)

Here’s what our brilliant, gifted, 100% Korean with-nothing-else-added coach, Kim Jong-hun said about the results of the Brazilian tussle:

The fact that [our] players scored a goal against a strong team like Brazil gives me a lot of pleasure. We didn’t win but we gained valuable experience. We’re going to be more confident, we want to win our remaining games and get through to the knockout stage. Throughout the match the players followed our gameplan and defended well. We were very well prepared and we got some good shots in on goal. I think we fought bravely and with a little bit of luck we could even have got a better result.

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(the Dear Leader demonstrating his most sultry, open-mouthed ingénue pose – are you turned on?)

The time is soon upon us when Bam Bam will pass onto the next world. Yes, that “other” supernatural Paradise, but this one high in the sky, and not his beloved North Korean “Paradise On Earth.”

His possessions will be inherited by the North Korean state for posterity and rumors will eventually fly about the true nature and secret life of the leader of one of the most cloistered, inward-looking punchy statelets in the world. Speculation will brew as news of the Dear Leader’s private life becomes the sole obsession of Koreans of all stripes, on the net, on the news, and in the private conversations of bar- and cafe-frequenting Koreans, both north and south of the DMZ.

I got to thinking about the more popular items in the Dear Leader’s personal collection which scholars may wish to study and analyze for clues as to Kim’s personality. Items which will provide insight into the North Korean despot’s foibles, mannerisms, and affect, providing hints and clues about his leadership style or manner of governance. Items we’ll be writing about in books about the Dear Leader’s life in due time, the sorts of doodads and other tschotschkes which’ll fill the pages of books well into the next decade.

So which sorts of items, exactly?

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Some have already forgotten the tragic event, but the Chinese Embassy (former) in Belgrade (ex-Yugo) was bombed back in 1999.

Was it a stray missile? Was the bombing a calculated attempt by the US and its NATO allies to snub the Chinese and demonstrate to the Yugoslavians and Slobo that American power in a post-Cold War context was as inevitable as the rising tide?

We’re left with plenty of questions and not many reliable answers as we look back on the event, now more than a decade old.

(the Former US President & his Veep, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, respectively. Laura Ling and Euna Lee embrace their families and their saving graces)

I was disturbed by some recent highly-critical remarks (pictured below) appearing the other day on my Facebook Wall concerning the Laura Ling/Euna Lee “captive in North Korea” saga.

So much so, actually, that I thought it was time to compile my thoughts and feelings into a small introductory post along with a promised follow-up, as you’ll shortly read, once I have a chance to do more homework on the issue.

Here’s what’s been eating me over the past forty-eight hours…

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At the Foxhole, Keeping “Careful Watch”
Approximately 15h CET
If you give me anything, give me a deadline and my publikum…

(the German marquee poster – note the gore and blood which is absent from the US version)

 
(a much more saccharine US version of the same poster)

Don’t ask me to tell you the news, kids – you likely already know there have been ten tragic deaths at the Foxconn component assembly facility in Shenzhen to date, with no apparent signs of stopping. A quorum of innocent lives snuffed out, just like that.

Like those harrowing scenes in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, young people seem to be defenestrating themselves – a phenomenon more suited to Czechs, mind you – or committing other forms of suicide to call attention to the devastating situation which is going inside the “city within a city” down in the former Special Economic Zone.

So what in sheer blazes is going on here? Is someone threatening these kids with death? Is there something wrong with the food in the canteen? Can the pulsing desire to want to earn money for one’s family overtake basic personal safety concerns?

Someone recently sent me a transcript of a suicide note that seems to be making the rounds of the Chinese blogosphere (not the Chinglosphere!) which pretty much tells this entire story in a nutshell. I have no idea where they got it from, but I’m going to continue investigating its source – with an attempt to track down the original Chinese – and maybe together we can figure something out here.

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