Posted on 07/10/2012 5:12:27 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
July 9, 2012, 9:16 p.m. ET
Replica Disney Dancers Take North Korea Stage
By EVAN RAMSTAD
SEOULNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Eun and other top officials attended a televised variety show over the weekend that included dancers imitating Disney Co. DIS -0.08% characters such as Mickey Mouse, a noteworthy development in an authoritarian regime that routinely criticizes the U.S. and other foreign cultures.
The dancers' costumes weren't precise replicas of Disney characters, and Disney told the Associated Press that it didn't authorize or license its characters to North Korea or the art troupe that produced the show.
But the variety of charactersincluding Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Tiggershowed that the troupe was influenced broadly by Disney. During one song, a video of a scene from the company's "Sleeping Beauty" movie appeared.
The presence of Mr. Kimwho sat in the front row of the theater along with his uncle Jang Song Thaek, considered his closest adviser, and other high-ranking officialsgave an official imprimatur to the performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
well played...well played....(golf clap)
Here the story look like Chia Chub has new girlfriend
Has anybody figured out who the woman is?
It is either his 1/2 sister (or full sister), or the other conclusion is that she is his bitch. Either way, easy on the eyes. But if she is in the inner circle, accompanying him everywhere these days without a word as to who she is you can take it to the bank she already is will will learn to become, a mass murderer who will not give a sneeze nor a fart about signing a death warrant on people during cyclical purges and power struggles.
Agreed.
Korean rulers, just like medieval and ancient European rulers, had many cases of monarchs and major nobles committing adultery and conducting affairs. However, they were usually done quietly, not publicly, and typically not with a married woman but rather with a beautiful unmarried woman from a low social position whose family would not cause problems. For the heir to the North Korean dynasty to be carrying on an affair in public with a singer and dancer who is either divorced or still married, and who his father had forced him to stop dating, would be shocking to Korean sensibilities. Not only are there issues of public morality and propriety involved, but also the issue of a very young man disrespecting his recently deceased father's wishes in a very public manner.
We'll find out in time whether she is Kim's sister, half-sister, girlfriend, lover, wife, or what. But if she really is a married woman with whom Kim Jong Un is conducting an affair, this will be extremely hard for even the North Korean propagandists to explain to their people. Dalliances might be tolerated in an older man with a solid military history — Mao is an obvious example — but for a young and untested ruler to do something like this less than a year after inheriting his father's position would not go down well in any traditional Asian country.
The only good thing I can see coming from this is maybe some North Korean generals will finally decide that enough is enough and ask the Chinese for help in removing the Kim family from power. The Chinese are not necessarily our friends, but they'd be an improvement over the disaster of North Korea.
WHOA that interesting I hear that before even Ancient King of England and France used do this long time ago
The difference, as I see it, is that this is not something being hidden behind closed doors. The old saying goes that hypocrisy is the tribute vice plays to virtue, and the pattern among Western rulers who had mistresses on the side was commonly to have a public wife whose children — and those only — would be the legitimate heirs to the throne. What Kim Jong Un is accused of doing is taking another man's wife publicly as his own wife and disrespecting the demand of his recently-deceased father not to do so.
There are many things we do not yet know. However, if it's true that Kim Jong Un is openly being seen with a woman who was only very recently seen publicly pregnant and married to another man, especially if it's true that he was ordered by his father to break off a relationship with her, I can't see how that won't cause problems within North Korea's inner circle.
Even absolute monarchs have to rely on key advisers and family members to retain power. The young North Korean ruler holds his office solely because of the role of his father and grandfather, he doesn't yet have his own base of support. While I'm sure some of the public executions of senior generals were intended to get rid of his enemies and intimidate others, getting away with gross immorality contrary to cultural norms and contrary to his father's explicit orders is not going to be easy.
I can think of two biblical parallels: King David's adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his key military leaders, and then King David's own son Absalom, who, during a revolt against his father, slept with the king's concubines in public to deliberately dishonor his father. Despite his repentance recorded in Psalm 51, David's initial private wickedness led to very public wickedness by his own son that nearly cost him his throne, and led to the death of his son.
II Samuel 11-12: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Sam%2011-12&version=KJV
II Samuel 14:21-23: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel%2016:21-23&version=KJV
Psalm 51: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=KJV
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