Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-il-sushi-chef-kenji-fujimoto-adam-johnson-2013?printable=true

by Mithrandir • 13 years ago

728 101 13 years ago

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Taylorious2• 13 years ago

I don't normally upvote non-tech things on HN, but that was one of the most fascinating articles I have read in awhile. I started to idly read it, but immediately become engrossed.

dreen3• 13 years ago

Agreed, very good read.

PuercoPop• 13 years ago

I normally flag non-tech things on HN. Even if I enjoy them. Just planting the seeds.

zorpner• 13 years ago

That's explicitly contrary to the HN guidelines, as is your comment. ...as is this comment of mine. I'll show myself out.

dnautics• 13 years ago

check out the vice guide to north korea, also fascinating.

avgarrison• 13 years ago

You might like the book "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea." There's quite a few jaw dropping stories from people who defected from NK. It's such a mysterious country, I am completely fascinated by it.

edit: a word

tjr• 13 years ago

I just read that book last week. Amazing stories.

Taylorious2• 13 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check it out. Although, I have trouble reading those types of books (and articles) because they tend to be a bittersweet experience. On the one hand I feel like it is sort of like a sin to be willfully ignorant of the terrible things happening in places like NK, but it is also incredibly depressing learning about these things and being so powerless. For some reason the brutality women face in these places seems to upset me the most. A few weeks ago I read a very descriptive article on witch hunting in Papua New Guinea and thinking about it still keeps me up at night.

contingencies• 13 years ago

That book's good - but it's about people fleeing the northern part of the country, one of the industrial centers, neither at the border or near the capital in the south. It's quite a different situation there and probably far more representative of the country as a whole.

eyepulp• 13 years ago

I'm reading this right now, and I'll second the vote. One of the more Orwellian/absurd fun-facts I've come across: The two biggest department stores in the DPRK are called Department Store No. 1 and Department Store No. 2. (I'm sure there's some clever joke about marketing/branding in there) Like the OP said - it's mysterious and completely fascinating.

It's been a great book thus far.

nourishingvoid• 13 years ago

Another good book on North Korea is B.R. Myers' "The Cleanest Race." While it's not focused on history or defectors specifically, it does offer unique insight on the formation of the North Korean state and the rationale behind its actions.

amartinsu13• 13 years ago

It was written by Adam Johnson, an English Professor at Stanford who just won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for a book, not coincidentally, inspired by North Korea.

joyeuse6701• 13 years ago

I read this in a print version of GQ (call me old fashioned), and as it turns out, they come out with pretty fascinating topics regularly. I think the urban explorers article or coast guard rescue a few years back piqued my interest.

Wingman4l7• 13 years ago

For those who were interested in reading the urban explorers article, like I was: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban-expl...

uvdiv• 13 years ago

After eight years in captivity, she made a life-or-death escape from her guards after being sent to Vienna to promote Kim's latest film.

Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders? Is this some sort of diplomatic privilege? This would be 1986 [1].

edit: Or a parallel (?) situation, Cuban athletes "escaping" from government minders inside the USA (2002 [2]). What power do foreign government agents have in these situations?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choi_Eun-hee

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuban_soccer_players_w...

mc-lovin• 13 years ago

I second that, this is very curious.

khuey• 13 years ago

I don't know about these cases specifically, but usually it is done by threatening their families back in the other country.

bricestacey• 13 years ago

Elsewhere in the story the translator had a Dominican passport. It seems likely they traveled using forged documents and first, to Japan. Kind of like how Americans go to Mexico in order to get to Cuba and vice versa.

jpatokal4• 13 years ago

Hmm? The eight years in captivity was in North Korea. She convinced her minders to allow her to visit Austria, and made her escape after soon as she could once she landed.

DominikR• 13 years ago

You must be seriously brain damaged to ask such a question. I am from Austria and I can assure you that there are no diplomatic privileges to hold slaves in my country.

DoubleMalt• 13 years ago

I also live in Austria.

Of course there is no official way to hold slaves in Austria. However stories of foreign diplomats that hold "household staff" under slave like condition surface with saddening regularity.

Very often they are stripped of their passports in a country where they don't speak the language, so their perceived options are very limited.

Being a UN seat with a lot of diplomats certainly aggravates this problem, as do the restrictive immigration laws, that do little to protect people that want to escape from such circumstances.

Also in the case of the actress, her perceived options might have been very limited, while in practice the "only" thing she would have to fear after defecting would be assassins sent after her. Scary enough.

So I also think the question shows a limited view of the world, but is not offensive enough to accuse someone of being brain damaged.

tinco• 13 years ago

"What power do foreign government agents have in these situations?"

Guns and strong arms, I can only assume..

"Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders?"

I agree with Dominik that that is a rather offensive question. Ofcourse it doesn't, even Kim himself did not believe she was a slave still, of course she was and felt that way.

There's only one way to assert that you are not a slave, and that is to test your freedom.

Peeda• 13 years ago

Well I'd imagine they left it off the customs declaration

Cthulhu_2• 13 years ago

Did the Austrians realize she was a slave? Did she realize it herself, for that matter? Everyone has stereotypes when it comes to slavery, and it's actually pretty hard to detect it, especially when the victim has been institutionalized as I can imagine this woman was.

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

Agree with others here, a very captivating read. Couldn't stop reading once I started.

The personality of the protagonist is interesting to think about. Disturbed individual or hero? Both? We are presented with his actions, wonder what was going on in his head. Left his wife and kids to live for 3 years in a strange country. Did it again for 10 years. Remarried there to someone who doesn't speak his language. Had other kids. Left them.

A hero because, I guess there are few who would do that. Provided an interesting insight into the inner circle (but I don't the sacrifice for humanity's lack of information on Kim's family is what drove him). Very disturbed person as well. The childhood probably left some pretty large scars on him. Abandoning his family many times over is disgusting to think about, the scars it will leave on his children are no less harsh than those left on him by his father.

SoftwareMaven2• 13 years ago

I have a hard time calling anybody who could leave his family like that a hero. He wasn't doing it to better their circumstances; he was doing it to satisfy himself.

javert• 13 years ago

Leaving your family is _nothing_ compared to providing emotional support for someone running concentration camps, abducting sex slaves, and all the other stuff.

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

Maybe a hero is the wrong word, and I personally don't consider him that, but I left that possibility as I can see how others can see him that way. Maybe in the same category as having someone wanting to climb the Everest and then almost dying up there. They didn't have to do it, but they did it, put their lives at risk, seemingly for the sense of accomplishment / fame, even though at home they might have their friends and loved ones waiting for them.

d233• 13 years ago

It's hard to understand the full cultural implications though, at least for me. In some places marriage is a very different thing than it is here. In many places, love isn't even a factor (e.g. in places where spouses are chosen by parents).

vwinsyee• 13 years ago

More like an antihero -- someone who blurs the lines between hero and villain. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihero

sciguy772• 13 years ago

I'm sorry but how the hell is this guy a hero in any way? Undeterred by sex slavery, assassination, execution, and forced labor he neglects his first batch of children and allows the second to be interned, and he says he can't wait to get back to the DPRK. He only informed the Japanese because they were holding him.

gbog• 13 years ago

> Disturbed individual or hero?

No, just yet another human being with contradictions, light-heartedness, courage, blindness, dreams, and sins.

Just a unique destiny. One should refrain from judging him. Who are we to judge a Japanese old man who crossed unadvertently the path of an ugly dictator, and managed to survive, and became half-addicted?

oneiric• 13 years ago

Can someone explain the situation that started this?

"he signed a one-year contract to teach sushi-making skills to young chefs in Pyongyang"

Was this just in the classified ads? I thought North Korea was closed off from the world and Japan an enemy. Was this a low point in military tensions?

Similarly what kind of flights went between Japan and DPRK?

dreen3• 13 years ago

I am guessing this was during the reign of Kim Il-sun when the country was apparently faring a bit better, and there were less sanctions etc. Also, did everybody in USA stop consuming sushi during war with Japan? Was it forbidden after the Pearl Harbor?

nitrogen• 13 years ago

Quoting a dead comment:

indiecore 14 minutes ago | link [dead]

I don't think they had sushi in the west then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in...

Wikipedia was pretty unhelpful but there don't seem to be many western references until the 1950s and it probably wasn't popular until the 80s when Japanese culture started getting big.

The term "sushi" does seem to skyrocket around 1980: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sushi

SoftwareMaven2• 13 years ago

Flights would go through Beijing.

jpatokal4• 13 years ago

There's a huge North Korean community in Japan, which are a major source of funds to North Korea. Until North Korea confessed to abducting Japanese citizens c. 2002, there was even a ferry that traveled regularly between the two.

The main catch is that Japan's "North Koreans" may be internally registered as such, but they're actually descended from people who were in Japan before 1948 and for most part have never even been to North Korea. This is all further complicated by the fact that Japan doesn't actually recognize North Korea as a state and holds on to the fiction that South Korea is the sole legitimate country on the entire peninsula. Wikipedia has a capsule summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongryon

mitchi• 13 years ago

I'm still amazed at how he stayed there 20+ years and never learned Korean.

vinceguidry• 13 years ago

He probably realized early on that it wasn't in his best interests to, and so just turned that part of his brain off. Curiosity seems like a dangerous thing in North Korea.

marshray• 13 years ago

People's sense of self-interest is a strange strange thing.

yitchelle• 13 years ago

I was wondering about the same thing. Could it be a self protecting strategy? In the article, it mentioned that the Kims see him as an outsider, and by continuing speaking to them via a translator, it kept the sense of him being an outside for the 20+ years.

yoster3• 13 years ago

With an interpreter there, why would he need to?

SilasX• 13 years ago

Kim Jong-il reveled in his enjoyment of sushi!? Does that strike anyone else as just ... distasteful, even by his standards? That would be like Japan opening up a McDonald's right where one of the A-bombs went off.

jpatokal4• 13 years ago

Raw fish is an integral part of Korean cuisine as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoe_(dish)

snogglethorpe• 13 years ago

Of course, technically sushi doesn't refer to raw fish...

thejsjunky• 13 years ago

Probably not the best analogy as there are in fact McDonald's restaurants in Hiroshima (and I would imagine Nagasaki). There's one not far from the Peace Park towards Hiroshima Castle.

It's fair to be somewhat puzzled over it though; as mentioned in the article even today there is still quite a lot of animosity towards Japan in North Korea. I suppose it just goes to show that either the top Korean officials don't totally buy their own propaganda or that people are capable of amicably interacting with other people on a personal level even when they are at odds in the greater scheme of things - or some combination thereof.

swartz• 13 years ago

Great read...truly enjoyed it.

iblaine• 13 years ago

Read every word...amazing story, even if some of it is embellished.

rosser• 13 years ago

As noted by many of the other comments, this is a fascinating article in so many different respects, but the most interesting take-away for me personally is a little detail that shows just how far the ripples cast from a seemingly small action can reach.

If one day, decades ago, a teenaged boy's co-worker and friend hadn't wanted to live like "normal" folks instead of scroungers, and shared a sushi dinner with his friend, Dennis Rodman probably wouldn't have ended up visiting the DPRK decades later, causing all the resulting foofaraw. But for that one little choice, a subsequent event that at least flashed across the awareness of most of the First World, and who knows how much of the rest of it, wouldn't have happened.

It's not necessarily something of geo-political consequence, but if that's not the notional "butterfly flapping its wings in China", I'm not sure what is.

foobarbazqux• 13 years ago

It's a wonderful life, isn't it? Personally I find complex systems of cause and effect to be inherently fascinating. We basically don't understand how they work, at least not in a rigorous way. People are working on models, for example in systems biology, but it's early work.

varjag3• 13 years ago

In some way, the butterfly effect highlights that North Korea is in meta-stable state, and relatively minor events on few select people can effect its political course. In the modern world, much less is governed by outliers of chance, simply by virtue of many more agents involved.

Retric2• 13 years ago

I suspect there where many minor changes that could have prevented any of the recent presidents from entering politics or at least running for president. Or more strangely Bush could have easily lost the an election with a minor change to the ballot design in a tiny area in a vary important state.

Overall I suspect that's for more impact than who's making sushi in NK as I don't think most presidents would have gone back to Iraq for instance. And without the Iraq war I don't think we would have the backlash that lead to healthcare reform etc.

arh68• 13 years ago

Here's how I see it: either Fujimoto was predisposed to a sushi career (his sushi destiny guaranteed, though with uncertain timing) or Fujimoto would have been equally amazed by any old thing his rich friend showed him. There's also the whole question of: out of all the sushi chefs in Japan, why Fujimoto?

But back to the dichotomy: I have no reason to believe Fujimoto was predestined for sushi. On the other hand, I would be shocked to know that the rich kid, though he couldn't have known at the time, held direct power over Fujimoto's future. What if the kid wanted to play soccer? Or play Pacman in an arcade? Or launch bottle rockets? Could Fujimoto have been equally good at those things?

foofaraw• 13 years ago

> foofaraw

Ha! I never realized that was actually a word.

relix• 13 years ago

Apparently Fujimoto really liked sushi. Combine that with the fact that living in Japan, you're going to be able to eat sushi at some point in your life, it was only a matter of time until he found out he really liked sushi and wanted to become a sushi-chef. For all we know, there had been several "close calls" before this one, his parents maybe wanting to celebrate a special occasion with sushi, but then changing their minds. If his friend hadn't treated them, he would've probably had other opportunities to taste sushi and find out the same thing.

egonschiele• 13 years ago

Awesome article, awesome author. Adam Johnson's 'The Orphan Master's Son' is about North Korea and it's the best book I've read this year: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Masters-Son-ebook/dp/B004X6...

malkia• 13 years ago

Couldn't stop reading! It reminds of "The Last King of Scotland" movie - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/ about Idi Amin's personal physician.

midas• 13 years ago

Was anyone else surprised by the quality of food that the elites were/are eating? It doesn't surprise me that they had tons of expensive possessions and services, but I would've thought the perishable nature of food would make getting the ingredients for gourmet cuisine nearly impossible!

yoster3• 13 years ago

This article is fantastic. I did not like the fact that the sushi chef was a scumbag who created families in different countries and abandoned them which the author called out. He even complicated doing it a third time at the end of the article due to his greediness. I hope he does go back to North Korea and runs out of luck.

yoster3• 13 years ago

contemplated

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pasechnikk• 13 years ago

How come the article's publishing date is July 2013?

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mseebach• 13 years ago

It will probably appear in the July edition of the magazine, which might actually be out now. [month/year] editions rarely seem to track the actually calendar very tightly, just like you can buy the 2014 models of cars now.

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gurkendoktor• 13 years ago

OT, but ... I absolutely love to read articles like this one, yet I'm not interested in subscribing to GQ or buying anyone's full book. I wish there was a tip jar below each long-form article. :(

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epaga• 13 years ago

     The sushi chef was leaving his apartment when he noticed the stranger outside.
     He could tell by the man's suit—black and badly made—that he was North Korean.
     Right away, the chef was nervous. Even in his midsixties, the chef is a
     formidable man: He has thick shoulders, a broad chest; the rings on
     his strong hands would one day have to be cut off. But he'd long since
     quit wearing his bulletproof vest, and the last time a North Korean made
     the journey to visit him in Japan, a decade ago, he was there to kill him.

Incredibly well-written first paragraph, it's been a while since I've read such an engrossing opening to an article.

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luke_s• 13 years ago

The article is definitely great - but it never said what happened with the stranger outside his apartment!

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Stupendous• 13 years ago

Kim Jong Il's wife convinced him not to do it:

"Kim Jong-il soon summoned him. Yes, Shogun-sama admitted, he'd sent an assassin to Okinawa, but he urged Fujimoto to forget about it. He was still alive, wasn't he? It was Kim's wife, Ko Young-hee, who'd reminded him of how funny and lovable his Japanese friend had been. Thus the killer was recalled."

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bussiere• 13 years ago

he may also have a kind of stockholm syndrome also.

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LekkoscPiwa• 13 years ago

isn't Stockholm Syndrome caused by circumstances vs. having it ? I.e. in certain circumstances - like being dictator's direct employee - we all suffer from stockholm syndrome?

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d233• 13 years ago

Yes, but once you get it you have it :-)

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MisterBastahrd• 13 years ago

The sushi chef in question was beaten and terrorized by his drunken war-hero father as a child. He was conditioned from birth to deal with terrible men who had great power over him.

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Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

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