Stealth Journeys with the Steam Mapper

Chapter 83: A Better Tale Than Trivia

MYKA was amused by StLF's corny jokes and kind of homespun philosophy.   Not the high sophistication that was expected at fund-raising galas, but a welcomed change.   MYKA, seeing what "an old soul" StLF was, had correctly surmised early on that Stef was an only child, whose most steady companionship was Mom and Dad, while growing up.

MYKA  felt fortunate to have a big extended family, and two older cousins to join in travel to exotic locations and rock concerts, and to accompany to the Alps for ski vacations.   The cousins enjoyed the privilege that travels and private schools presented them with many opportunities to meet fascinating people or to enjoy once in a lifetime adventures.   They had actually attended school at one time or other with various children of heads of state.   And one who was now in the news so much was none other than Kim Jong-un.

Sometime ago, after StLF was riled by the angry North Koreans, MYKA  decided to reveal some little known information.  Sharing a few peculiar habits of the family of the North Korean classmates, helped soothe Stef's righteous indignation.   Now seemed like a good time to distract StLF with a juicy story about the North Korean Leader's family history.

MYKA's older cousins had one time shared some rather naughty talk with their little impressionable cousin during a break from their schooling in Switzerland.   A talkative Kim Jong-un was deep in gossip about his father the Dear Leader of the Democratic People's Party of North Korea.   The cousins assumed their classmate was showing off to demonstrate that his father was better than any other.   He was for all intents and purposes a deity.   MYKA's cousins found the claims absurd and thought the Kim Jong-un must be crazy to risk ridicule of such nonsense.

The stories were so weird that little MYKA  absorbed all of the details and now repeated some of it back to StLF.    The Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, remained in power until he died at the age of 70, in December 2011, when Kim Jong-un was already 28 years old.   Becoming the leader of a country at the young age of 28, was a very big step, but it was the intention of Kim Jong-Il to have his younger son succeed him.   The eldest son, Kim Jong-Nam, had been an embarrassment, and the son by a different woman, was also not in the favor of the Dear Leader. That son, was the half-brother, who was poisoned at the Seoul Airport by two young women, and died quickly as a result.

As StLF listened to the crazy behavior of Kim Jong-Il, it was clear that the current leader's bizarre behavior was not so different from his father's reputation for providing humiliation and cruelty to his subjects and others.   The Dear Leader was known to arrange kidnappings and disappearances throughout his time of power.   Throughout the 1970s, foreigners from European nations, the Middle East, and from many Asian locations, were kidnapped under direct order of Kim Jong-Il.   But this kidnapping was nothing new for the DPRK leaders.

Kidnapping had begun with Kim Jong-Il's father at the start of the new People's Republic.    In the early 1950s, during the Korean War, Kim Il-Sung issued a document with the title, "On Transporting Intellectuals from South Korea".    Using this document, North Korean soldiers were taking private citizens from their homes in South Korea and putting them to work in North Korea., doing menial labor.   This relocation involved many thousands of South Koreans.

Kim Jong Il's love of the cinema and especially James Bond movies, fed his appetite for arranging kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings of airports and airplanes.   The Dear Leader felt that covert operations were necessary for the powerful ambitions of a powerful leader.   And, these practices continue to this day, with prisoners remaining within North Korea for decades and the current Supreme Leader inspired by his father's and grandfather's ruthlessness. to remain all powerful with no mercy or compassion for humanity.