This week, we finally have a definitive update on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s whereabouts after he disappeared from the public’s view for three weeks. The North Korean news agency reported that he’s been at the opening ceremony of a fertilizer factory. It also released a photo of a beaming Kim Jong-un, who seemed unruffled by the noxious smell of manure.
The reports are not yet independently confirmed.
Are you heaving a sigh of relief, or do you know in your gut that something is up? If you smell a conspiracy, then let’s indulge in a little multiple-choice questionnaire, which consists of speculative outcomes courtesy of the press, social media, conspiracy theorists, and, of course, Trump. Choose your trajectory and travel with the Benevolent Leader. We guarantee it will be better than Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’s “choose your own adventure” caper.*
Here are your choices:
1. Kim Jong-un has been cryo-preserved.
2. Kim Jong-un is once again riding a majestic white steed in Mount Paektu (Spring Edition Photoshoot).
3. Kim Jong-un is shooting a film on a train, à la Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited.
4. Kim Jong-un has already taken the train to Wonsan and is waiting out the pandemic in the picturesque resort town.
5. Trump knows. I’m going to ask him.
6. Kim Jong-un was abducted by a UFO in 2014. That man whom you think is Kim Jong-un is a double. Will the real Kim Jong-un please stand up?
The Kim Jong-un you think you’ve seen at a fertiliser factory is probably not him. He has in fact been cryo-preserved. It might have been the disinfectant he ingested after a particularly compelling phone conversation with Trump. He might have been experimenting with a cure for Covid-19. He might have been infected, while he was experimenting with the cure, because SARS-CoV-2 might have been made in a lab in Wonsan University of Medicine, and not in China as Trump supporters would have you believe.
October 2019. As autumn turned to winter, wrapped in a tan coat, Kim Jong-un rode atop a magnificent white steed at Mount Paektu. Surrounded by snow-covered conifers, he contemplated the energies of Hwanung, Son of Heaven, and his wife Ungnyeo, a bear-turned-into-a-woman. Mystical powers were bestowed upon him. The nation waited with bated breath for the inspiration that would strike the world thereafter—the next step in the great revolution.
April 2020. The photoshoot left North Koreans in paroxysms of admiration and led to so many spontaneous bursts of revolutionary fervour and devotion, that yes indeed, you are right, Kim Jong-un never disappeared. He merely returned to Mount Paektu for a spring photoshoot. The snow had melted just so. The shoots of young plants were pushing their way up through the ground, full of promise. The conifers were glistening, wet with dew. The tan coat came off. His cheeks were ruddy. We are on the brink of another revolution.
Kim Jong-un’s train was spotted and theories ran wild on whether he was on it. He probably was. As that 2012 documentary The Great North Korean Picture Show proves, North Koreans are avid fans of cinema and the nation’s leaders are keenly aware of American cinematic culture. Kim Jong-un is no different. Inspired by the 2007 Wes Anderson classic, The Darjeeling Limited, he decided to direct a film about tensions between siblings vying for primacy in the family, all while riding a train towards the resort town of Wonsan. His sister Kim Yo-Jong kept editing the script and asking for rewrites, which explains why he was AWOL (filmmaking is hard work). Take note: the film will also be an antidote to that cynical South Korean 2016 film Train to Busan.
This would be a wise choice. With its clear, clean waters, the peaceful Songdowon beach, pine trees, and bathing areas, as well as hotels, Wonsan is a haven in a world that is in the grips of a global pandemic. Kim Jong-un took a break for a few weeks in Wonsan. And with the hellish situation in America at this time, Dennis Rodman fled before the borders closed, to be with his friend. The two men bonded as they talked about basketball and enjoyed the mineral springs in the brisk spring air.
Trump on Kim Jong-un (April 27): “I can’t tell you exactly. Yes I do have a very good idea though. But I can’t talk about it.”
Which pretty much sums up everything about life right now doesn’t it? You could use this non-specific and useful statement to answer questions like … “Is there a vaccine or cure for Covid-19?” Or say … “Is the general election in Singapore on the horizon?” Or maybe “Will the MCO be lifted in Malaysia?” See? Amazing.
The game is up, and if you chose this option, then you have an imagination worthy of praise.
Yes indeed, Kim Jong-un has been MIA for at least 6 years. Or more. He was abducted by … well, extra-terrestrial entities.
On 28 April the Pentagon confirmed that two leaked videos of UFO sightings from 2004 and 2014 were not fake and that the “aerial phenomena observed…remain characterized as ‘unidentified’”.
Nuclear capabilities notwithstanding, the National Aerospace Development Administration—North Korea’s official space agency—has long been fascinated with space exploration. Moon? Mars? North Korea’s Deep Space Exploration Program will get there. Because the Great Leader has already Arrived.
