Recently, when they enter restaurants or leave official events, North Korean sales officials sent to China have been seen in sets on the reverse pins with the smiling faces of the national founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il and pretending to be South Korean, two sources in China have declared on Radio Free Asia.
All North Korean officials abroad are required to wear the “Kim Bu-Ja” pins-or “father-son”-to show their allegiance to men known respectively under the name of “Grand Leader” and “Dear Leader”.
The Kim dynasty is now in its third generation. Kim Il Sung, who reigned from 1948 to his death in 1994, was succeeded by Kim Jong-Il, who reigned until 2011, after which his son Kim Jong One took the post of Supreme Sovereign.
“Last week, I visited a famous restaurant in Shenyang with a framework for a North Korean commercial enterprise that I knew thanks to business,” said a source from the Chinese city in Rfa Korean, asking for anonymity of personal security.
“When he arrived at the restaurant, he removed his badge Kim Bu-Ja, put him in his pocket and asked me not to say that he was North Korean,” he said.
“In addition, he not only hid the badge of Kim Bu-Ja, but also asked me to present him as a South Korean,” he continued.
Easy to say
Another source from the city of Yanji, in Jilin’s Chinese province, said he had witnessed the same behavior.
“Recently, it is difficult to see North Korean officials carry portrait badges,” he said. “North Korean officials remove their Kim Bu-Ja badges and claim to be South Koreans when they leave official events.”
It was not clear why the North Korean officials wanted to hide their identity, said the first source. He hypothesized that it was because the South Koreans in China are treated as rich.
“We do not know the exact reason why these officials remove their Kim Bu-Ja badges, but they could be embarrassed to be civil servants in North Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world,” he said.
Despite their efforts, the second source said that it was easy to say that men came from North Korea as soon as they started to speak given their accent and their mode of speech.
“North Korean officials can dress like the South Koreans in terms of clothes and hairstyles, but if you speak to them, it is immediately obvious” that the northernirs.
Many Chinese can also easily make the difference, he said.
“Some North Korean officials who have long been in China in fact, in fact deplore their situation,” he told the North Korean economy on the verge of collapse in their knowledge in China.
“It is understandable to see how North Korean officials think they cannot reveal that they are North Koreans abroad,” he said.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.