By: Daniel Nardini
In the Chinese city of Dandong, the city just opposite the China-North Korea border, Chinese vendors did a brisk business selling Kim Jong Il pins, North Korean banknotes, and books by the former ruler of North Korea Kim Jong Il. But before you jump to any conclusions, many of the buyers were not just Chinese but also Japanese, South Koreans, people from various European countries, and yes people from Russia. Since the demise of the former North Korean ruler, many people seem to want to have a certain “momento” of the man who ruled the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea’s official name) for 17 years. Just as interesting is the sale of books by both Kim Jong Il and his father and former ruler of North Korea Kim Il Sung in various bookstores in a number of western countries and among Japanese of Korean descent who still hold on to the belief that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is worth celebrating and the death of Kim Jong Il is worth mourning.
For all those North Koreans who escaped from North Korea there is nothing to mourn with the passing of Kim Jong Il. Likewise I seriously doubt that the 200,000 political prisoners in North Korea have anything to mourn, or the families and relatives of those who died in the man-made famine of the 1990’s. Because of the North Korean government’s disastrous agricultural policies during that decade, an estimated 2 million people starved to death. In a country with a population of 22 million that is a lot of people. And let us not forget those South Koreans who lost loved ones in the Chonan incident and on Yangpyeong Island. In 2010, a North Korean submarine is believed to have attacked and sunk the South Korean battle cruiser the Chonan. Out of 104 men, 46 were killed. In the same year, the North Korean military started a live shelling of residents on Yangpyeong Island next to the North Korea-South Korea border. Four people were killed and the island’s population had to be evacuated. Given all of his crimes against humanity, I certainly would never mourn his passing.
However, one thing I have learned and that is certain people love to collect things of the past—the most recent as well as the distant times gone by. One guy I know collects Nazi memorabilia. Of course he is not a Nazi, it is something he has an interest in. I know other people who collect memorabilia of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War (1991). It is part of the human fascination of the traumatic past. There are people who are fascinated by events that seem to defy logic and yet happened. Events like Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union under Stalin, and yes Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea do interest people of the absurd, the bizarre and the brutal phenomena that have existed and continue to exist. This is why there is a kind of run on Kim Jong Il memorabilia. Usually those people who collect these things do not have bad memories of the memorabilia they are collecting.
Run on Kim Jong Il Memorabilia
By: Daniel Nardini
In the Chinese city of Dandong, the city just opposite the China-North Korea border, Chinese vendors did a brisk business selling Kim Jong Il pins, North Korean banknotes, and books by the former ruler of North Korea Kim Jong Il. But before you jump to any conclusions, many of the buyers were not just Chinese but also Japanese, South Koreans, people from various European countries, and yes people from Russia. Since the demise of the former North Korean ruler, many people seem to want to have a certain “momento” of the man who ruled the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea’s official name) for 17 years. Just as interesting is the sale of books by both Kim Jong Il and his father and former ruler of North Korea Kim Il Sung in various bookstores in a number of western countries and among Japanese of Korean descent who still hold on to the belief that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is worth celebrating and the death of Kim Jong Il is worth mourning.
For all those North Koreans who escaped from North Korea there is nothing to mourn with the passing of Kim Jong Il. Likewise I seriously doubt that the 200,000 political prisoners in North Korea have anything to mourn, or the families and relatives of those who died in the man-made famine of the 1990’s. Because of the North Korean government’s disastrous agricultural policies during that decade, an estimated 2 million people starved to death. In a country with a population of 22 million that is a lot of people. And let us not forget those South Koreans who lost loved ones in the Chonan incident and on Yangpyeong Island. In 2010, a North Korean submarine is believed to have attacked and sunk the South Korean battle cruiser the Chonan. Out of 104 men, 46 were killed. In the same year, the North Korean military started a live shelling of residents on Yangpyeong Island next to the North Korea-South Korea border. Four people were killed and the island’s population had to be evacuated. Given all of his crimes against humanity, I certainly would never mourn his passing.
However, one thing I have learned and that is certain people love to collect things of the past—the most recent as well as the distant times gone by. One guy I know collects Nazi memorabilia. Of course he is not a Nazi, it is something he has an interest in. I know other people who collect memorabilia of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War (1991). It is part of the human fascination of the traumatic past. There are people who are fascinated by events that seem to defy logic and yet happened. Events like Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union under Stalin, and yes Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea do interest people of the absurd, the bizarre and the brutal phenomena that have existed and continue to exist. This is why there is a kind of run on Kim Jong Il memorabilia. Usually those people who collect these things do not have bad memories of the memorabilia they are collecting.