From my research, I gathered some facts about Kim Jong-un’s childhood and teenage years. Firstly, from the images that we used in the articles, he looked like such an unhappy child growing up. But I think that’s what you get when your father is “Supreme Leader” of a seriously oppressed nation. Like look at how unhappy he is. AND HE’S WEARING MICKEY MOUSE EARS?! like what.
Secondly, I was quite unsure if the links that came up on Google would be reliable because the North Korean leaders do not like to discuss their upbringings or lives before being leaders publicly. Despite that uncertainty, the articles that I have found do have short statements here and there from classmates or people who knew Kim Jong-un in his younger years, giving their insight about him during his education in Switzerland and other times in his life.
- He was the third son of Kim Jong-Il, not first in line to the throne – the reason he was picked is rather hysterical.
- He wants nothing to do with the West despite spending a chunk of this life getting educated there. But he’s best friends with American ex-basketball player, Dennis Rodman (they’re actually best friends, it’s weird).
- Adding to his hate towards the West, he wore Mickey Mouse ears. Like hello, Disney Land is dubbed the happiest place on Earth and he’s frowning. Also, he had a collection of Nike trainers.
- When he was in Switzerland, he flunked his classes. It was so bad that he did not pass a single GSCE exam (taken at the end of year 11) and instead of studying, he spent the majority of his time playing basketball.
- At school, he was called “Pak Un” and described as the son of an employee at the North Korean embassy.
Claire, Callum and I communicated with each other to make sure we did not pick the same links for our independent research. Although the three of us have little to no knowledge about this topic and we have yet to discuss how we’d like to tackle this, I’m positive that we will come up with something engaging and entertaining that will be worthy of becoming one of the three segments shot towards the end of the semester.