My impression of Kim Yo-jong
By Nam Sang-so
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Kim Yo-jong is the younger sister of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. She is the director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers' Party. The Japanese media reported in 2015 she married a man she met while attending Kim Il-sung University.
She was born in September 1988, making her about the same age as her sister-in-law Ri Sol-ju, Kim Jong-un's wife, now the first lady of North Korea. Yo-jong reportedly studied English and French at Bern International School in Switzerland where her brother Jong-un studied. Away from home and lonely, Jong-un loved his kid sister.
Bern International School has 300 students from 40 nations, situated in a neutral country which serves early childhood through grade 12. According to media reports, while Yo-jong concentrated on languages and had fun with horseback riding, Jong-un was ambitious and studied hard. He was interested in playing basketball so much that he later invited American basketball player Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang.
Their father Kim Jong-il loved Yo-jong very much and once disclosed to Russian statesman Konstantin Borisovich Pulikovskii that “I have two smart children, Jong-un and Yo-jong, who are interested in politics. I must teach one of them to become my successor.”
When Yo-jong visited Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul as a special envoy on the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, she wrote in the visitor's register; “As Pyongyang and Seoul become closer in the hearts of the Korean peoples, I wish that the future of our glorious unification should come sooner.”
For many South Koreans, Yo-jong's image reflected a “good wife, wise mother” rather than a high official. She had soft and warm eyes just like many South Koreans, quite different from other strained North Korean images.
“Please refrain from drinking too much alcohol and smoking.” No one in the North would dare to say these words to Kim Jong-un, but his sister Yo-jong would, grabbing his arm lovingly, according to Japanese media.
It will be nice to see her in the media again when the leaders of the South and North meet in the spring.
The writer (sangsonam@gmail.com) is a translator.