North Korea might be a fortress nation but its dictator Kim Jong Un did used to spend time out of the country for his education.
Back in the day when Team America: World Police star Kim Jong Il was running the country the younger Kim was sent to school in Switzerland, attending a German-speaking place near Bern.
During that time he was called Pak Un and people were told that he was the child of a North Korean embassy worker, while old chums of the dictator told the Daily Beast that he actually did make friends with the other kids while there.
“We had a lot of fun together. He was a good guy,” said schoolmate Joao Micaelo of the boy who turned out to be the brutal dictator of North Korea and these days makes threats against other countries.
“Lots of kids liked him. I don’t know anything about his life today. All I know is the guy I knew in school.
These days Kim Jong Un mostly hangs round with other dictators (Belarussian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“He loved basketball. We played a lot together. I’d like to say to him, if you ever have the time, please contact me again so we can catch up.”
Another student, Marco Imhof, said that the young Kim was ‘funny’ and ‘good for a laugh’, but ‘hated to lose’ and found winning things to be very important.
Other students agreed that he had a good sense of humour, but they added that the students didn’t talk about politics while they were in class so they didn’t get a good sense of what he was like in that regard.
The issue of whether you’d continue your family’s repressive dictatorship of a country that largely keeps itself isolated from the rest of the world probably didn’t come up very often in conversation.
However, a former bodyguard of his father painted a rather different picture, as Lee Young-guk told ABC News that the tyrant tyke ‘was stressed and had no one to play with his own age’ during his childhood.
He used to be a student in Switzerland, and his school friends said he was funny and liked basketball, though a former bodyguard had a different view (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
This apparently made him ‘explosive’ and prone to acting without considering the consequences when he got angry.
The bodyguard said: “He was quick-tempered. He doesn’t care about what others think. He doesn’t feel sorry for other people. He does whatever he wants. He would yell at the ladies. He was like that.”
It sounds a bit more like the Kim Jong Un the world is accustomed to.
For a point there earlier in the month it sounded like he’d followed his father into that final resting place for dictators after rumours that he’d died started doing the rounds.
North Korea responded by posting ‘proof of life’ photos and he has since been seen in public on a visit to China, while his family have also been making renewed threats against South Korea.
The funny kid who likes basketball isn’t always going to stay that way.
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