Kim Jong-un is not dead. Probably not dead.
Lesson summary
Hi there, welcome back to Plain English. This is Lesson 258. I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and you can find this full lesson online at PlainEnglish.com/258.
Coming up today: North Korea’s authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un appeared at a fertilizer factory. This came after a three-week absence during which the world speculated that he was either in great health, in a vegetative state, or dead. The phrasal verb is to “pore over.” The video lesson is about how to describe the passage of time when very little is happening. So check that one out at PlainEnglish.com/258.
North Korea leader re-emerges after 3 week absence
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un appeared at a public ceremony at a fertilizer factory in Sunchon. The country’s state media released photos of Kim cutting a ribbon and clapping his hands at the event. The workers of the factory “burst into thunderous cheers” for their leader, the state media said. A fertilizer factory can be used to produce fertilizer, which aids in agriculture, or it can be used in the extraction of uranium, a key ingredient in a nuclear bomb. As such, the event conveniently served the dual objectives of domestic propaganda and international provocation. In other words, a typical day in the life of the world’s most mysterious dictator.
Except that this day came after weeks of speculation that he was dead. The rumors started when Kim was mysteriously absent for a prominent holiday, the Day of the Sun, on April 15. The national holiday that marks the birthday of Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea. It is the country’s most important holiday and is an opportunity to reinforce the Kim family’s military and psychological power over the population. This year was the 108th birthday of Kim Il-Sung and it was the first time in the younger Kim’s tenure that he missed the occasion.
The speculation started almost immediately and grew over time; days went by with no news from the country’s so-called “supreme leader.” He may simply have been avoiding crowds that day due to COVID-19, one story said. It has a certain logic. The country couldn’t acknowledge the fact because its official position is that there is no COVID-19 in North Korea. Another story said Kim had contracted COVID-19 and that he was recovering or in quarantine.
A South Korean web site that publishes stories about North Korea based on a network of undercover sources said that the obese leader had had heart surgery. Soon rumors circulated that he was in “very grave danger;” another said he was in a “vegetative state” after botched open-heart surgery. More stories said that China had to send doctors over the border to rescue the ailing Kim. Weeks went by without any public appearances by Kim, and the state media refused to answer—or even acknowledge—any questions about his health or his absence from public events. During the absence, the government continued to send letters with Kim’s signature from his office.
A defector from North Korea, who currently serves in South Korea’s parliament, said there was a 99 percent chance that Kim was dead. An American news report said that U.S. government was monitoring the situation closely and that Kim was “in grave danger.”
Intelligence analysts around the world analyzed satellite photos of North Korea, looking for clues. Toward the end of April, a train and several luxury boats were spotted at a resort area that Kim likes to visit, dampening the frenzy a bit. South Korea’s government maintained that nothing was amiss in the relations between the two countries.
On May 1, North Korean state media released photos of Kim at the fertilizer factory, twenty days after his most recent public appearance. They had no comment on the length of his public absence. The following day, they released a video of the same event, showing Kim cutting a ribbon, walking, talking, clapping and smoking. Media have pored over the materials released since then, analyzing Kim’s use of a golf cart and a new brown spot on his arm.
The world may never know the reason—if any—for Kim’s recent absence. But the world found out quickly how little it knows about the potential succession in North Korea if Kim were to die. He has not identified a successor. He is rumored to have a son, but the boy would be too young to rule. Kim has murdered two male relatives—an uncle and a half brother.
He has a sister—she appeared with him at the fertilizer factory—and another uncle, who have been rumored to be potential candidates. But the truth is, no succession plan has been made public, and there is a real possibility of chaos if he dies. Government analysts around the world are said to be planning for a struggle to control the country’s dozens of nuclear weapons, mass immigration, famine, and revolution.
New site organization
What a strange place. You hear about the absurdity of Kim Jong-un—the cult of personality, all that stuff—and it’s tempting to laugh. But then I saw the video of him at the fertilizer factory and I saw thousands of people waving banners and cheering for him, and you know they’re prisoners. It’s sad.
I’ve promised you a little more news about the new web site, so here’s probably the biggest change you’ll see. Right now, each lesson is a single page on the web site. On the new site, which will be out June 1, each lesson will be broken up into multiple pages. So there will be one page for the main lesson, about the current event or trending topic. There will be another page for the expression, another page for the video, and two more pages for additional exercises and activities.
The reason we’re doing this is so that you can more easily explore the expressions and the video lessons from the past. You know, we have over 250 expressions in our archive. And we have over 70 video lessons, too. But it’s hard to find them! You can’t easily browse the expressions or video lessons today because they’re buried inside the main episode page.
So two things. One, we’ll have pages that we call Libraries. And the Libraries will be easy ways to browse and explore only the expressions or only the video lessons. The other key benefit to this is, if I’m writing an episode and I find myself using an expression that we talked about in the past, I can link directly to that expression’s page. I find that all the time, I’m using the expressions that I’ve explained in the past. Now, I’ll be able to link to them, so you can see an Expression and jump right to the old lesson in which I explained it.
So that’s the biggest change to the web site. We’re splitting the audio up, so that only the relevant audio is on each page. However, like I said last week, the experience of listening on Spotify or your podcast app won’t change.
(Note: The site you’re looking at now is the new site! Welcome!)
Great stories make learning English fun
