North Korea Has a New Kim Jong Un Revelation

The regime's leader doesn't have 'chukjibeop,' according to an official news report
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2020 10:00 AM CDT
North Korea: Kim Jong Un Can't Bend Space, Time
A woman passes by a TV screen showing an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 2, 2020.   (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

North Korea's official newspaper is reporting that Kim Jong Un can't actually bend space and time. As the regime's Rodong Sinmun newspaper revealed this week: "In realistic terms, a person cannot suddenly disappear and reappear by folding space." A South Korean official told Yonhap News the development was "noteworthy" and said "it appears to stress patriotism and love for the people rather than mystification of the leaders." Indeed, the Telegraph portrays this as an attempt to de-mythologize North Korea's leaders and dispel a decades-old belief in "chukjibeop"—the notion that certain people can travel long distances in a short time by folding space.

It also jibes with a Kim quote after he and President Trump failed in 2019 to hammer out a denuclearization agreement for a second time. "Mystifying a leader's revolutionary activity and appearance would result in covering the truth," Kim said last March. "Absolute loyalty would spring up when (they) are mesmerised by the leader humanly and comradely." For the curious, "chukjibeop" apparently derives from East Asian mythology and translates as "distance-shrinking magic," per the International Business Times. There was a hit North Korean song called "General Uses Chukjibeop" about Kim's dad, Kim Jong Il, using the supernatural power. (More North Korea stories.)

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