Last week I mentioned that I was reading a book about North Korea: Its history, its politics, and its people. It’s a huge book (or, it would be if I wasn’t reading it on Kindle) and I’m still only about 30% of the way through.
I bought it to learn more about North Korea, since the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il died a week ago and his son Kim Jong-un appears to be the new top man. The book starts by tracing the nation’s history through the period of Japanese domination, World War II, and the Cold War in which Stalin selected Kim il-Sung, Kim Jong-il’s father, to become North Korea’s leader. The book outlines the personality cult that developed around the elder Kim in the ’60s and ’70s, and the excesses in which the father and son indulged. Each chapter just gets stranger and stranger.
So, here’s today’s trivia question: On what type of bed did the “Great Leader” Kim il-Sung sleep?
A bed of feathers, plucked from the softest birds in the North Korean mountains? Nope.
A waterbed, refilled ever day with fresh sparkling water? No.
Memory foam? Uh-uh. One of those “Sleep Number” beds? Wrong again.
Kim il-Sung slept on a bed of women every night. That’s right, women, according to a top official who defected from North Korea in the 1990s. Kim had a cadre of women who formed his bed, and he slept on top of them. According to the official, they had ways of arranging their legs so it was comfortable for both the women and for Kim. From photos I’ve seen, Kim was not exactly a thin man; I don’t see how it could have been comfortable for the women.
The women, said the former official, were chosen when they were very young. North Korean government agents would visit the schools and select the prettiest girls when they were about 13. The girls would then undergo two years of training. There would be general sexual training, as well as specialized training on the particular sexual preferences of the “Great Leader” Kim il-Sung and of his son the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. At age 15 the women were ready to be part of Kim’s human bed. They served until their early 20s, at which time they were usually married off to Communist party officials, who were not informed of the women’s past.
The official justification was that the human bed was prescribed by the research institute dedicated to the health of Kim il-Sung. They claimed that by being so close to young people, their spiritual energy, or qi, transferred to him, granting him a longer life, good health and increased sexual stamina.
And besides health reasons, Kim il-Sung just loved that hot young tail.
The girls’ families usually went along with it. They were honored that their daughters were selected to directly serve the respected and fatherly Leader, and the families enjoyed increased social status.
That generation of North Koreans, who grew up in the ’60s-’80s, were trained from the time they were toddlers to think of Kim il-Sung as their father. So these girls were sleeping with their father, in a sense.
Ewww.
If you want to read the book for yourself, the links are below. (Or even if you don’t, click through and buy some stuff on Amazon. Links in this post are affiliate links, so I make commission if you buy anything within 24 hours.) I hope to get through a few chapters tonight and maybe I’ll post another story or two.
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty