In Kim Jong Un's Summer Palace, Fun Meets Guns

Asia

Not far from the proposed $123 million golf course, the plans show an existing compound. It is labeled in the brochure as the summer retreat of the State Security Department or "Bowibu" - the entity which runs North Korea's six prison camps and conducts nationwide surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Just next door to that beachfront property, the Daesong General Bureau - the body also known as "Office 39" that procures luxury goods for the Kim family - has its retreat.

A third compound is reserved for the Korean National Insurance Corporation, a state insurance company that the European Union says is involved in insurance fraud.
All three entities are subject to international sanctions because of their role in funneling cash into Kim's nuclear and missile programmes.

For Kim's security forces, though, Wonsan is about more than fun in the sun.

Kim brought his top military brass to Wonsan in 2014. On the white sandy beach of his palace compound, he ordered his highest admirals to strip into bathing costumes and, as a test of their ability, swim 10 km around the bay, state TV showed. It filmed him at a desk on the sand, shaded by a white parasol.

kim jong un reuters

Schoolchildren play in the water at Songdowon International Children's Camp in Wonsan City (Reuters)

In April this year, Kim used the beach near Wonsan's new airport to unleash an artillery drill described by state media as the country's largest ever. In it, "300 large-caliber self-propelled guns" opened fire at a white target painted on a small island 3 km away.

The bombardment, broadcast on state TV, turned that island into a dusty moonscape.

Plastic flowers

Wonsan holds symbolic power for the Kim dynasty: It was there that Kim Jong Un's grandfather Kim Il Sung, who helped found North Korea at the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945, first landed with Soviet troops to take over the country.

Statues of North Korea's two former leaders stand on the quayside, where tourists are expected to bow and buy plastic flowers to offer them. Next door to the Kim family palace, the Songdowon Children's Camp has welcomed "Young Pioneers" from Soviet-backed countries for decades, according to state media.

When the young Kim was picked as heir to Kim Jong Il in 2009, he had few achievements to his name, noted Kim Young-Hui, who heads a team of North Korea researchers at Korea Development Bank in Seoul. If he can develop Wonsan - the place where his grandfather helped bring North Korea into existence - it will seal his image as a master builder.

"He has strong political reasons to develop Wonsan," she said. She is a native of the city and defected to South Korea in 2002.

People from Wonsan, even those who have defected, say they have largely happy memories of the place. Wonsan's karaoke bars and billiard clubs have a more reliable supply of electricity than much of North Korea, they say. They recall young couples roller skating in a big square near the Wonsan waterfront.

The city has a special place in Kim's heart, says Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant who shared Long Island Iced Teas with Kim on board one of his private boats in 2013, after they had been jet-skiing in the bay.

"He told me about ... redeveloping and improving the whole city for the people and ... attracting international tourists and businessmen to the area," said Spavor, who runs the Paektu Cultural Exchange, which conducts economic research in North Korea.

'No belt-tightening'

Official history has not disclosed Kim's birthplace, but many people from Wonsan believe he was born there, partly because he spent his early years at the palace.

An anecdote from that time gives a flavour of life inside the Kim family residence. One day, the Japanese family chef, Kenji Fujimoto, recounted in his memoirs, the future leader made an unusual remark.

"Hey, Fujimoto!" a young Kim said to the chef. "We ride horses every day, go rollerblading, play basketball, and in the summer we jet ski or play in the pool. But how do ordinary people live?" Fujimoto, who published the book in 2010, now runs a sushi restaurant in Pyongyang and could not be reached.

For years under Kim Jong Il, North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and China, had officially provided everything for its people.

The political model then was known as "songun" - military first, which held that the Korean People's Army was the first in line for resources and the infallible provider to fix the country's economic problems. The "million-man army" would swap Kalashnikovs for shovels and set to work building roads, dams and housing.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, the entire nation, then 21 million people, suffered a famine that Kim Jong Il was eventually to call the "Arduous March." The state was no longer able to provide food, or work. Between 200,000 and three million people died.

To survive, ordinary people were forced to look beyond the marshaled ranks on display at parades, and hustle for scraps on private markets, bribing officials to turn a blind eye to any illegality. For most people - including the military - it was hunger or trade.

When Kim the younger came to power, he said the time had come to "enable our people... to live without tightening their belts any longer."

In 2013, he shifted the political rhetoric. His policy line, called "byungjin" or parallel development, harked back to his grandfather's era. It also signaled the side-by-side advance of North Korea's nuclear deterrent and a strong economy.

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