PYONGYANG, North Korea —GlossyNews The government of North Korea announced on Thursday that it would place the embalmed body of recently passed Kim Jong-il on permanent display next to his father’s body at Kumsusan Palace in Pyongyang and install his statues, portraits and memorial Towers of Eternal Life across the country.
Almost as an afterthought, the government quietly revealed that the 3rd member of the Kim family, Kim Jong-un, will be embalmed and deified when he passes on. Just not in the same way as his father and grandfather before him. Rather, the government spokesman said, the current Kim will take the name Kim Chi-un on his death and will be religiously diced and pickled in the same manner as the pungent national dish.
Instead of lying in a perpetual embalmed state, like father and grandfather, Kim Chi-un will be the first deified ruler of the communist country to be consumed by its country’s citizens, allowing his carbon footprint to stay quite low. There is after all, a famine of drastic proportions raging in N. Korea and the new ruler has now decided that he will assume the role of “Savior of The Realm” in a similar manner to what Christ did with his early Christians — it is his wish to become his country’s 21st century savior by feeding the hungry, and not in the 5 fishes/3 loaves manner, but rather a much grander style, KimChi for everyone.
Instead of the Towers of Eternal Life erected for the previous rulers, Kim Chi-un will be honored solely in thousands of restaurants in the country, where their now-sacred stores of kimchi will become altars to the young ruler’s life on earth. Dramatic rituals will be written and prayers developed for the daily deification of Kim Chi-un.
A monthly collection of holy days will be announced and observed beginning in 2013 and by the time Kim Jong-un does die, the various sacred practices will be second nature to the lifestyles of the North Koreans. Consider the coming 30 years or so as practice for the eventual deification. Each citizen will assume the title of “novice” at first, slowly moving up the spiritual ladder to the eventual title of “leader” at the top.
Of course, as he hasn’t yet passed, the multitudes of kimchi that are being made and used will be blessed on an annual basis by the current ruler. This nation-wide blessing process will take up most of his official time. There’s a lot of kimchi being made in Korea these days.
A new department of the government has been established. The agency is entrusted to a group of highly educated men with the sacred work of blessing all the country’s kimchi production. These men will be crowned National Treasures and live a sacred life of ease, with devotion to the kimchi as their calling. When this Kim dies, they will control the continued making of the exclusive and authentic Kim Chi-un for the nation.
Kim Jong-un is reputed to have made many private jokes for his boyhood friends at school in Switzerland about his pickled grandfather, many times using street slang Korean “얼굴 피클 사우어”, which is pronounced “kim chi ill” and vaguely translates to “sour pickle f**ky face” – a howlingly funny double enténdre, especially if you are a Korean teenage boy.
I’ll take the Pupu platter with pork, please.