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Asia Buzz: Bouffant.com
North Korea's Kim Jong Il needs to get in fast
By
ERIC ELLIS
June
15, 2000
Web posted at 1:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 1:30 a.m. EDT
If North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il really wants to open up to the world,
he's going to have to do a lot more than get a new wardrobe so he can stop
looking like a gas station attendant. Going to the gym--and the hairdresser--
would be a useful start, and so would a reciprocal visit to Seoul. And when he
is there, he probably should look up Jae Chul Yoon, president of Hansol Telecom,
a midsized Korean ISP.
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Jae seems to be doing a reasonable line in cyber-squatting. He's registered at
least seven domains the North Koreans might have an interest in; kimilsung.com,
.net and .org, kimjongil.com, .net and .org and greatleader.com, what "Dear
Leader" Kim Jong Il's late father might be called in the Internet Age.
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Indeed, I wouldn't mind betting that this could become a future diplomatic point
of contention between North and South when the mateyness wears off. O.K., they
are now basking in the warm rosy glow of summitry, and the doomsday clock that
monitors inter-Korean affairs might've offered up a few minutes. But cyber-
squatting is a serious business. Hollywood stars go to court over it. Why
shouldn't Kim Jong Il when he finally logs on?
(I'd be cranky if someone snaffled my name, which is why I registered it a year
ago. That clearly made another Eric Ellis cranky because I recently got a rude
e-mail from someone with my name who said: "Hey loser, you've got my name. Get
rid of it!" I sent him a message that said: "That wasn't very polite. Make me an
offer and I'll think about it.")
I spent a week in North Korea in October 1994 and I can tell you taking Kim Il
Sung or Kim Jong Il's name in vain is a very serious offence. I spent much of
the week trying to secure one of those groovy Kim Il Sung portrait badges that
North Koreans must wear on the their left breast, so the Great Leader is always
"close to the heart." I offered $100 to my minders to buy one, then $500, and by
the end of a crazy week I even offered $10,000. In the end I gave up, such was
the national piety--or something else?--to the Great Leader.
In fact, the summit made me recall just how ridiculous the country was then and
I suspect little has changed. I played golf on North Korea's only course--my
entry visa stated I was a "golf course developer" because journalists are
banned, and I thought golf course developer would be the most unsuspecting job
you could have in North Korea.
So naturally my minders directed me to a course, a magnificent complex outside
Pyongyang that catered to the Japan-dwelling North Korean sympathizers when they
returned home for a visit. The course would have done Robert Trent Jones or Jack
Nicklaus proud, but there was no one on it except me, my three black-suited
minders, a young caddy in traditional Korean dress who said "good shottu" in
English the few times I made one, and the "golf pro," the course manager, whose
name was Park Young Man.
So I got chatting with him. He told me that Kim Jong Il was a great golfer and
that he went round the 18-hole course in 34 the only time he played there--the
professional record is 59--including FIVE holes in one. What hack golfer
wouldn't want a day out like that? Thus, the solution for the North's economic
crisis that has lured Kim Jong Il out of isolation is clear--launch the Dear
Leader on the U.S. PGA circuit.
I have since followed North Korean affairs with a passion, and a laugh.
And the best place to get a good giggle about North Korea is at the
state news agency via its website www.kcna.co.jp
which is hosted in Japan. Keep an eye on this and you will be able
to see how Pyongyang's take on the North-South dynamic will twist
and turn in the coming months following the summit. Another interesting
site is Kimsoft, hosted in the U.S. It seems to lean toward the North
but offers a fairly objective view of events on the Korean Peninsula.
Find it at www.kimsoft.com
But when it comes to North Korea, wacky is best and one of the wackiest
of all is hosted in South Africa at www.01.co.za/freedom/thoughts-jong.htm
You could go on forever at this site, ending
up in a location devoted to world communism and Lenin's Tomb in Moscow's
Red Square.
There are no sites that I could find actually hosted in Pyongyang itself. So
Silicon Valley it may not be, but the day of the big North Korea Internet IPO
may not be forever lost. I notice that 'dearleader.com' is still available for
registration.
Eric Ellis is the Southeast Asia and technology editor of web-based finance
portal AsiaWise.com
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