The cult of Kim in North Korea often boggles the minds of outsiders. Here, North Korean refugees present some hand-picked examples, along with comments based on their experience living in the country.
North Korean textbook or fake North Korean textbook?
A photograph of what was allegedly a North Korean textbook began to appear on internet sites in South Korea. However, a North Korean refugee who saw the photo immediately recognized it as a fake. Indeed, the book turned out to be a South Korean reconstruction of a North Korean textbook, created for security training purposes. How could he tell that the textbook was a fake?

It wasn’t anything so sophisticated as paper type, and it wasn’t even the content. What gave it away was that a line-break separated Kim Jong-il’s name into two halves. In North Korea, the Kims’ names must always be written on one line, something that could not realistically have been foreseen by the South Korean person who created the copy. Below is a snapshot of a page from a genuine North Korean textbook:

Photographing the cult of Kim
Taking photos are part and parcel of a tourist’s experience, and traveling in North Korea is no exception. It is well-known that one cannot take pictures freely or in secret, but one of the reasons behind this rule is perhaps lesser known.

Statues belonging to the cult of Kim must be fully visible in photos, and the icons must not have parts cut off by the frame. Even though the photo taken is of the statue of Kim, rather than of Kim himself, it is a legal requirement that his entire body is visible in photographs.
Method acting in North Korea
North Korea has strict etiquette regarding elderly to be observed by the young. But when shooting a movie about Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, even North Korea’s elderly actors will have to treat a young man in his 20s with the respect they would show the current ruler. Because as soon as the actor is in costume as Kim, he becomes as sacrosanct as Kim.

According to one well-known story, when famed director Ryu Ho Sun, over 60 years of age, forgot this and yelled at the actor playing Kim Il-sung during filming, he was sent to a re-education camp.
The sacred newspaper: Rodong Sinmun
In North Korea, you are not allowed to use an old newspaper for anything other than reading if a photograph of Kim Jong-il appears in it. You must collect those editions separately and return them; anyone who uses the newspaper as scrap or to repaper something, or rolls it up to use when making a cigarette, etc. is punished.
According to recent testimonies of refugees, there are now instances of this mandate being ignored. For example, when faced with the prospect of separately collecting then returning a newspaper with a portrait of Kim Il-sung, some would just burn it rather than deal with the hassle of doing so.
Dennis Rodman’s minders in Pyongyang were certainly not among those people, judging by the offense they took when Rodman autographed a picture of himself and Kim Jong-un on the front page of the Rodong Sinmun, openly defacing the image with his signature.

The ultimate sacrifice
If you want to become a hero in North Korea, you can grab a portrait of Kim Il-sung rather than your personal belongings in the case of a fire. There have been actual cases in North Korea where this occurred and the North Korea regime hailed the said person as a hero.
In an extreme case, when a stray object thrown during a marital argument disturbed Kim Il-sung’s portrait, the wife reported it to the authorities and the husband was taken away. In North Korea, one should make sure to take care the portrait is safe before starting a fight.
