# Kim Jong-Il's Sushi Chef's amazing story **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 5, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185 "2013-06-05T05:07:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/21 "2013-06-05T17:10:54Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > (Ok, still no smiley… ) > Uh huh, his _friend’s_ club is described thusly:$150 an hour for such an exclusive club. Sounds legit! I thought they had that lunch at a different club. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/22 "2013-06-05T17:12:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought they had that lunch at a different club. Nope, don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/23 "2013-06-05T17:20:42Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I think the implication was that the chef was getting most of the money, as there is no way that club could charge such rates. Yes, that was my understanding. It’s possible that the friend let him keep the entire 15,000 yen per hour club fee. And I agree that the chef was not a nice guy, but it was a revealing story (including how Lil Kim got interested in American basketball). ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/24 "2013-06-05T17:25:37Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought they had that lunch at a different club. All the meetings mentioned in the article are either at the karaoke club owned by the friend - “a sad place the size of a single-wide”, or at Don - “which is the Japanese equivalent of Sizzler. It seemed to cater to coupon clippers and chain-smokers.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/25 "2013-06-05T17:29:22Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > Nope, don’t think so. You’re right, but you’re misstating how it happened. He’s saying the chef asked to meet at an exclusive club and it turned out to be the shithole karaoke place his friend runs. Anyway the guy is a very interesting character himself- he comes off sounding like a tough outsider early on but reveals himself to be craven and addicted to closeness with powerful people. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/26 "2013-06-05T17:49:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You’re right, but you’re misstating how it happened. He’s saying the chef asked to meet at an exclusive club and it turned out to be the shithole karaoke place his friend runs. Anyway the guy is a very interesting character himself- he comes off sounding like a tough outsider early on but reveals himself to be craven and addicted to closeness with powerful people. I didn’t say it was the writer’s idea or he knew about it beforehand, but he must have realized instantly what the deal was before paying the grossly inflated fees “to the club.” I’m not really faulting him for not calling it off after flying all the way to Japan, and I actually think it was commendable that he didn’t just leave out the details of the shenanigans, which he easily could have done. I just thought it was noteworthy, and reinforced how much of a slimeball the subject of the interview was. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/27 "2013-06-05T17:54:00Z")
It does, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/28 "2013-06-05T18:04:11Z")
It sounds like an interesting article. I’m curious why he hasn’t worked in 12 years though. The Kims have the means to hire or abduct the very best. Wouldn’t his skills be in high demand? Is the money as an professional interviewee that good? ---
**Author:** ![AngelSoft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angelsoft/32/440_2.png) [@AngelSoft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelSoft)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/29 "2013-06-05T18:25:13Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > It sounds like an interesting article. I’m curious why he hasn’t worked in 12 years though. The Kims have the means to hire or abduct the very best. Wouldn’t his skills be in high demand? Is the money as an professional interviewee that good? I don’t know but Japan, from what I’ve seen, seems to have a fascination with ‘tough guys’ who make it in foreign countries in ‘tough’ situations. I know my ex was super excited that I lived near a prison where some author in Japan had spent 5 years or something at. He apparently wrote a book about his experiences at the prison and what he did to fit in and survive as a Japanese man and apparently was a huge best seller. This is a medium security prison in the middle of nowhere, Oregon with less than a thousand prisoners. He also showed me a book that ranked the different countries on how dangerous they were and America ranked higher than Russia 😑 So yeah. They seem to have a fascination with the ‘dangers’ of other countries. ---
**Author:** ![Sarabellum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarabellum/32/3492_2.png) [@Sarabellum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarabellum)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/30 "2013-06-06T00:26:01Z")
It’s just mind-boggling, to think that he seriously wants to go back there, EVEN NOW… his wife and children were imprisoned 6 years the last time he decided to change his mind. Maybe a light sentence for North Koreans, but dear lord, six years of hard labor for the crime of being married to someone who defected! A nationally famous pop singer, to boot - working in the coal mines because her husband (that she was coerced into marrying in the first place!) decided to flee. Yes, that guy is a first-class tool. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/31 "2013-06-06T00:29:23Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > I’m curious why he hasn’t worked in 12 years though. The Kims have the means to hire or abduct the very best. Wouldn’t his skills be in high demand? Is the money as an professional interviewee that good? Maybe restaurants don’t want to hire him because he’s a shitbag. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/32 "2013-06-06T00:29:38Z")
> [@Sarabellum1976](#): > > Yes, that guy is a first-class tool. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/33 "2013-06-06T01:52:02Z")
It’s creepy to read that Kim could reach outside Korea and kidnap women from other countries. If that’s true, then I wonder if any Americans have been grabbed? > [@](#): > > Kim had recently suffered the loss of another confidante, a South Korean actress named Choi Eun-hee, whom he had kidnapped from Hong Kong. Like Fujimoto, Choi was an outsider, with no ties to Kim’s rivals, and thus he could confide in her. Unlike Fujimoto, Choi was held against her will. In her memoir of these years, Choi reveals that she decided her best course of survival was to treat the entire experience as if it weren’t real, as if it were just a movie part; she had played the role of the elusive seductress many times, and for the Dear Leader she would give her best performance. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/34 "2013-06-06T02:01:19Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It’s creepy to read that Kim could reach outside Korea and kidnap women from other countries. Neighboring countries. Which doesn’t make it better or anything, just logistically simpler. > [@](#): > > If that’s true, then I wonder if any Americans have been grabbed? I doubt it. It sounds impractical, it’d provoke the U.S., and on top of its other flaws North Korea is extremely racist. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/35 "2013-06-06T02:15:19Z")
The article says how his father’s beatings taught him to have “a high tolerance for uncertainty, erratic behavior, simmering danger, and sudden violence,” but it sounds like what it really taught him was to look out for number one. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/36 "2013-06-06T02:53:43Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It’s creepy to read that Kim could reach outside Korea and kidnap women from other countries. If that’s true, then I wonder if any Americans have been grabbed? He didn’t just kidnap her, he also later kidnapped her (ex?)husband – who was a very accomplished movie director in his own right – when he went to Hong Kong to look for her. While in captivity, he directed what’s considered to be NK’s most epic and blockbuster film ever made, [Pulgasari](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulgasari), which was a socialist take on Godzilla. You can watch [the trailer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6OqNGbw8Ek), or if you’re so inclined, the [full movie with English subtitles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCKSR0JArUQ). He wrote his memoirs in a book called _Kingdom of Kim_, but only in Korean, so [this Salon article based on a translation](http://www.salon.com/2003/03/12/shin/) appears to be the best way to read about that in English. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/37 "2013-06-06T02:54:58Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > It sounds like an interesting article. I’m curious why he hasn’t worked in 12 years though. The Kims have the means to hire or abduct the very best. Wouldn’t his skills be in high demand? Is the money as an professional interviewee that good? I suspect he’s been content to live off royalties from his books. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/38 "2013-06-06T05:32:14Z")
I’m baffled how this guy is still alive. He returned to N Korea after Kim’s death? They knew he’d been giving interviews about N. Korea. They even let him return to Japan afterward. This guy was born under a lucky star. Gotta love how he says his N. Korean wife “_only_” spent six years at a coal mine to be re-educated. :dubious: This guys priorities are just unbelievable. He’s betrayed just about every person he ever knew. Including Kim. 😉 > [@](#): > > Cynics say Fujimoto returned to North Korea because the Japanese media had grown tired of his decade-old stories; by risking his life with a return, he’d be able to once again command large interview fees. Fujimoto says he simply wanted to make good on his word. > > During his two-week stay, he met with Kim Jong-un once, on the twenty-second, over lunch with Kim Jong-un’s entourage and his new wife, Ri Sol-ju, herself a former pop singer. > > Fujimoto greeted Kim Jong-un with “The betrayer has returned.” Sobbing, Fujimoto dropped to his knees. Kim beckoned him to rise, and the cover image of Fujimoto’s book about the trip shows him weeping, locked in a bear hug with North Korea’s new leader. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185/39 "2013-06-06T11:12:24Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m baffled how this guy is still alive. Conceivably he’s spying for one or both sides (and getting paid by each one). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-ils-sushi-chefs-amazing-story/660185.md?page=1)