Saturday 2 June 2018

Round one to Kim: his letter is bigger than Trump's

There was always a great tradition - actually a stupid tradition - on the Korean peninsula which related totally to size. So on each side of the demilitarised zone at Panmunjom on the border between North and South Korea, it was all about flags and loudspeakers. Over the years, every time South Korea put up a new flag pole with the South Korean flag, North Kroea made sure it installed a taller flagpole and a bigger flag. Then South Korea eventually would attempt to outdo the North Korea pole and flag and put up an even taller pole and bigger flag. And so on, until North Korea had the tallest pole in the world and the biggest national flag. The same went with the loudspeakers blasting out propaganda across the border. The Noeth Koreans always managed to have bigger speakers and louder propaganda. Now in the new climate of friendship and peace (fingers crossed), the loudspeakers have been taken down and all is quiet at Panmunjom. But the old traditions die hard in North Korea. Kim Jong-un wanted above all to outdo @realDonaldTrump in the letter-writing department. Trump, as far as I know, put his one-page letter to Kim in a normal envelope. Kim's reply ran to numerous pages and was put inside an envelope so huge that Trump's hands were almost completely hidden when he posed for a picture. Who makes such enormous envelopes? Presumbaly a special Kim family printing shop in Pyongyang. When the letter was handed over by General Kim Yong-chol, the former North Korean spy chief, during his visit to Washington and the White House, it was discreetly handed over to the Secret Service to check it out hahaha! They must have thought, "What the hell is this? Could it contain a dangerous device?" It turned out to be Kim just waffling on, page after page, followed by an elaborate signature. I haven't seen Kim's signature but I'm guessing, having spotted Trump's pretty large up and down signature, that Kim's will have been much bigger and with more swirly bits. Definitely a letter for the White House archives. But I'm sorry, Chairman Kim, when you get round to shaking hands with Trump you will find he is much taller than you, so unless you buy the biggest and chunkiest of Cuban-heeled shoes, you are going to be looking up at the president of the United States. Ooops!

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