Kim Jong Un’s birthday is no holiday in North Korea
Birthday wishes may be in order for North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un as he purportedly turns 34 on Monday. But his reclusive nation has no plans to celebrate the date with a public holiday.
As the BBC points out, new year calendars recently published in the North make no mention of Kim, who’s birthday is widely believed to be Jan. 8, though his government has never confirmed that.
The birthday of his father and previous “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong Il, is celebrated on Feb. 16 each year with a national holiday called the “Day of the Shining Star.” And the birthday of his grandfather and North Korean state founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15 is hailed as the “Day of the Sun.” Both of these holidays were established when the leaders were alive.
Like many aspects about the secretive nation, it is not known why North Korea does not celebrate Kim’s birthday.
An unnamed source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK that Kim’s birthday was not included in the 2018 calendar, produced and published by North Korea’s Foreign Languages Publishing
House, because perception of the leader at this time is not positive.
The source told Daily
NK, an online newspaper based in South Korea that focuses on the
North, that international sanctions imposed in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have caused hardships for workers who fear the loss of their jobs and public opinion of Kim has dropped to a new low.
Few confirmed biographical details exist about North Korea’s current “Supreme Leader,” who took over in 2011 after his father’s death. Much of what is known about Kim comes from accounts by teachers and students who knew him when he studied in Europe as a child. Some accounts say he was born in 1984, others a year earlier.
Monday likely will be a typical working day for North Koreans as Kim engages in an unprecedented war of words with President Trump.
The latest exchange involved an attempt by Trump to one-up Kim, who boasted in a New Year’s Day address that he has a “nuclear button” on his desk. Trump tweeted Tuesday night: “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
The controversial leaders have traded other barbs for months.Trump has referred to Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” “short and fat” and a “madman,” and threatened to wipe Kim and his country off the face of the earth if they attack the United States or its allies.
Kim has responded in kind, calling Trump a “mentally deranged dotard,” saying he deserved the death penalty, and vowing to annihilate the U.S. if it attacks North Korea.