Informal Leader

Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is a very informal man.

Video footage of him continuously visiting people on his way of on-spot guidance shows him bowing to the people who greet him and whispering into their ears.

They also show him unceremoniously sitting on the floor of the house he visited, asking about their living and teaching the children how to draw pictures. He looks like a head of the family, rather than the leader of a state.

His friendly attitude to the people is very impressive.

His attitude to the people is always unaffected and natural; wherever he goes he talks to their officials as he does to his old friends, and wearing a bright smile, waves back to their employees raising a cheer.

Following is a story about his unconventional trait.

On May 1, 2012, when he looked around a newly-built cultural and welfare facility for the workers of a factory, he looked round the barber shop on the second floor.

While talking with the hairdressers, he found that they had practiced haircutting in Pyongyang; he asked them if he could have his hair cut there.   

The women hairdressers were perplexed at his unexpected request, and could not answer.

But when he asked who would cut his hair, they all volunteered to do so.

He said with a smile: Then shall I have my hair cut here?

The female hairdressers all cheered at that.

He said he would later find time without fail to have his hair cut there.  

When he visited a kindergarten, newly built in Pyongyang, he saw a little girl playing at being a doctor. He rolled up his sleeves and asked her to check his body. Placing a toy stethoscope on his arm, the young “doctor” asked him, “What’re you ill with, sir?” This scene struck the heartstrings of the people. 

How could he mingle with the people so well? Maybe it is because he has an ennobling view on people that he is a son, a servant, of the people before he is the leader of a state.

The Korean people follow him with sincerity, calling him “our Marshal” or “our father.”