[Anecdotes] :: Anecdotes Related to Kim Jong Il’s Birthday (1)

As the starting point of work and life

It was February 16, 1963 when General Kim Jong Il was attending Kim Il Sung University. It was his birthday and his classmates were going to give a birthday party for him, though in a small way. But he declined the offer. He said, “The fatherly leader Kim Il Sung has never celebrated his birthday while working all his life for the good of the country and the people. When the leader is exerting himself for the prosperity of the country and the well-being of the people, how can I celebrate my birthday?” He then stressed the need for them to think only of how to save the leader trouble and anxiety, how to make him have even a little while’s rest and how to repay his favours better. He went on to say that a revolutionary soldier’s genuine happiness lay in saving the leader trouble and anxiety and that this should be the starting point of all work and life, an invariable principle of life.

[Overseas Korean Nationals] :: Overseas Korean Nationals

The Korean nationals in Japan and other countries comprise those Koreans who were forcibly taken to Japan as labour draftees, conscripts, etc. or who drifted abroad in search of livelihood in the years of the Japanese imperialist military rule and their descendants.

As a stateless people, they were long subjected to national discrimination, deprivation of rights and destitution in alien lands.