FEW FOREIGNERS get an invitation to the inner circle of North Korea’s first family. But Kenji Fujimoto, who has just returned from a meeting with leader Kim Jong-un inside the reclusive, nuclear-armed state, has been there before.
For 12 years, the Japanese chef made sushi for Kim’s gourmet-loving father, Kim Jong-il, until he fled in 2001, leaving behind his North Korean wife and children.
He has spent the time since writing tell-all books about his life in the north, charging for interviews and living the life of a semi-recluse because he says his life is in danger.
When he appears in public, Fujimoto disguises himself with a bandana and sunglasses. All of which makes his return to Pyongyang very mysterious to some.
The Japanese media, which follows every twitch of North Korea’s monolithic face, speculates that Fujimoto was carrying backchannel messages from the Japanese government to the Kim regime, or vice versa, a claim he denied on his return last week.
“I did not visit North Korea to conduct government business,” he told reporters in Beijing. The two sides have no diplomatic relations, making an insider a valuable commodity at a time when some believe that Tokyo is again trying to knock on the North’s backdoor.
Fujimoto’s reputation was boosted when he correctly predicted two years ago that the ailing Kim Jong-il would name his youngest son as his successor. In fact, says the ex-chef, he knew years earlier, on Jong-un’s ninth birthday, that his fate had been decided. The young prince was his father’s favourite, he recalls, a strong-willed boy who “knew how to lead people” unlike his “timid” older brother, Jong Chul, who famously tied to visit Tokyo Disneyland on a forged passport in 2001.
Fujimoto started working for the family household in 1988. He first met the future leader when he was seven, an encounter Fujimoto remembers as being “tense.”
Kim Jong-un glared at the chef as if he was “one of the notorious Japanese imperial soldiers”, he told Time magazine, before yielding and shaking hands.
Later Fujimoto would take a snap of 11-year-old Kim sporting a pudding-bowl haircut, for years the only available image of the leader. In his books, he describes the future dictator rollerblading, driving an adapted Mercedes Benz and sneaking into his room for clandestine cigarette breaks.
Quite why the chef was invited back remains a mystery. Japanese broadcaster TBS reportedly paid for the trip and sent a crew to film the encounter. There were no hard feelings, insisted Fujimoto, who says he served bluefin tuna to Kim, his new wife Ri Sol-ju and younger sister Yeo-jeong. “He told me, ‘Long time no see,’” Fujimoto told reporters. “Then he said, ‘You’re welcome here any time.’”
Perhaps Kim, who some believe will reform his impoverished nation, was trying to send a signal back to Tokyo with the invitation to his old friend? Fujimoto says he believes Kim is sincere about reform. “He can lead North Korea in a good direction,” he told Time.
