PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — A simple question about Kim Jong Il's health provokes a torrent of angry, broken English.
"It's a pack of lies," declared Oh Keum Suk. The 26-year-old North Korean tour guide jumped from his seat at a coffee shop and in an exaggerated motion stormed away. Then he turned on his heels to chew out the foreigner who had dared ask about reports that the North Korean leader had suffered a stroke.
"Kim Jong Il is my father, my grandfather, my family. How do you talk about my family that way?"
The topic is so taboo that a North Korean interpreter refused to translate a question about Kim's health, her eyes wide and stricken, her mouth resolutely clamped shut.
One of the few North Koreans who said he wouldn't mind answering questions, Choe Jong Hun of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, simply dismissed any suggestion of a problem with a wave of his hand.
"There is no problem. . . . He is well. He is just working hard, that is all," Choe said.
Kim has been conspicuously absent from public life for the last month. He was a no-show at celebrations Sept. 9 marking North Korea's 60th anniversary, the first time the leader has missed such an important occasion. He didn't appear at last week's opening of the Pyongyang Film Festival.
Reports originating in South Korea and Japan that Kim suffered a stroke and is partially incapacitated have appeared around the world -- everywhere, that is, except in North Korea, where all foreign publications and broadcasts are strictly prohibited.
The state-controlled newspapers here carry daily accounts of the leader's activities, which mostly involve receiving gifts and congratulations for the 60th anniversary.
There is no public indication of anything amiss. If anything, Pyongyang appears more festive than usual, with the film festival underway and nightly performances at Kim Il Sung Stadium by North Korea's famous gymnasts.
It appears that ordinary people haven't heard the reports of Kim being ill, and that the few who have are in denial.
Conspiracy of 'evil people'
The official line of the ruling Workers' Party is that the reports of ill health are a Western conspiracy, "spread by evil people who want to break up unity between the Koreas," as Foreign Ministry official Hyon Hak Bong told reporters last week.
