Kim Jong Un on board a North Korean submarine in 2014. A new manual for North Korean schoolteachers claims Kim exhibited outstanding talent in navigating boats and cars at an early age. Photo by Rodong Sinmun/Yonhap

SEOUL, April 8 (UPI) -- A new North Korean teacher's manual that claims North Korean leader Kim Jong Un learned to drive when he was 3 and raced a yacht when he was 9 has been distributed to schoolteachers.

The book is a sign middle and high schoolteachers around the country have been tasked with glorifying Kim – so he may be idolized like his father, the late Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather and North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.


South Korean television network YTN reported a new subject, Kim Jong Un's Revolutionary Activities, has been selected for study for the 2015 school year. The latest teacher's manual was published as a guide for the new topic that centers on North Korea's young leader, the third-generation of a dynastic regime.

Despite the subject's title, the teacher's manual contained no mention of North Korean history but instead devoted chapters to the minute details of Kim Jong Un's childhood.

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South Korea's TV Chosun reported the text claimed Kim Jong Un can draw well and knows how to compose music.

The most bizarre claims, however, are the statements of Kim's early driving ability and yachting prowess.

"At the age of 9, Kim Jong Un raced the chief executive of a foreign yacht company, who was visiting North Korea at the time," the text reads in translation, adding that Kim won the race despite the odds.

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Lee Seok-young, the South Korean director of Radio Free Chosun, a media outlet that covers North Korea, said the text brings into question how the teachers are expected to deliver the incredible statements to students in a school setting.

On Wednesday, Yonhap reported that Kim Jong Un was shuffling top-ranking officials inside the Workers' Party of North Korea. Hwang Pyong So, a top officer of the North Korean military, is now Pyongyang's No.2 man, replacing Choe Ryong Hae, the Workers' Party's secretary.