Chol Pak, a boy from North Korea, went to a private school in Switzerland. Chol Pak is presumably Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il's third son and the next dictator of North Korea. A former classmate remembers the boy very well. He is stunned and amused that his former classmate is going to rule the communist country and nuclear power.

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Elisalex Henckel recorded the recollections of Chol Pak's classmate. He prefers to remain anonymous. Chol Pak is presumably Kim Jong-un even though some believe that he might be Kim Jon-chul, Kim Jong-il's second son .

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I don’t remember exactly when he joined the International School of Berne (ISB). It must have been in 1993 or 1994. He introduced himself as Chol Pak and was about eleven years old. In the beginning, he received private tutoring because his English was weak and he had a strong accent. Later, he mastered the language very well, and in addition he learned German, at least the basics. I think he understands even Swiss German, which we all appropriated over the years. That happens automatically if you live there.

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Unlike his father - as I now know - he was a pretty big and lanky guy. He had a round face, and a little acne, just like most of us back then. I remember that he was dressed very simply: black jeans, black trousers, maybe a gray T-shirt once in a while. Once, he was wearing a shirt with blue stripes, and a classmate said jokingly to him, "Why so fancy today?" He had to laugh.

He had a good sense of humor and got along well with everybody - even with the students from countries that were or are still enemies of North Korea. Back then, we already knew which ones were, but it was never an issue. Politics was taboo in the school, and people tried to stay away from it. We never even talked about home, since none of us was at home there. Most of our parents were diplomats or business people; a few came from wealthy Swiss families. There were people from America, Europe, Asia, many Jews and many Arabs, but in three years, only one dispute about the Middle East conflict. We argued about soccer, not about politics.

Chol Pak also joined the soccer team together with several Americans and was taught how to play basketball by an Israeli. He even spent a lot of time with a South Korean. I guess the reason for that was that the South Korean was very good at drawing comics. Chol Pak loved comics, especially Japanese mangas.

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We were not really all that interested in girls yet, but of course there were parties. Chol wasn’t terribly involved in those kinds of things. I remember though, that he was a good student, especially in math. All that may sound as if he was a nerd, but that is not true. He was really okay. Even though we got along well, I never visited his house. But that was nothing special, since the security provisions of the Embassies made it complicated to visit the Americans or the Israelis as well.

The ISB is quite a special school. Very expensive and very small, we were a total of perhaps two or three hundred students, with a maximum of fifteen per class. The teachers were great, and so was the location. The school is located just outside of Berne, surrounded by nature and the mountains so we went skiing every weekend in winter. There was always something to do. Once, we produced compost and sold it in Bern in order to raise money for a library in Togo. Chol Pak joined in as well.

Another North Korean, who called himself Chung Kwang, joined the school at the same time. Chol and Kwang always were dropped off at school together, sat next to each other and were always together. We thought that was nothing special, since they were the only North Koreans at school. Nationalities played a very important role at this school. We met so many new people continuously because transfers caused a permanent fluctuation in the class. Because of this, it proved to be a lot faster and easier to befriend people from your own country. So, it was of no surprise to us that Chol Pak and Kwang Chung suddenly disappeared. It must have been in 1998.

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For both North Koreans, sports were very important. Chol Pak was quite talented. He was strong and could run fast, but he couldn’t keep up with Kwang. He had the body of Bruce Lee, and was an incredible athlete - the best striker on the soccer team. Kwang was more popular than Chol because he was such a good player, but Chol didn’t seem to care. The two talked a lot about movies – the ones with Schwarzenegger for example - and about martial arts. Kwang was very good at Kung-Fu and Karate, and he always tried to teach Chol.

If I now consider all the things that he showed us back then, I can’t imagine that he was simply a very athletic kid. Once, he kicked a pencil out of a student’s mouth. That is surely nothing a normal child can do, he must have been someone who was trained in martial arts, perhaps a soldier who just looked very young.

There were rumors right from the beginning that Chol is the son of North Korea's dictator and that Kwang is his bodyguard, but no one seriously considered that it might have been actually true. Neither of them ever let is show, that one of them was superior to the other. And it was a school where nobody really stood out, because everyone was so different from the others anyway.

When I read in the newspaper today that my classmate Chol Pak is going to be North Korea's next dictator, I have to laugh. It is simply absurd! Crazy! I can’t imagine that a dictator could come from our school. Everything was constantly about tolerance, peace, equality, and holding hands and stuff. Of course I am not actually so derogatory as it may sound right now: I loved my time at the ISB, and I think everybody else did as well. It’s all so long ago, so I can’t say how much it actually influenced Chol Pak. It is likely that the North Korean in him is stronger than the International-School-student, but sometimes I think to myself that he, at least, has experienced Western culture in its best form. But most of the time I wonder if he remembers me. And whether he will call me when he reads this.

Translated by Thilo Maluch

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