N. Korea’s Kim and the ‘haircut decree’

Men in North Korea are now mandated to adopt their “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-un’s haircut style as one way to show reverence to young ruler, BBC has reported.

Since getting the news from the isolated country is in itself literally impossible, the reports could not be verified. But a number of international news agencies have reported that the state-sanctioned guidelines were reportedly imposed on the capital Pyongyang two weeks ago, with the shaved sides, ahead-of-the-trend, high-top fade haircut look is now being rolled out across the country.

But some North Korean experts were sceptical. “This sounds like BS to me,” Aidan Foster Carter, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea at Leeds University told the American news organisation, Washington Post.

However, in North Korea itself this is hardly surprising. The state has previously issued a directive with 18 styles for women and 10 for men to follow when considering cutting their hair.

The state-owned television is also on record to have launched a campaign against long hair, urging Koreans “Let us trim our hair in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle”.

While the order might have been issued, authorities might as well consider finding ways to convince its people to adopt it as the style still seems to be not very popular.  “For a start, no one else in North Korea seems to sport a Kim Jong-un hairdo!” Carter said. “Our leader’s haircut is very particular, if you will,” one source tells Radio Free Asia. “It doesn’t always go with everyone since everyone has different face and head shape.”

The Korea Times quotes a North Korean living in China saying one of the reasons why the style remains unpopular at home is because it resembles that of Chinese smugglers’. “Until the mid-2000s, we called it the ‘Chinese smuggler haircut’,” the paper reports.

On Monday this week Kim struck fear into some hearts, but photos of a Chinese street food vendor with a distinct resemblance to the Pyongyang strongman have fuelled online mirth, French news agency AFP reported . Chubby, with a round face and sporting Kim’s trademark side-shaved haircut, the vendor was pictured cooking skewered meat on a rusty barbecue.

Like Kim, the vendor has a penchant for high-buttoned jackets, and a smoking habit, said AFP.

But he appears to lead a simpler existence than his powerful doppelganger -- who is reported to enjoy a luxury lifestyle -- and was seen at the weekend sitting on a small plastic stool, tending to his meaty wares.

Thousands of Chinese Internet users commented on the images, with many referring to Kim by the nickname “Fatty the Third”, a reference to his weight as well as his inheritance of his position from his father and grandfather.