From the Selangor Times 23 December 2011. Ask Lord Bobo is a weekly column by LoyarBurok where all your profound, abstruse, erudite, hermetic, recondite, sagacious, and other thesaurus-described queries are answered!
Looking at the images and videos of North Koreans sobbing uncontrollably and emotionally banging the floor in disbelief at the death of Kim Jong Il, I can’t help but wonder how they can be so sad that such a bizarre and evil man died. Can you explain this? (Voice of Reason, via email)
North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il was widely made fun of by most people outside North Korea during his lifetime, and his death triggered a wave of further mockery, with internet memes, Tumblr blogs, and many articles written about his supposed oddities.
His Supreme Eminenceness never met Kim Jong Il – he never turned up for the intergalactic karaoke meet-ups – so there’s no way of separating the factual from the fictional when it comes to the Dear Leader.
According to some sources, when the Dear Leader was born, a double-rainbow formed in the sky, and winter turned to summer instantly. He also had total control over the weather, and never had to defecate (though that sounds more like a painful illness than a gift).
Other sources claim that his apparent lack of height is due to the refraction of light caused by a protective sphere that follows him wherever he goes (hence he appears short to people looking at him).
He was also apparently an incredible athlete, smacking in 11 holes-in-one in his first round of golf, bowling a perfect game in his first visit to a bowling alley – all these feats had at least 10 eyewitnesses, of course.
He was also apparently extremely good-looking, but intentionally contorted his facial muscles to look like a pudgy unsmiling leader so that his adoring public did not feel too bad about their deficient looks.
If you’re reading the above and chuckling, well, it depends whose version of history and facts you believe.
Lord Bobo would ask those who are making fun of the North Koreans – how sure are you that what you believe are “facts” are indeed true? If, since birth, you’ve been exposed to a certain set of facts and history, wouldn’t that be your “truth”? You should go and watch The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey (who learned his acting skills from Lord Bobo many years ago), and sit down and have a think about whether those North Koreans are that silly after all.
A final thought – Kim Jong Il may have had a wonky moral compass and dubious ethics, but he surely had a major personal impact on the lives of North Koreans. It’s therefore not that unusual for them to be in very honest, and very heartfelt, mourning over his death. After all, weren’t many Malaysians so overcome with grief when personalities like Michael Jackson and Princess Diana died?
That flood on Jalan Tun Razak was kinda scary. Is KL going to face a Bangkok-type mega-flood soon, oh Lord Bobo? (Scuba Mah, via email)
Malaysia is no stranger to floods. There have been several major floods in Malaysia, and even in Kuala Lumpur.
The recent flood on Jalan Tun Razak was the talk of the town, though Lord Bobo suspects this was more because of the traffic jam it caused than the fact that a major road in the city became a storm drain for a couple of hours.
The problem with KL has always been infrastructure. His Supreme Eminenceness does not mean that we need to build more drains or more stormwater tunnels (how proud Malaysians were when the SMART tunnel was featured on the Discovery Channel!).
Lord Bobo means that the present infrastructure needs to be properly maintained. If it is not, and a mega-storm comes our way, then yes, no drainage system will work properly if it is clogged with rubbish, and KL-ites will be up to our necks in hundreds of polystyrene nasi-campur packets, plastic mee-goreng containers, discarded cigarette cartons, and teh-tarik plastic bags.
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