Nat CastañedaNorth Korea gallery, NK1Comment

North Korea: Kim Jong-un family

Nat CastañedaNorth Korea gallery, NK1Comment
North Korea: Kim Jong-un family

Kim Jong Un is the third generation of North Korea’s ruling Kim family, the first and now only hereditary socialist dynasty. But while still in his early thirties, he appears to be as deft with wielding power as his grandfather, “eternal president” Kim Il Sung, and father, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il.

 

Grandfather | Kim Il-sung

North Korean President Kim Il Sung, center, and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang make their way through a crowd of well-wishers at the train station in Beijing on May 21, 1987. (AP Photo/Neal Ulevich)            

North Korean demonstrators carry a portrait of their country's Communist Prime Minister, Kim Il Sung, in front of the Japanese National Diet (parliament) building in Tokyo during May Day festivities on May 2, 1959. (AP Photo)

North Korean leader Kim Il Sung sits for a portrait in Pyongyang, North Korea, in May 1979. (AP Photo/Peter Arnett)        

 

Portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, right, and his late father, Kim Il Sung, hang at a unification observation post in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, on Jan. 22, 2010. (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)       

 

Father | Kim Jong-il

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, examines the rotor for Iran's Busher nuclear power station at the Leningradsky Metal Factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Aug. 6, 2001. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, Pool)

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il rings a bell that was presented to him at the railway station in Khasan, Russia, just over the border from North Korea, on July 26, 2001, at the start of a 10-day train journey to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway. This was Kim's third foreign trip as leader of his impoverished and isolated country. (AP Photo/Igor Kochetkov)           

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il stand side-by-side at the Pae Kha Hawon Guest House in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Oct. 23, 2000. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, Pool)          

 

A man walks past a South Korean newspaper bearing photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, his late father Kim Il Sung, left, and his youngest son Kim Jong Un, in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

 

Kim Jong-un

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stands next to senior military leaders during a ceremony in honor of his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang on April 13, 2012. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Portraits of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and his son, Kim Jong Il, hang inside the convention hall of the April 25 House of Culture, where the party congress is held in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 9, 2016. Kim Jong Un, just named party chairman, sits at center. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang on April 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)         

 

Uncle | Jang Song-thaek

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, is followed by his uncle Jang Song Thaek, second from left, and Yang Hyong Sop, left, vice president of the Presidium of North Korea's parliament, as he tours the newly opened Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang on July 27, 2013. On Dec. 13, 2013, North Korea announced the execution Jang Song Thaek, long considered the country's No. 2 power, calling Kim's former mentor a traitor who tried to overthrow the state. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)             

 

Half-brother | Kim Jong-nam

Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, looks back at a group of photographers before boarding a plane to Beijing at Narita international airport near Tokyo, on May 4, 2001. Kim was fatally poisoned at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb. 13, 2017, while traveling under a pseudonym. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

 

Sister | Kim Yo-jong

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, waits with North Korea's nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, for the start of a women's hockey game between Switzerland and the combined Koreas at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, on Feb. 10, 2018. Kim first emerged on the world stage at the Winter Games as emissary for good will from the North. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, top right, and North Korea's nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam, second right, Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, top left, watch the preliminary round of the women's hockey game between Switzerland and the combined Koreas at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, Feb. 10, 2018 . (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Song Tao, right, head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's international department, shakes hands with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as a Chinese art troupe led by Song arrives at Pyongyang Airport in Nort…

Song Tao, right, head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's international department, shakes hands with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as a Chinese art troupe led by Song arrives at Pyongyang Airport in North Korea on April 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)             

 

North Korea Galleries

 
North Korea
North Korea: Kim Jong-un family
North Korea: Kim Jong-un family

Kim Jong Un is the third generation of North Korea’s ruling Kim family, the first and now only hereditary socialist dynasty. But while still in his early thirties, he appears to be as deft with wielding power as his grandfather, “eternal president” Kim Il Sung, and father, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il.

North Korea: Daily life
North Korea: Daily life

The headlines are all about nuclear weapons and ballistic missile launches. But on the ground in North Korea, scenes of daily life attest to both the poignancy and resilience of a people struggling to succeed.

North Korea: Military parades
North Korea: Military parades

Along with its famous mass games, North Korea has taken the tradition of the military parade to a level all of its own. Its parades are used to show off the best and newest weapons in its arsenal and the almost-unhuman precision of its goose-stepping troops.

North Korea: Workers
North Korea: Workers

As the heroes of socialist propaganda, they are depicted as a self-sacrificing, proud proletariat upon whom the weight of the nation is said to depend. But the life of the worker in North Korea has never been easy.

North Korea: Monuments
North Korea: Monuments

In the totalitarian world of Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, everything begins from the center of Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang’s physical and spiritual center. And every neighborhood, it seems, has some sort of a statue or monument in honor of the Kim’s and the nation their created.

North Korea: New economy
North Korea: New economy

Grassroots barter and trade that began as a necessity in the famine years of the 1990s has grown into a quasi-legal market system that is now one of the most important drivers of North Korea’s domestic economy. For those who know how to navigate it, called the “money masters”, there are riches to be had.

North Korea: DMZ
North Korea: DMZ

For more than 60 years, the artificial dividing line between the two Koreas has separated families and stood as a testament to hostilities that have seemed to have no end. The Demilitarized Zone, despite its name, remains the world’s most heavily fortified border.

Visual artist and Digital Storyteller at The Associated Press