Kenji Fujimoto came prepared with a page of handwritten notes about North Korea’s nuclear test the previous day. His conclusion: Kim Jong-un’s top priority is to improve the economy, so he needed to advertise his country’s technology to potential customers such as Iran.
This kind of analysis is Fujimoto’s stock-in-trade these days. After all, he’s one of the few non-Koreans to have ever met Kim, and one of an even more select group that has talked to him since he became the leader of North Korea four years ago.
Never mind that Fujimoto spent only one boozy lunch with the “Great Successor” in 2012, or that most of the time they spent together was in the 1990s, when Fujimoto served as sushi chef to the current leader’s father, Kim Jong-il.
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So little is known about the third-generation leader of North Korea that even this amount of contact qualifies Fujimoto for a unique job: professional Kimjongunologist.
“There’s no one else in Japan. I am the only one,” Fujimoto, who is 68 and uses a pseudonym, said in an interview. “This is all secret, and I am revealing all my secrets to the world. For that, I can be executed by firing squad anytime.”
Fujimoto is the sole Japanese person known to have met Kim – the only Americans believed to have met him are basketball player Dennis Rodman and his entourage. As such, Fujimoto has been in hot demand. On one side of his business card is the cover of his latest book, showing a photo of him hugging Kim Jong-un. The reverse: “Kim Jong-il's chef. Please call this number below if you want to talk.”
This is all secret, and I am revealing all my secrets to the world. For that, I can be executed by firing squad anytime
Japanese television pays him US$1,000 a pop to appear on screen talking about the North Korean leader, and newspapers – from Japan and around the world – give him about half that, he said.