Zen 405: Scuppered by a trip to Disneyland

North Korea is gearing up for a once-in-a-lifetime event - a party conference to announce the successor to 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong-Il. It turns out the old bastard has had a stroke and won't be long for this world (as certain sources in China relate), so the time has come to announce which of his misbegotten brood will be laying the cold, dead hand of Communism on the reins of state next.

The favourite is his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, about whom very, very little is known. This nonetheless begs the question: why aren't they following the heavily ingrained Confucian tradition of male primogeniture? Is it because the Heroic Workers' Paradise of North Korea has thrown off the shackles of ancient superstition, eschewing unthinking succession in favour of a merit-based appointment, if admittedly from a tiny subset of those spawned from the Dear Leader's very own seed?

Errr, no.

Kim Jong-un has two older brothers. His only full-blooded brother is Kim Jong-chul, two years older, but apparently such a massive sissy that his dad wouldn't even consider him for the top job, saying he was "no good because he is like a little girl".

Then there's his half brother, Kim Jong-nam, 12 years his senior and at one time adored by Kim Jong-il. But it all went to rat-shit in 2001 when he was arrested trying to get into Japan on a fake Japanese passport. Rumour has it he was trying to defect, although Kim Jong-nam's line was that he just wanted to visit Disneyland Tokyo.

The two things aren't strictly speaking mutually exclusive, and his disaffection with the Workers' Paradise is leant credence by the fact that he now lives between Macau and Beijing, rarely ventures back to Pyongyang and is not infrequently seen on TV basically announcing to the world that he really doesn't give a fig who gets his dad's old job. It's all on YouChoob, so it must be true.