What a difference a year makes. In scene that would have been unthinkable just nine months ago, photos released Sunday showed North Korean leader Kim Jong
What a difference a year makes.
In scene that would have been unthinkable just nine months ago, photos released Sunday showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un making the popular “finger hearts” gesture atop Mount Paektu — one of the Koreas most sacred sites — with top South Korean officials.
The pictures, released by South Korea’s presidential Blue House, showed a beaming Kim posing while attempting the gesture in front of the mountain’s pristine crater lake on Thursday.
The gesture, popularized in the South by K-pop bands such as BTS and other celebrities, entails crisscrossing the thumb and index finger into a heart shape.
The Blue House said Sunday that South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha had proposed the idea for the photo.
A Blue House spokesman had earlier last week told a news conference that Kim had attempted the gesture during the visit to the mountain with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and officials from both Koreas.
“How do you do it? I can’t quite make the shape,” Kim was quoted as saying by Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.
The North Korean dictator ultimately succeeded in making the gesture, with his wife, Ri Sol Ju, supporting his finger heart with her hands.
