North Korea marked Kim Jong-un’s birthday on Sunday in a decidedly low-key manner. Though the young leader’s birthday is well-known throughout the country, it has yet to be celebrated with the kind of adulatory festivities that accompany the birthdays of his late grandfather and father. Pyongyang residents did what they do every second Sunday of the new year – joined in sports events. Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 33 or 34 and the world’s youngest head of state, assumed power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in late 2011. With the official period of mourning his father’s death over and his own power base apparently solid, Kim presided over a once-in-a-generation party congress last May that was seen by many as something of a coronation and the beginning of the Kim Jong-un era. But he has continued to keep a step or two behind his predecessors in the country’s intense cult of personality. Kim’s grandfather, “eternal president” Kim Il-sung, and Kim Jong-il statues and portraits are found in virtually every public space or home.
