Asia

South Korean Experts Reveal Secret of Kim Jong-un's Shoes

The historic meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in was held a week ago, but is still making headlines.
Sputnik

Many aspects of Kim Jong-un’s life remain unknown, but South Korean journalists at Chosun Ilbo might have just unraveled one of the mysteries – his real height…having examined his footwear. The media outlet provided seven experts with footage of Kim meeting Moon, and they were closely studying the North Korean leader.

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Kim appeared to be less than 2.5 cm shorter than his South Korean counterpart, whose height is estimated at 172 cm, but the experts noticed that a high slope on the front of his shoes looked as if he was wearing height-increasing insoles, with one of them suggesting that Kim’s real height was only 162,5 cm.

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Previously, Kim Jong-un was considered being around 170 cm, although the source of the information was unknown – many pictures of him turned out to have been photoshopped to make him look taller.

It appears that in Korean society, which earlier this year started a beauty revolution, promoting male make-up, short height is largely viewed as undesirable. To Korean men every centimeter counts: lots of them wear shoe pads to increase their height, with many leading companies selling footwear with elevated insoles – ranging anywhere from 1 to 10 centimeters – already stitched in.

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