Almost the entire world — even those societies which have
separate calendering systems — use the Gregorian Calendar. The
new year begins January 1 and currently, we’re in the year 2011
— a date which marks the years since the birth of the baby Jesus
of Nazareth (roughly speaking). Even China, which has a separate
New Year’s celebration, follows this rubric. North Korea,
uniquely, does not. While North Korea still uses the names of
months we are familiar with, Year 1 was not two thousand and ten
years ago. Rather, Year 1 was what we refer to as 1912 — which,
not coincidentally, is the year of the birth of former North
Korea despot Kim Il-sung (pictured above). In 1997, three years
after Kim Il-sung’s death, the nation promulgated the calendar,
known as the Juche calendar after the state’s official ideology
of the same name. If this seems like an attempt to elevate Kim
Il-sung into the realm of the divine, you are probably right.
After all, this is not the only allusion to the idea of “Kim Il-
sung as god.” The