Day of the Shining Star
Kim Jong-il was born in February 1941 to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-suk in Siberia in the Russian Federal Republic, Soviet Union where his father had been in exile because of his guerilla activities. North Korean propaganda, however, dates Kim Jong-il's birth to 16 February 1942 and locates it at the Mount Paektu area in Korea, the mythical place of origin of the Korean people, where Kim Il-sung supposedly ran a guerilla camp. In reality, the guerillas were based in Manchuria at the time and Kim himself had been to the Soviet Far East before and after Kim Jong-il's birth.
Kim Hong-il (general)
After his release, Kim fled into exile in China in 1918. There, he was able to enter the Guizhou Military Academy thanks to an introduction by . In China he used a variety of aliases, including the Korean name Choe Se-pyeong () and the Chinese names Wang Hsiung (), Wang Yi-shu (), and Wang Fu-kao (). After his graduation in 1920 he proceeded to the Russian Far East to try to gain Russian support for the Korean independence movement, but faced numerous setbacks: first the fratricidal killings of the in 1921, and then the withdrawal of Russian support in 1922. As a result, he crossed back into Northeast China late that year. He remained there for a few years, and briefly returned to teaching to make a living, taking up a post at the established by in the village of Mingdong (Myeongdong) in Helong County, Jilin. His alias Choe Se-pyeong itself embroiled him in a minor scandal in the village: it was rumoured he wanted to court a woman there whose surname was also Choe, but romance between individuals with the same surname was not encouraged in traditional Korean society, due to the possibility of violating the prohibition on marriage between people belonging to the same "bon-gwan" (clan). As a result, he revealed his real name to several people.