Tyrant Kim Jong-un left his citizens dumbfounded after using banned South Korean language in a public address.
North Korea has brought in strict laws forbidding its people from watching media from the south or from using its language.
Citizens face long sentences in brutal prison camps or even execution if they are caught breaking the rules.
However, it appears that North Korea’s leader is very much exempt from his own draconian laws.
Kim recently travelled on his luxury train to the northern province of Ryanggang, which had been hit by severe flooding after the Yalu river broke its banks.
In an address to an assembled crowd, the dictator delivered a speech strewn with South Korean words and phrases.
A local resident said they were addressed by their leader as “citizens” instead of “comrades,” as communist parlance would dictate.
He also referred to older flood victims as “elders” rather than “seniors” or “respected grandparents,” and abbreviated “television” to the more American-sounding “TV” as is common in the South.
The local told Radio Free Asia: “People were more surprised by the way Kim Jong-un used South Korean words in his speech than by the content of the speech itself.”
“It is unreasonable to tell the people to talk like a Pyongyanger while he himself speaks like a South Korean so openly,” the resident said.
Kim’s speech to the flood victims was played several times a day on state television, allowing the entire nation to hear his transgressions.
Western experts have been left scratching their heads at Kim’s decision to so brazenly use forbidden language.
Bruce Klingner from the Heritage Foundation think-tank said: “We’ve seen reporting about severe punishment, even death sentences for people listening or watching to South Korean media or even using South Korean terminology.
“Sometimes even generations of a family have been punished for the transgression of an individual.”
He said that it meant that Kim Jong-un must be either watching South Korean media himself or learning those words from people in his entourage.
“(That) would be quite unusual because one would think any North Korean official using South Korean phrases may himself be punished regardless of his rank,” Klingner added.