I guess I am a sucker for old-fashioned romance. When I heard about the stunning marriage of Kim Jong Un, the young new leader of North Korea, to the lovely Ri Sol Ju, apparently a professional singer, I hurriedly buried the ideological hatchet and grabbed the latest BRIDES magazine to figure out what would be a trendy wedding present for the happy couple.
Let's face it: Humdrum daily life tends to be so difficult — and not only in very troubled North Korea — that these rare moments of inspired ritual and ceremony are just not to be ignored.
Yes, it was a cruel disappointment not to have been invited to the wedding, presumably in the partygoing capital city of Pyongyang. An invitation must have been hard to get (maybe it was one of the Vegas-style weddings with barely anyone else there). Still, look at it from my standpoint: For more than half as long as new leader Kim Jong Un, 29, has been alive, I have been writing about Asia, America and North Korea's tenuous relationship with the outside world, not to mention reality.