North Korean families visit Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang. The palace was the official residence of North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung until his death in 1994. It is now a mausoleum where the bodies of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il lay in state. Photo: CFP
Ke Juping says the first time she saw North Korea's "great leader" Kim Jong-il, she wanted to crawl in a hole to avoid the awkward, judgmental stares from the people around her.
Her problem was with what she was wearing: trendy black jeans and a yellow T-shirt that made her "stand out" in the crowd of seriously dressed North Koreans.
Ke, 22, an exchange Chinese student studying in North Korea, was invited to a celebration of the 50th anniversary of signing China-DPRK Friendly Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Treaty last July.
It was one of the late North Korean leader's last public appearances.
Ke was surprised to see Kim and couldn't keep her eyes off him. "He looked pretty much like what we saw on TV, only less energetic," she told the Global Times after her return to China.
She also spotted Kim Jong-un, the third son and successor of Kim, who sat next to his father so quiet that he "barely even moved."
"He has clean, pure white skin. He looked younger than I expected," she recalled, adding that the elder Kim stood up and waved to the performers.
Ke said when she got back to school her roommate, who had never seen her country's leader in the flesh, was more excited than she was and wanted to know all the details.
Ke tried to calm her roommate by telling her that she would surely get a chance to see her revered leader someday. Her friend was not consoled. "I'm afraid I won't get a chance in my lifetime," Ke said her friend told her, whose prediction proved correct.
China and North Korea established diplomatic relations in 1949 and signed a cultural agreement on educational exchanges in 1959. Since then, about 1,700 Chinese students have studied in North Korea, the majority of them are language majors.
About 5,000 North Koreans have studied in China and their studies mainly focused on medicine, science and technology, according to the Chinese Embassy in North Korea.
Some 60 Chinese students from different universities, including Ke from Tianjin Foreign Language University, spent seven months until October last year studying at Kim Hyong Jik Normal University and Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, the country's capital.
"I eventually got used to a quieter life without Internet. My life in North Korea was simple and pressure-free," said Ke. "North Korea is not as backward as we thought. Everything was in order. I kind of miss it."