NOT WHAT ONE MIGHT EXPECT

if one subscribes to the typical stereotypes many outsiders have of North Korea. In a place where (according to said stereotypes) the leaders are regarded as perfect deities who never admit to error, where material prosperity is regarded as a capitalist vice, and a place where reform and talk of reform is verboten, what to make of this: a report in North Korea's Rodong sinmun in which the Supreme Leader laments his country's failure to achieve his father's goal of a society in which all citizens have rice and meat soup to eat, silk to wear, and a tile-roofed house to live in. Here's the key Korean phrase:

지난날 수령님께서는 늘 우리 인민들이 흰쌀밥에 고기국을 먹으며 비단옷을 입고 기와집에서 살게 하여야 한다고 하시였는데 우리는 아직 수령님의 이 유훈을 관철하지 못하고있다.

Is this a Deng Xiaoping, "To get rich is glorious" moment? At minimum, it appears we need to reconsider our stereotypes.