The Son Also Surprises.(Kim Jong Nam)(Brief Article)

You may soon be named heir apparent in one of the world's most reclusive, repressive and downright odd kingdoms--so what do you do for fun? When immigration officials at Tokyo's Narita airport took a look at the Dominican passport of a man named Pang Xiong last Tuesday, they had more than a few such questions. "He didn't look like a Latin American, and he didn't speak Spanish," said a passenger in line behind the crew-cut Pang, who was built like a wrestler gone to seed. Authorities interrogated him and his companions--two young women and a 4-year-old boy--for several hours, until he admitted his true identity. "I am the son of [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Il," he allegedly admitted. And, he added, "I wanted to go to Disneyland."

That's all Japanese authorities needed--and perhaps wanted--to know. On Friday they deported Kim Junior on an All Nippon Airways flight to Beijing (the 10-person party--which included six Japanese officials-- took the entire upper deck of the 747). The three-day delay allowed Kim's release to occur after a delegation from the European Union had left Pyongyang, thus saving his father a serious loss of face. NEWSWEEK has learned that Japan's National Police Agency, angry at the kid-glove treatment afforded the prisoner, leaked word of his detention to Nippon Television and lobbied Japan's Justice Ministry to charge Kim with violating immigration laws. After a fierce debate, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to let Kim go, saying, "His identity was not confirmed."

The world, though, should be more interested in the younger Kim, Jong Nam, both because so little is known about him and because the future of North Korea may well depend on what kind of man he is. Last week's brief glimpse presented a man who, from his generous paunch to his diamond-studded Rolex, seemed accustomed to luxury. (The two women with him were presumed to be his wife and a nanny for the boy, thought to be his son.) "Kim Jong Nam admires things that are prohibited to North Koreans, such as traveling to capitalist places," a senior South Korean intelligence official told NEWSWEEK. "He likes money more than anything else."

That's hardly surprising given the life of privilege he has led. As a boy, Jong Nam is remembered as being spoiled, ill-mannered and, at times, downright mean. The best picture of his early years comes from an estranged cousin, Lee Hanyong, who defected to South Korea in 1982. After writing a tell-all book about the North's first family, he was assassinated by northern agents in the hallway of his Seoul apartment in 1997. Inside Kim Jong Il's official residence, known as Pyongyang No. 15, Jong Nam got most everything he wanted--however extreme. In one revealing incident from the mid-1970s, the boy suffered a painful toothache but refused to see a dentist. When his father asked what gift might change his son's mind, Jong Nam said: "A car as big as yours." According to Lee, the boy allowed the dentist to extract his rotten tooth, then received a dark blue Cadillac from daddy.

Lee's book depicts a family in thrall with cultural items forbidden in the communist North. He estimates that 75 percent of the books in the Kim home, as well as most television programs and movies, came from the South. Lee, who read young Jong Nam bedtime stories, says the boy's favorite book was "Anne of Green Gables." The child also loved a certain South Korean comedian. When he demanded to see the actor live, officials searched the countryside until they found a look-alike, then trained the stand-in to deliver the routine. "Jong ...