Charles Jenkins: hard at work selling souvenirs (Video)
Those of you who have been wondering what former North Korean defector Charles Jenkins has been up to recently no longer wonder: Jenkins-san has been working at the souvenir shop at Sado Island’s History and Traditional Museum. According to the video report above, Jenkins has announced that 2% of all the money he makes from selling items at the store will be donated to the organization for Japanese families of North Korean abduction victims. From the looks of the video, Jenkins himself is turning out to be a pretty big tourist draw, and visitors love to have their picture taken with him. Jenkins came to Japan with his Japanese abductee wife, Hitomi Soga, a few years ago and found work as a groundskeeper at the museum last summer [it has also been announced that Soga found a new job at a nursing home]. Working in the souvenir shop was probably a good idea on behalf of the management, since it will draw all the visitors who want to meet Jenkins towards the rice crackers he is encouraging visitors to buy. It’s not as glamorous as teaching English to North Korean spies, but it does pay the bills, apparently.
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It says he has donated 2% of his earnings, and has so far donated 40,000 yen to the abductees group. That would indicate he has earned 2,000,000 yen so far, the equivalent of $20,000 (assuming the yen and the dollar have equal purchasing power).
Fred,
He donated 400,000yen, not 40,000.
LESSON ONE: Defect; end up as human tourist trap.
Why can’t he get a better job than this?
isn’t he a little too old for a better job though?
While visiting my nephew in Sado in May I visited with Jenkins at the museum where he is selling crackers. My Japanese friends think he is a VIP and extremely intelligent. I tried in vain to convince them otherwise.