According to some reports, Kim was described by classmates as a shy child who was awkward with girls and indifferent to political issues, but who distinguished himself in sports and had a fascination with the American
National Basketball Association and
Michael Jordan. One friend claimed that he had been shown pictures of Kim with
Kobe Bryant and
Toni Kukoč.
In April 2012, new documents came to light indicating that Kim Jong Un had lived in Switzerland since 1991 or 1992, earlier than previously thought.
The Laboratory of Anatomic Anthropology at the
University of Lyon,
France, compared the picture of Kim taken at the Liebefeld Steinhölzli school in 1999 with a picture of Kim Jong Un from 2012 and concluded that the faces show a conformity of 95%, suggesting that it is most likely that they are the same person.
The Washington Post reported in 2009 that Kim Jong Un's school friends recalled he "spent hours doing meticulous pencil drawings of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan". He was obsessed with basketball and computer games and was a fan of Jackie Chan action movies.