Page 2 of
2 SPEAKING FREELY Bitter tears behind
Pyongyang's games By Kim Hyun-sik
unison according to the military
command system. All students are transported for
practices and performances by hundreds of military
trucks that are also on call to carry heavy
artillery in case of war.
The mass games
take place in a stadium in Pyongyang for several
months, beginning with Kim Il-sung's birthday
(also known in North Korea as "The Day of the
Sun", April 15). During this
period, all classes are
suspended. The participating high school seniors
suffer lower scores on their university entrance
exam. To remedy this problem, the North Korean
authorities have even instituted a system of free
additional points to the students' test scores to
compensate for their participation in the
performance.
The students that physically
and mentally suffer the most are the 20,000 who
are in the cards section of the performance. These
students must quickly fold and unfold the heavy
cards at the flag signals with undivided attention
for the entire duration of the three-hour
performance. Since they must remain alert and
cannot go to the bathroom during the performance,
the male students urinate into the plastic bags at
their seats and the female students have no choice
but to wait or to urinate on the floor. As a
result, a number of female students suffer from
chronic cystitis throughout their lives.
Those students holding the cards
containing pieces of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's
faces and body parts on them must be particularly
careful throughout the three hours of the
performance. Even one mistake results in
punishment for the student, as well as his or her
parents and classroom teacher. One time, my
daughter was the teacher of a student who made a
mistake during a performance. The student's
parents as well as my daughter were summoned each
night to the department of National Security,
where they came under fierce ideological criticism
for the student's mistake and were forced to write
a letter of self-criticism.
From the
following day, my daughter was ordered to lie down
right below the student bench in the stadium to
make sure that the errant student would pay
attention throughout the performance. Many
students fall to the ground due to the heat from
the sun, extreme hunger, and high nervous tension
and exhaustion. However, the spirit of the
ideological struggle still makes them stand back
up on their feet.
It is impossible for the
student participants to fill up on the one roll of
bread that the authorities distribute for lunch.
So their parents can't help but bring home-made
vegetable soup and feed their children so that the
soup can supplement their sons' and daughters'
daily ration of bread.
Since the mass
games require tens of thousands of students to
move together in unison like a machine, these
student participants suffer all kinds of hardship
and indignities. The flashy and impressive
performance, which the foreign visitors enjoy in
the stadium, is borne with cursing, merciless
beatings, harsh ideological indoctrination,
self-criticism writings and group punishments
meted out by the teacher and the authorities.
Perhaps the American tourists are aware of the
Korean saying that each child is just as precious
to his own parents, as one's own child is to him.
When the performance is over, the "tour
guides" ask the tourists to write down their
impressions. This is the final assault in North
Korea's ideological combat against its foreign
foes. The tour guides attempt to elicit the likes
of the following passages from the tourists: "I
can see the people's solidarity and their loyalty
to your Great Leader through this performance. No
power can block the forward progress of a people
like this. As the people wish, the reunification
of the Koreas will become a reality peacefully and
without the interference of foreign powers."
I exhort the tourists to tell the truth
instead of parroting the guide's preferred
impression: "How is it that your country is at the
point of starvation and extreme poverty, and that
you cannot live without others' help, even though
you have such wise students who possess such
strong will power and a sense of solidarity? There
must be something wrong with your country."
All the tourists should write down their
true assessment, or they must clearly state this
orally to the guides and everyone around them. If
such opinions repeatedly reach the ears of the
North Korean authorities, they will perhaps never
again put on such propaganda shows at the
punishing cost of North Korea's youths.
Kim Hyun-sik, former professor
and dean of the Foreign Language Education
Research Department, Pyongyang University of
Education, North Korea and a former private tutor
to the family of leader Kim Il-sung. Kim Hyun-sik
was a visiting professor at Yale University from
2003-06 and is currently a research professor at
George Mason University.
(Article
translated by Sung-Yoon Lee, Tufts University.)
(Copyright 2007 Kim Hyun-sik.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
