My Visit To North Korea, Part 4
(This is part 4 in a series. See part 1, 2, & 3)
The only reason North Korea grants visas to Americans — with the exception of diplomats and exceptional guests like the New York Philharmonic — is to witness the Mass Games. The problem is, nobody knows exactly how long the Mass Games will run. They might be cancelled or extended at the last minute, and if they’re cancelled, the entire trip is cancelled too.
If you haven’t heard of North Korea’s Mass Games, or are sketchy on the details, let me explain. There are no “games,” as in competition. It’s a kind of huge political demonstration that takes place in a sports stadium and features over 100,000 schoolchildren, soldiers, and gymnasts performing synchronized dancing, marching, and acrobatics in mind-bogglingly large mass formations. The spectacle is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest event of its kind.
Because the Mass Games are sometimes compared to the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and take place on so grand a scale, you might get the impression they are a rare or one-off event. They used to be held only for special anniversaries, but now they run all summer long and well into the Fall, with full-blown performances taking place several times each week. In fact, there are actually two Mass Games these days, the original “Arirang Festival” in the evening and the newer “Prosper, the Motherland” performance during the daytime. We attended both. The experiences are very similar and the description that follows is a composite of the two.
