LOS ANGELES – North Korea’s Arirang mass games performance –– a yearly spectacle where thousands of North Korean gymnasts perform in Pyongyang –– is “ready to open,” the KCNA reported on Thursday and, despite heightened tensions in March, continues to garner substantial interest from tourists.
The theme of this year’s mass games is focused on the 60th anniversary of the Korean War (known as the Fatherland Liberation War in North Korea) and the 65th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK.
The Arirang mass games, a 120,000 person gymnastic and artistic performance, started in 2002, tell a grand story of a divided peninsula and how North Korea became a “dignified nation,” according to local propaganda.
This year’s performances will run from July 22 until September 9 with four performances per week, Koryo Tours said. Not many details have ben released, but North Korean propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri said all three generations of North Korea’s Kim family leadership will be “celebrated for their accomplishments” during the 90-minute performance.
Continuing the war theme, the performance will showcase Kim Il Sung’s victory for “North Korean independence”, a feat that North Korean state media called a “military miracle,” on July 5.
“This year, [the performance] will show the speech that Kim Il Sung delivered at the Victory Square in 1953 via voice recording,” Uriminzokkiri said.
Kim Jong Il’s accomplishments in carrying out the “military first” revolution, a policy that prioritized military spending and national defense, will also be highlighted, as will Kim Jong Un’s successful long range rocket launch and third nuclear test.
THE UNUSUAL ‘CHINA CHAPTER’
For the past five years, the performance has ended with an unusual “China Chapter,” an alternative ending that does not fit the theme of the play, featuring Chinese dragons, pandas, acrobats, and other cartoon characters.
The “China Chapter” celebrates North Korea and China’s eternal friendship and, at times, has been used to appeal to Chinese political leaders during state visits, said Andray Abrahamian, writing for the website 38 North last year.
This year, the “China Chapter” is an oddity considering no state visits are being made. Furthermore, this year’s Obama-Xi Jinping Sunnylands Summit in California was lauded as a major success that critics argue might have damaged China’s relationship with North Korea.
The performance will either continue finishing on a Chinese note, or will turn over a new leave, Andray Abrahamian speculates:
“[North Korea has] been so angry with China this year, do they want to send a message to the Chinese by dropping the friendship chapter? Or if there is a big overhaul and thus a change in the narrative story of the performance, perhaps this is a good opportunity to drop the awkwardly placed chapter in a fairly natural way,” he told NK News via e-mail.
NK News cannot independently verify whether or not the ending segment will be on display this year.
In previous Arirang performances, a dragon and panda were seen dancing with each other symbolizing North Korea and China’s strong ties on stage.
Chinese tourists usually hold a substantial share of the tourism market in North Korea –– this year’s performance, however, will have a diminished Chinese presence in the stands.
CHINESE TOURISM RESTRICTED
In April, the tourism board in Dandong, China restricted Chinese tourist agencies from entering North Korea amid heightened rhetoric on the Korean Peninsula. However, certain Chinese-based agencies like Koryo Tours and Young Pioneer Tours are still in operation, NK News reported in April.
“I would say less [people are attending Arirang this year]; less Chinese for sure due to the current problems with Chinese tour groups not being allowed to go to North Korea,” Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours told NK News via e-mail.
Koryo Tours, Uri Tours, and Young Pioneer Tours –– tourism agencies operating in North Korea –– said the number of western tourists traveling to the mass games has not decreased this year.
Young Pioneer Tours reported a twenty to thirty percent increase of tourists attending Arirang this year, Gareth Johnson told NK News. Koryo Tours and Uri Tours also report strong numbers and slight increases of bookings, respectively.
“We have seen a slight increase in western tourists traveling to see the Mass Games this year. We believe this is attributable to the outsized Victory Day celebrations scheduled for July 27th and also due to the expanded Mass Games schedule this year,” John Dantzler-Wolfe of Uri Tours told NK News.
For the past two years, North Korea has informed tourist agencies that it would discontinue the Arirang mass games, but then later confirmed that the performances would continue in both 2011 and 2012.
Headline image: Flickr user gilad_rom