North Korea is skilled at playing what KCNA calls the “reptile media.” Pyongyang’s latest wheeze, to send cheerleaders with its athletes to the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea in September, has gained it plenty of coverage. As usual some of this is sadly ill-informed.

If you believe the Independent, once a serious newspaper, this goes to show that “Communist leaders are fans of the American tradition.” Communist? American? Anyone expecting pom-poms and skimpy outfits had better think again. The DPRK variant is modesty incarnate.

In the current dire state of inter-Korean relations, anything that brings the two sides together, even briefly, has to be good

The same article avers that, “North Korea has boycotted the games in the past but is sending athletes this year.” Wrong again. Last time the Asiad was held in South Korea, which was in Busan back in 2002, Pyongyang sent a full team. And cheerleaders, more on whom in a mo’.

Ploughing on, the Indy tells us South Korea “will discuss the proposal to send athletes and cheerleaders.” That’s not right either. North Korea already announced in May that it will send athletes. As host nation, South Korea has no right to bar any state from attending the Asiad – nor would it. Indeed, earlier this year Seoul was reported as urging Pyongyang, which at that point had only agreed to send footballers, to participate more fully and bring athletes as well.

Adding cheerleaders is new, but this too the South accepts. Maybe the Independent misread a Yonhap report which said that Seoul is discussing how to make arrangements for its Northern guests; i.e. whether to do so through direct North-South talks or via the Asiad’s own organizing committee. That’s all. Either way, the North is coming to Incheon – cheerleaders and all.

Excited? In the current dire state of inter-Korean relations, anything that brings the two sides together, even briefly, has to be good. DPRK media, suddenly switching from snarl mode to a charm offensive – it’s all of six weeks since they last called ROK President Park Geun-hye a “prostitute” – trumpet that sending cheerleaders will “help melt frozen North-South relations.”

Well, maybe. Trouble is, we’ve been here before. The first time truly was exciting, because then it was fresh and new. Hopes bloomed, and real reconciliation seemed possible. But now?

Let’s take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Three times in the “Sunshine” era North Korea sent cheering squads as well as athletes to international sporting events hosted by the South.

BUSAN WAS SWELL

First and best was Busan 2002, which indeed saw several firsts. It was the the first time all 44 eligible nations sent teams to an Asiad, including Afghanistan, East Timor and Palestine; and the first time the DPRK joined an international sports meet held in the ROK. Hitherto it had firmly boycotted such events, notably the 1986 Seoul Asiad as well as the 1988 Olympics.

Also a first were the two flights that took the North’s team direct from Pyongyang to Busan’s Gimhae airport. Besides the 311 (161 athletes plus 150 backup staff) who flew, a similar-sized contingent – 288 cheerleaders and artistes, plus 68 crew – arrived by boat. Moored in Busan’s Dadaepo harbor, this vessel – the ubiquitous Mangyongbong 92, better known for plying the Wonsan-Japan route – doubled as a hotel: safe from any risks of fraternizing with the enemy, if also reportedly seasick from the swell. Curious Busanites watched through binoculars from the shore, while the authorities topped up the visitors’ meager supplies with gifts of rice, meat fish, kimchi (of course), water, fruit and more. Also medicines, including for seasickness.

At the opening ceremony on September 29, athletes from both Koreas marched side by side behind a unified flag (a blue peninsula on a white background), to the strains of the folksong Arirang rather than either state’s national anthem. All this was as per the Sydney Olympics two years before, and as there North and South Korea went on to compete separately.

THE SOUTH DROOLED

North and South Korean supporters alike cheered on each others’ teams equally – especially if either was up against Japan (boo!)

But you want the cheerleaders. So, it seemed, did every male in South Korea. Most of the visitors were attractive young women, clad in colorful national dress. The artistic contingent included that all-female brass band: you’ve seen the photos. As I described it at the time:

“The proverb nam nam puk yo (southern man, northern woman) was much quoted, while older men found the Northern style of feminine beauty nostalgically quaint. A survey by a matchmaking firm found 64% of young men ready to take a Northern bride, while most Southern young women (56%) spurned Northern men. But this was all in the mind: No one got near. The Seoul press blamed the National Intelligence Service (NIS)’s zealous minders: “they follow North Koreans even to the bathroom,” snorted the JoongAng Ilbo’s sports editor. (There were no interviews, even.)”

Still, there was real camaraderie in the (separate) stands. North and South Korean supporters alike cheered on each others’ teams equally – especially if either was up against Japan (boo!).

Media on both sides reckoned this a hit. When at year’s-end KCNA listed “10 big events in Pyongyang in 2002,” #9 was “the Pyongyang beauty cheering group attended the 14th Asian Games, raising ‘Pyongyang wind.’” An odd phrase, and it wasn’t in Pyongyang of course.

They meant delirious stuff like this from the JoongAng Ilbo’s sports editor Sohn Jang-hwan. (His paper, be it noted, is firmly right of center and often criticized as such by Pyongyang):

“It was a reunified Korea. In Pusan, North and South no longer existed as a separate nation. They were one. Local citizens shouted cheers and applauded for both the South and North Korean athletes … The unity here was as blazing as a furnace and as well mixed as a bowl of bibimbap.”

FROM WONDERGIRLS TO WEIRD

Perhaps inevitably, repeat performances could never match that first flush of enthusiasm. In the ensuing three years the North sent its cheerleaders Southwards twice more: to the 2003 Universiade (world student games) in Daegu, and the Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon in 2005. According to another right-wing Seoul daily, the Chosun Ilbo, the latter contingent included a young Ri Sol Ju, now the wife of Kim Jong Un. It even has a photo.

But it was in Daegu two years earlier that the gilt came off the cheerleader gingerbread, due to a bizarre incident. I really can’t do better than quote the Chosun’s report at the time, complete with one of the all-time great headlines:

FEAR OF KIM’S WETNESS STIRS UP CHEERLEADERS

Another peculiar scene with the North Korean cheerleaders unfolded Thursday as they noticed, while riding back from an archery competition, welcome banners with the image of their leader Kim Jong Il in conditions they didn’t like.

The women, after demanding that their buses stop, protested in anger and shed tears before taking four banners down and carrying them away.

The group of 150 cheerleaders, here as part of the North Korean delegation to the Universiade games in Daegu, first saw the banners at about 1:40 p.m., as the women were returning from an archery competition.

One banner had a picture of Kim Jong Il shaking hands with former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung at one end and a picture of the reunification flag at the other. In between was a message welcoming the North Korean athletes.

The women, who were in six separate buses, demanded that the vehicles stop. According to one bus driver, some even stepped on his right foot while trying to apply the brake themselves.

Then about 30-40 of them ran the 300-500 meters back to where the banners were. Protesting, they pointed out apparent horrors such as that a seal was stamped on Kim Jong Il’s image, that the banners were hanging too low, that they were beside a scarecrow and that they had been left to the mercy of the rain and wind.

Several of the women, helping each other, managed to climb up a two-meter tree and pull down the four banners. They rolled them up, making sure to keep the images still visible, and carried them reverently back to the bus, while weeping out loud. About 10 of them also wrested a camera away from a South Korean reporter who was on the scene.

A South Korean police officer who saw the tail end of the spectacle said, “The North Korean supporters were wailing loudly as they got on the bus, like women who had just lost their husbands. People who were at the scene were saying that it was beyond their comprehension, and some even said it gave them the chills.”

Further comment is perhaps superfluous. Is North Korea still that weird place? You betcha. Could this happen again? Quite easily. Have North-South relations progressed since 2003? No, they’ve slid backwards. In 2014, will any South Koreans feel tolerant of their Northern brethren and sistren’s peculiarities? No way.

Executive summary: Northern cheerleaders? Big deal. Unless they’ve really changed.

Picture: NIE Times Creative Commons

North Korea is skilled at playing what KCNA calls the “reptile media.” Pyongyang’s latest wheeze, to send cheerleaders with its athletes to the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea in September, has gained it plenty of coverage. As usual some of this is sadly ill-informed. If you believe the Independent, once a serious newspaper, this