This is a BBC documentary about North Korean gymnasts. If you have not seen it, I would highly recommend it. While it is somewhat different from the US propaganda, neither does it attempt to evade issues.
It is quite unusual because people in the west seldom get to see “inside North Korea,” with the exception of an occasional outburst of grainy footage intended to remind Americans just what a terrible place it is.
And I don’t think I have ever seen a documentary that takes you inside the homes of families in Pyong Yang, or gives you an opportunity to hear what people have to say.
The film focuses on two girls, both gymnasts, and their families. One family is of the intellectual class, one from the worker class, we do not get to meet a family from the peasant class, and it does not tell us if any peasant girls are gymnasts.
The people I watched the film with were surprised to see that both families lived in normal looking apartments, with normal looking furniture, no one was dressed in rags, they all had regular clothes, both western and korean style. One “different” feature was the speaker on the wall in the home of the worker class family, that played “state propaganda” 24 hours a day and could be turned down, but not off. We did not learn if the intellectual family had a speaker, if they did, it was not visible in any of the shots.
This family lived in a complex that was said to be quite the envy, but we were not shown the homes of the enviers.
There was a lot of expression of admiration and whatnot for Kim Jung Il, his father, etc. and my sense was that this was not entirely because they were being filmed. Most of this kind of talk was in the context of the country’s history, or the girls’ feelings about performing in the Mass Games, which the General (Kim Jung Il) was supposed to attend, and was, in my view, comparable to the kind of things people from any country might say about their history, and their heroes, etc, and the Mass Games talk could have been any Olympic athlete, except that instead of being proud to represent the US, these girls were proud to be selected in the group that would perform for the General.
The most striking aspect, from the remarks of my viewing companions, who came from a variety of places, was the opportunity to see North Korean people as “just like everybody else.” The girls confess to doing things like cutting school and gym practice, getting caught and scolded, the mother gently nags about breakfast and homework (you shouldn’t be watching movies all the time, should you?), the kids seem politer to their parents and grandparents than many American kids, but many countries have the custom of politely agreeing with the elder and then doing what one wishes.
By affluent American standards, the apartments were small for the number of family members. In both families, not everyone had a bedroom. However by the standards of many other places, this is not seen as anything remarkable. Ditto the nearly every night loss of power – which was another surprise, as Americans, I understand, are told that North Korea has almost no electricity ever. There is only 5 hours of TV programming a day, much of it referred to by the narrator as “propaganda.” In the US, of course, propaganda is available 24 hours a day.
The mother in the intellectual family talked very candidly about the “Arduous March,” the famine, and recalled that on her eldest daughter’s birthday, they had only grain, and gave half a bowl of porridge to all the children, the birthday girl received a whole bowl. Eggs and chicken are still very strictly rationed, but the meals that were seen in the film appeared to be quite plentiful. I could not tell if they contained eggs or chicken.
Some things are just expressed differently. A grandmother speaks of her granddaughter’s need to improve her group cooperation or solidarity or something, I can’t remember the words she used, but a western elder might have said “work well with others.”
The father of one of the girls is supposed to help her with homework, but is not much good helping her with English, which both girls study, and speak nearly unintelligibly. The best students shout out phrases as if they were military commands, while the teacher, from her accent, she learned English in England or from an English person, acknowledges that the girls’ academics do suffer a bit due to the long hours of gymnast practice.
The girl who is an only child wishes she had brothers and sisters like her friend, when one sister leaves home to join the army, she leaves her room to the younger, with strict instructions not to mess with her stuff. The girls get chocolate on their uniforms, lose their school badges, and generally behave like any school girls anywhere, and the families have the same hopes, worries for their children, the same pride in their accomplishments, the same little rivalries and secrets (the worker mother says, sometimes I lie to her father, she will tell me things she has done and I know he would scold her) as any family anywhere.
The North Koreans appear to have more holidays than Americans, and two hour lunch breaks seem to be the norm, at least for the students.
There are sirens that blow to wake people up (that is the workers’ siren) it is never specified if the three different classes have different rising times, and we don’t get to hear any of the other sirens.
The city looks a lot like other Asian cities, there are perhaps fewer private cars, more buses and bicycles, and I am sure if the crew had gone into the slums, they could have gotten footage similar to that played recently in the US, of children stealing fruit from street vendors, and being chased and kicked. Not an unusual scene in Asia, or in Latin America, or Africa, or even in some neighborhooes in European or American cities.
US atrocities in the Korean war are discussed, says one old man, I didn’t know back then whether imperialism was a good or bad thing, but after those three years, I saw them (Americans) do things no human could do.
Scarcity and problems are attributed to US policies and “blockades,” sometimes this is obviously the case, other times not.
Especially since the Arduous March, the value of self reliance has become an intensified cultural value, where as before maybe more on a national scale, now it is being inculcated also as an individual responsibility, if the state can’t provide it, says one man, we must make it for ourselves.
There is, quite reasonably, little admiration or enthusiasm for the US, and the state is extremely defensive. During the SARS outbreaks, North Korea closed its borders and stopped the flights to Beijing, opening them only several weeks after the danger was declared to be over. There were never any confirmed cases of SARS in North Korea.
I think this is a movie that anyone would enjoy, it might change your perspective on North Korea, or it might not. Either way, it will give you a chance to see North Koreans as regular people, and at least in the case of the families profiled, people living normal lives and doing normal things in normal surroundings.
And the group gymnastic performances themselves are spectacular. It’s worth your time to see it for this alone. It is an art that is practiced on such a scale and to such perfection nowhere else.
