[quote]North Korea’s World Cup debut elicited touching stories about the ragtag group of soccer fans “hand-picked” by the Communist regime to support their squad in South Africa. Turns out they were hand-picked for their skill at not being Korean.
The UK’s Telegraph reported last month that China had already recruited actors and provided them with tickets to South Africa, so they could go and pretend to root for their sort-of allies. No North Korea citizen could possibly get a visa to leave the country and even if they could, they could never afford the bus trip to Pretoria. Even so, the fans and some media outlets went along with the ruse that they were loyal Koreans, even as Chinese officials admitted the truth to Reuters.
The 100 or so fans decked out in red, white, and blue sure looked like they belonged to the Hermit Kingdom when they got off the plane this morning waving DPRK flags . They made ridiculous boasts about expecting to be up 2-nil on the Brazilians at halftime and expressed love and support (through translators, of course) for their South Korea brothers. They told reporters they were hand-picked by Kim Jong-Il’s government to attend the festivities and they even made the team’s star player cry during the national anthem. But perhaps he was crying because he knew, like everything else about his country, it was a total sham.[/quote]
I was wondering how there could be North Korean fans there, since ordinary North Koreans can’t leave their Workers’ Paradise. I noticed they were holding the flag upside-down, so that the star looked more like a Satanic pentagram! That offense would probably get a North Korean sent into slave labor in a coal mine for life. So I figured they couldn’t possibly be North Korean.
‘‘Sure, North Korea could have actually selected an elite group of propaganda-loving supporters to represent their country as spectators, but the last time they did that, the group of mini-skirted cheerleaders who attended a tournament in South Korea broke their promise not to reveal to their countrymen what they saw below the DMZ. They reportedly ended up in concentration camps.’’
Yes, they can. I was just in Dandong on the NK Chinese border (got within 100m of NK on the Broken Bridge over the Yalu River) and there are several restaurants with NK waitresses. Kind of a touristy thing. Also NK business people come over for supplies.
There was this British guy who made a movi about NK’s first World Cup appearance back in 66 being interviewed on CNN. When asked if any of the players would defect, he said, oh, everyone asks that, but no, they are loyal North Koreans, very proud of their country, when they go back, they will get an apartment in Pionyang and if they do very well, they get lost of honor, so, no.
sigh
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