Apparently the North Koreans and South Koreans had a little skirmish last week, but thankfully it didn't escalate into a shooting war. After all, it had nothing to do with violating the DMZ. It was a soccer match. Although after the game, the South Koreans said their cousins north of the 38th Parallel were a little too rough at times. But can you blame them? North Koreans can be tortured for losing a soccer match.
Thankfully for all concerned, the match ended in a 0-0 draw. No harm, no foul, no red cards. And only a handful of Reds at that.
Dispatches say that this was the first competitive match between the two countries in Pyongyang. First ever. North of the border. In the favorite sport of both nations.
But there were no fans in attendance.
And no media.
And no beer guys. Nor sodas, popcorn or programs.
The stands were empty.
Kim Il-sung Stadium holds 50,000 people, and the South Koreans thought they'd all be screaming for the home team. But the place was played in what one person described as a silent, violent haze. When the South Korean players got back to free soil, and safety, they explained the surreal match:
The masters in Pyongyang kept the whole game under a media blackout. No TV reports, no sideline updates. Nobody was allowed into the stadium during the game. And journalists hoping to file game reports were nowhere to be seen.
The South Koreans seemed a little peeved by it all, but weren't impolitic enough to mention it while on North Korean soil. After they returned home, they said they would file a complaint because they were only given a video of the match--and the video was taken with North Korean video equipment, so the quality was too poor for broadcast on real television.
Players said they weren't allowed to raise the South Korean flag, and they weren't allowed to play their own national anthem before the game. And although the North Koreans might have had reasons for all this hush-hush about a soccer game, they aren't telling anybody through state-controlled media. Must be another state secret.
Watchers of the regime (who are safely in other countries) say they imagine that losing at home to South Korea would be humiliating for the regime, and dangerous for the players. Therefore the decision to play in an empty stadium.
We are, however, reminded of the 2010 World Cup. Which might help explain things.
The North Koreans' first game that year wasn't televised back home, for the regime worried that a real kicking in the fundament would be a national embarrassment for the Kim regime.
But when the team did better than expected in Game One, the next few games were shown live. In which North Korea's players were outscored 10-0. The team was brought back home and publicly shamed for such a World Cup showing. Not only that, but each player had to publicly humiliate the soccer coach too, who, by the way, hasn't been heard from since.
But since the South Koreans were big favorites to win, the 0-0 draw was something of a victory for the North. So we went to our favorite source of Fake News, the official website of North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, to see what they had on the match.
But we found nothing about it. Not even in the Sports section.
We did find this bit of news at the top of the page, which needed a rewrite something awful, or maybe just a good editor:
"Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and supreme commander of the armed forces of the DPRK, gave field guidance to the Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm and Tree Nursery under construction in Kyongsong County. At the observation platform, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un said that a modern vegetable greenhouse with scores of hectares and a tree nursery with a capacity of 20 million tree saplings were built in this place and hundreds of low-storeyed dwelling houses for the employees, public buildings, school, kindergarten and nursery, hospital and all the public service installations stand in a row. He said with pleasure that creation of a thing out of nothing is a saying appropriate to the case."
Imagine pitching that to the city desk. We know an editor or two who would give us a saying appropriate to the case.
You reckon something was lost in the translation? Nah, it was probably never there. This stuff makes Sovjournalism look interesting. And informative.
Ah, well, the sports fan in North Korea will just have to be left in an exhaustive and ignorant state when it comes to the latest soccer score. As for the players, here's hoping a tie doesn't bring down the wrath of Lil' Kim. And a few of them make it over the border in the coming weeks with their heads still atop their shoulders.
Editorial on 10/22/2019