Mick Hartley

Everyone’s seen those North Korean displays of mass gymnastics. Here a defector describes the year he spent preparing for a 1 minute 40 seconds performance in honour of the dead Great Leader Kim Il Sung:

Training is only one of the duties at 4.25 center. Trainees must also attend political events and hence armed with ideology. Once we had to sing a song titled “Where are you, my beloved leader?” more than 50 times in unison. After singing the same song 50 times, you became totally disgusted with where you no longer want to see your beloved leader. Furthermore, each division formed “socialistic competition”. Our division even woke up at 4.30am to gain first prize in the competition and even began a ‘mosaic wall enterprise.’

As the big day draws near, you must learn to stand in rank and in line. Following a signal, you must march rhythmically in one perfect line. As you pass the grand stage you must yell in a loud voice “horray!” while performing a very high kick. If you are out of line in the slightest, you are pulled aside, placed on the ideology podium, insulted and ridiculed. No matter how hard we university students tried, we were of no match to the military schools. Students from Kang Kun Military School or Kim Jong Sook Naval University, somehow displayed the utmost perfect order.

General training still occurs in the winter, there are many days where the fields are covered in snow. During these times, we would all be mobilized to sweep the snow and habitually say, “We detest the Americans bastards, but second to that is snow”. […]

As the big day drew near, all participants were given a uniform for the day, shoes and belt. A commemorative parade medal was also presented. In addition, each division held meetings where participants took an oath to ensure “a successful event for the dear leader’s love”.

The trainees undergo even greater hardship as the actual practice begins. You are expected to make greater stamping sounds with your feet but the quality of shoes distributed by the nation is so low that the nails fixing the sole to the shoe often penetrated into our feet. Within our division, there was only 2 out of 25 people who did not suffer these pains.

Finally, the big day arrived. Though it was “the day” we were not allowed to polish the buckles on our belt or our gold buttons. The sunlight may reflect off these gold colored items if they were too shiny, and hence discomfort our leader’s vision. On the day prior to the big event, we practiced until 3 in the morning at Kim Il Sung Square but were only given porridge soup the following ‘grand’ day.

On the day of the big event, officers came to inspect and confirm our participation in the event. We waited until 9AM for the event to commence and to enter the field with the military division. We waited in angst as the deafening sound of the microphone blockaded even the breath of tens of thousands of people. Prior to the event, we were given a sedative and three tablets to calm our nerves but there were still some people who fainted…

I never did believe the training would end. After the big event, we had to write a “devotional diary”. We were also inspected on this. On re-reading my diary, I discovered that on entering the 4.25 center, I had trained at Kim Il Song Square on 556 different occasions. In the end, we had spent whole year training for 1min 40sec and had accomplished 556 rehearsals…

When I completed my presentation and returned home, my parents were placed in an awkward position as the neighbors asked, “What did the son bring home as a gift?” All I had received for participating in the event was a uniform, belt and shoes that poked the sole. In addition to that, I was rewarded arthritis in the knees and symptoms of indigestion.

I do not have any real memories of my time as a freshman in university. Once a healthy and strong student, the gymnastics training only filled me with sickness. All that remained was my instincts to dance, instincts of heat, hunger, lethargy and pain. In the end, I was only left with shame.