Party cadres and the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More [new affluent
middle-class] offered up hefty bribes in order to get their children exempted
from the Arirang Mass Games gymnastics training sessions taking place at city and
county middle schools in honor of Kim Il Sung’s birthday – or ‘Day of the
Sun’- celebrations, Daily NK has learned.
“The gymnastics training sessions for
the Mass Games began at the end of March at county and city middle schools.
Students were required to gather in the gymnasium through the beginning of
April for group rehearsals,” a source from North
Pyongan Province said during a telephone conversation with Daily NK on the
16th. “The parents needed to purchase specials
clothes, flowers, and shoes at a total cost of about 50,000 KPW [6.25 USD] for
each child, which amounts to a large financial burden [especially in context of
the low average salary of area families]. Even poor families who weren’t able
to afford the gear were not granted permission to forgo the training.”
She added, “However, after their
parents kicked some bribe money back to the school, the children of donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More and
cadres were exempted from the training. The non-exempt students hustled
over to the outdoor training field each afternoon following their morning
classes. Rain or shine, they then engaged in synchronized dance and gymnastics
until late in the evening. It was a strenuous task for the students, who were
made both hungry and tired by the grueling sessions. That’s why the parents who
could afford to pay a bribe got their kid excused.”
“In Pyongyang they normally give snacks and
gifts to performers in the mass games, but here in the countryside they don’t even give a single piece of food. It was really difficult for the students,”
the source said. “As the date loomed closer to April 15th [the day of the
celebrations] the children of cadres showed up to school with medical
certificates to excuse them from the Mass Games roll call. That, or their
parents just came to school directly to give a bribe.”
According to the source, the “Day of the Sun” tradition of annual student-based Arirang Mass Games exhibitions began at Pyongyang in
the 1970s. Through the 1980s, the regime provided the funds and costumes to
fund the event, but since the 1990s, that burden has been passed onto the
students.
“April is the beginning of the new
semester, so along with all the preparations and supplies that come along with
that, parents also have to buy things for the Mass Games. That’s why April is
regarded as an ‘inescapable money pit,'” she
explained, adding that because the students are busy devoting their energy to
the games, they are unable to properly invest in their studies, describing the
whole thing as “a big waste of time.”
Participation can be detrimental to one’s health as well. “The students who participate in the
background section as card holders [the ones who flip colored tiles in
synchrony to create a vast image] are forced to sit for three straight hours
until the end of the training session. Some of them have contracted bladder
infections,” she said. “Instead of getting the proper rest they need, they simply buy
medicine from the jangmadang [markets] and continue through the pain. The
students are complaining that, ‘The sun is so hot it’s burning us up [a play on
words based on ‘The Day of the Sun’]. We’re dying out here.'”
The Arirang Mass Games have been used by the regime as propaganda throughout North Korean history. On September 19th, 1961 a performance called
“The Age of the Workers’ Party” was at
Kim Il Stadium [formerly known as the Moranbong Stadium]. That performance was
the genesis of the Mass Games that can be seen today. From the 1980s forward,
during the Kim Jong Il era, the performances scaled up in size and
complication. In 2002, one million participants contributed to the first
performance, held in honor of Kim Jong Il’s birthday.
