🔥 Travel stories #5: North Korea - Arirang Mass Games - most amazing spectacle on earth (#4 NK) 🔥
Hey guys! Welcome to my new post in a series about North Korea. Hope I can amaze you as much as I was amazed at the time.
General introduction
As you know, I have been to North Korea a couple of times and also lectured about the country at university. I think Steemit is a great platform to share my insights into the country with a broad audience. This is especially helpful given the events that have occurred lately (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/death-of-american-detained-in-north-korea-baffles-experts.html) - I hope to give you more perspective.
Please note that, again, all photography in this post are mine and taken during one of my trips into the country. I cannot share everything that I saw, but I do my best to make it as interesting as possible :)
Arirang Mass Games - 100th birthday of Kim Il-Sung
The Arirang festival is a mass gymnastics and artistic festival held in the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is one of the largest stadiums in the world with capacity of up to 120,000. The games usually begin in early August and end around 10 September (although this can change last-minute as I also have experienced). For North Koreans, this is one of the most exciting events of the year. I can truly say that it is one of the biggest and most impressive performances I will probably ever see in my life.
"The rising of the nation"
The colourful Arirang Mass Games started in 1946 and were initiated by Kim Il Sung (founder of the country). The extravaganza unfolds an epic story of how the Arirang nation of Korea, a country of morning calm, in the Orient put an end to the history of distress and rose as a dignified nation with the song 'Arirang'. The Arirang performance has been included in the Guinness Book of Records.
From as young as 5 years old, citizens are selected based on skill level to serve for the Arirang Festival for many years. In most cases this will be the way of life for them until retirement. These are generally students of eight selected schools of Pyongyang, the capital of the country.
20.000+ children holding signs and rotating them around to form massive pictures!
How to see it live? - a memory that will last forever
Please refer to my other blog post about North Korea, which will tell you how to visit the country. Most itenaries around September will include a visit to this spectacle. Costs were around ~100 USD per person at my last visit a few years ago. I would advise not to go to the country if you are an American passport holder, other than that you can be pretty safe.
Best,
@Finance2Nomad
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Resteem and UPVOTE appreciated :)
Interesting series and beautiful.
very informative! thanks for this series!
Very amazing article and nice photos, almost overwhelming.
Nice! So this is what Arirang is. I've encountered "Arirang" several times in video games, I just forgot where.
That's great stuff amazing pictures.
Upvoted and followed
great post and nicely presented :)
OH, must've been great to be there... ahm...5 years ago? :D
Very interested in this series.
good story and beautiull pictures! great post.
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