DPRK III: Arirang Mass Games!

What to say about a combination of Cecil B de Mille, the church of Rome, Armageddon, the Hiter Nuremburg Rallys and the Cirque de Soleil - all to the 30th power? No wonder they let us Imperialists in!

Picture a round vast stadium...100,000+ spectators, 20,000+ card turners on the far side, 120,000 (!) participants.....picture a round semi-domed, huge stadium with a deliciously kitschy chandelier.....a full house....and suddenly the card section goes into motion....they can create everything from vernal woodlands, to color codes, from steam engines and rhodedendrons and naval vessels to cute little kittens (of which we saw none in the DPRK)...it is fabulous FABULOUS mechanized kitsch on our far side. We boggle. Then come the 120,000 participants.....girl scouts, nymphettes, guerillas, bathing beauties, cows and horses, sweet little pullets, bellicose soldiers, 8 year old gymnists, femme fatales, wooden soldiers, acrobats, more acrobats, more acrobats...death defying...marvleous syrupy music plays...then marches, spirited peppy ones...the colors of the rainbow - mostly just "off" natural. Neon green is a biggie...also neon ochre. One is thrilled and thrilled again...people swoop in from every angle across the enormously vast space.....moments are full of Bambi-like touching simplicity: Aren't we dear in the DPRK?

It makes the Superbowl Halftime Show look paraplegic. It is loud. It is utterly thrilling and at the end we all are drained. We have danced and pranced and cavorted. We have been the uniting railway between South Korea and the DPRK. We are exhausted. We have seen the great single show that human beings can produce. The only problem it occurs to me is that animation has it beat and that makes it so very very sad. IT is like nothing on earth!