Arirang Festival In North Korea

The world eyes are on co-hosting Korea and Japan World Cup. Unpredictable and unexpected matching results continuously fascinate the world ever, with excitements and joy.

In North Korea, as nations biggest cultural event Arirang Festival is progressing, is not an exception to show a keen interests the World Cup event.

According to North Korean official, 밃rirang festival truly begins a cultural revolution of North Korea, we would like to present our most beautiful artistic events to the world for the very first time, we truly believe that this event will be a great history and it will be known to the world as the greatest artistic master piece of 21 century. However the officials consideration might doubt North Koreans interests towards World Cup, North Korean national broad casting services shows all the live world cup games to the people of North Korea.

The Arirang Festival has started with its first opening ceremony at 5.1 Stadium in Pyongyang NeungRaDo on 29 April. The festival will be closing stages on 29 June, day before the World Cup 2002 finishes with the final match.

An hour and 20 minute long festival was designed to celebrate Kim Il Seungs 90th Birthday. They have performed in regardless of numbers of audience everyday since the opening, except on Sundays.

Despite North Korean governments exceptional anticipation to raise their tourist income from abroad, it became somewhat of a domestic celebration. The ticket to the show ranged from 50$~300$ and North Korean government was planning to invite 2000 international visitors everyday.

According to North Korean Media, they are announcing that there have been total of 100thousand visitors both domestic and from 50 countries representing 700 organizations and companies. However majority of artisan are presumed to be North Korean citizens or military officers, due to the fact that they have not released the number of foreign visitors.

According to a relevant source of information, there has been approximately 10,000 to 12,000 visitors from abroad, which breaks down to around 300~400 people a day. Over 80~90% of international visitors are Korean Chinese and Korean Japanese. Therefore there has been only 200~300 visitors from 50 countries for one solid month.

At the time N. Korean Government have stated that temporary opening of Pyongyang airport to for South Korean visitors via Inchon International Airport may be possible but easier said then done.

The idea of North Koreans plans to raise tourism income has definitely been unsuccessful. First the Arirang Festival does not interest foreign nationals, and who would come to a country where the visitors restricted to travel domestically at travellers will. Consequently North Korean government is seriously under reconsidering the ways for upbringings and introducing nationals from capitalist states as it became domestic celebration.

North Korean Government is looking very closely to the worlds interests towards the world cup and North Koreans Arirang Festival and they are realizing that both events are truly not comparable.

There are some exceptional parts during Arirang festivals but there are no excitement those performers present under restricted movement that lacks the presentation of free movement. May be it can be said that the performance are engineered to rather then being choreographed. The performance during world youth celebration, which held in Pyongyang in 1989 repeatedly, indicates North Koreans lack of understanding to introduce foreign visitors.

Arirang Festival may be offering some domestic cultural interest but they have failed to gain any foreign currency. Who would enjoy a bird in a cage-like, tourism? It is quite embarrassing to see this happening in North Korea.