Saturday, May 5, 2012

The greatest show in North Korea: The Pyongyang Military Circus




They fly through the air with the greatest of ease and crush imperialists with their bare hands – they’re the stars of the Pyongyang Military Circus! 

A visit to this all-soldier circus in the capital Pyongyang wasn’t on the original itinerary for my 5-day tour of North Korea in April 2012, but served as a fill-in for the Mass Games that were cancelled because the country was still in mourning over the death of Kim Jong Il. A ticket to the circus was one of the only things not included in the all-inclusive tour,  and cost an additional 20 Euros per person.  

Walk the tightrope today, start World War 3 tomorrow...
 
To give the North Koreans credit where credit is due, the circus was really impressive. There were no complicated set-ups or fancy costumes – just ridiculously fine-tuned human talents.

I don't think I could do that even if I practised for 10,000 hours

One man juggled while balancing atop a tower of metal cylinders, a bouncy woman on the Russian Bar, four uniformed young men walked the tightrope at the same time, and a male/female duo suspended from the ceiling spun and contorted themselves so much I was dizzy just watching it. But the most bizarrely entertaining act was the group of acrobats who used their legs and a see-saw to toss each other around, eventually forming a 4-person tower.


The greatest show in Pyongyang

Except for the occasional Communist propaganda image projected onto the backdrop, the Pyongyang Military Circus had a light, fun mood. Near the middle of the show there was a sort of clown act with a chef who kept  hiding a meal from a soldier. The dialogue was in Korean so I had no idea what they were saying, but the few North Koreans in the audience were certainly laughing!  

If the country ever opens up and gets reality TV, “North Korea’s Got Talent” is going to be a world-wide phenomenon!

You can see my full set of photographs of the Pyongyang Military Circus on Flickr. and more videos of the Pyongyang Military Circus on YouTube. 
at

6 comments:

  1. My coder is trying to convince me to move to
    .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
    But he's tryiong none the less. I've been using WordPress on various websites for about a year and am concerned about switching
    to another platform. I have heard excellent things
    about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all
    my wordpress posts into it? Any kind of help would be really appreciated!


    My weblog - Pure GCE

    ReplyDelete

  2. I tend not to create a bunch of comments,
    however i did some searching and wound up here "The greatest show in North Korea: The Pyongyang Military Circus".
    And I do have some questions for you if it's allright. Is it simply me or does it look as if like some of these responses come across as if they are written by brain dead people? :-P And, if you are writing on additional online social sites, I would like to follow everything fresh you have to post. Could you list of the complete urls of all your communal sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

    my weblog - Best Muscle Growth Supplement

    ReplyDelete

  3. It's hard to come by experienced people about this subject, but you sound like you know what you're talking about!
    Thanks

    Here is my blog post - Stem Cell Threapy Cream

    ReplyDelete

  4. hi!,I like your writing so so much! share we communicate
    extra about your article on AOL? I need a specialist on this
    house to resolve my problem. May be that is you!
    Having a look ahead to look you.

    Here is my blog post: Dead Sea Kit Beauty Kit

    ReplyDelete

  5. I do not know if it's just me or if perhaps everyone else experiencing issues with your blog. It appears as though some of the written text in your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if this is happening to them as well? This may be a problem with my browser because I've had this
    happen previously. Thanks

    My weblog; Ultra SLim Patch Review

    ReplyDelete

  6. Why visitors still make use of to read news papers when
    in this technological globe everything is available on web?


    Here is my site; Vimax Volume

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)