Bad news for all you fans of massive doses of socialist realism; the Arirang Festival has been canceled for this year (Khaleej Times):
North Korea has canceled its annual propaganda festival, citing damage caused by torrential rains and tension over US-South Korea joint war games, tour operators said Sunday.
The Arirang festival was to run from August 15 through mid-October in Pyongyang, with about 100,000 people in the communist state mobilized for a mass gymnastics show.
I guess a second installment of A State of Mind is right out.
At least one foreign businessman is pissed after his tour company got burned on tours it sold for the festival:
“Once again, North Korea has demonstrated its unpredictable character and the lack of responsibility for given promises,” said Petrov, who had been organising trips by foreign journalists to coincide with the festival.
The Norks not honoring business commitments? Shocking.
Only an idiot would invest in any ventures in North Korea. If you throw your company’s money down that sinkhole, you deserve to lose your shirt.
7 Comments
The Norks not honoring business commitments? ….
those bloodsucking capitalists:) they expect to make money when people starve?
i have the link for the state of mind in an
http://www.astateofmind.co.uk/
i have the link for the state of mind in an earlier post, together with some more arirang videos
http://sun-bin.blogspot.com/20.....tival.html
the state of mind video is here,
http://www.astateofmind.co.uk/
Slightly aside: these floods might have serious impact, since the official explanation of the 1995-96 disaster, eagerly repeated by Pyongyang stooges, was “a flood which happens once in a century”. If they have another flood with the same level of damage, it will be a lot more difficult to explain the reasons for their current situation. However, this time I would expect large-scale shipments of foreign (largely South Korean) aid on fairly early stage, so the economic and political impact might be mitigated somehow.
The flood damage was severe:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00647.html
I wonder if the North Koreans in the mass games are pissed off. I am sure they had to have strict and long practice sessions–now for naught. With the games cancelled they probably can’t just spend the evening relaxing at home, they probably will be ‘volunteered’ for some activity or have to attend juche sessions.
i saw A State of Mind recently while on a “working vacation.” It was pretty interesting. The North Koreans are collectively insane, which leads to all kinds of questions about how they will be acclimated to the “normal” world once there is unification.
Could get pretty kooky.