Defectors say that in N. Korea, football is more than national sport

By Lee Youkyung
SEOUL, April 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korean defectors who gathered at a pub in
southern Seoul to watch a crucial World Cup qualifier between the two Koreas
Wednesday were quick to compare the experience with watching sports events on the
other side of the border.
"I have never seen a football match live on North Korean TV," said Chung
Eui-sung, 31, who fled the communist country in 2003. A former striker for North
Korea's Team 425 and the founding member of Club Geumgang-san, a team of North
Korean defectors in Seoul, he was savoring the experience.
A North Korean household with a TV becomes a popular spot during sporting events.
Just like in the South, the room fills with boisterous cheering and a beer may
even be passed around, recalled a man named Lee, who declined to give his full
name.
But one thing is very different.
"Every North Korean game is recorded," Lee said. "If we win, it is aired on
television. If we lose, we never see the game."
So when South Korean footballers won 1-0 with a free-kick in the 87th minute, a
game that could have cemented the North's chance for its first World Cup ticket
in 44 years became just another so-called "ghost match" -- never to make it
across the airwaves or into the headlines of newspapers in North Korea.
Football is arguably the most popular sport in the North. Most secondary schools
have a team, and more students sign up to play than can be accepted. Even
workplaces have their own squads, and every holiday crowds around the country
whip up enthusiasm and gather around their local pitch to watch a few matches.
"And we have quite a lot of holidays," Chung said.
But when North Korea suffered the infamous food crisis in the mid-1990s, not even
country's most beloved sport was spared from suffering. When the worsening
situation forced his squad to downsize, Chung was dropped from Team 425 -- one of
the country's most celebrated teams, named after April 25, the official
anniversary of the birth of the Korean People's Army.
"I had played for Team 425 since I was 13, but I was kicked out sometime in
1995," said Chung, who also played ice-hockey for a national club in the
wintertime.
"Coaches usually expected us to bring cigarettes or liquor whenever we returned
from home, but my family didn't have any money, so I was the first one to leave,"
he recalled.
Watching sporting events in North Korea depends not only on the discretion of the
state, but also on the availability of electricity, Chung said.
Any good North Korean football fan should be both punctual and patient. One must
turn on the television at six in the evening, when a station airs the list of the
evening's programs, and jot it down on a piece of paper.
But once gathered around the television, fans can simply hope for good luck.
"We connect the TV to the power, and wait until the electricity runs," Lee said.
"but for the matches we already won, there will always be electricity."
Sohn Young-min, 28, said that for young would-be footballers, making it to the
field is more about politics than money or athletic ability. "It means your dad
is a schoolteacher, a party official or something like that," he said.
Others said family finances do matter. "It's true that they gauge if your family
is well off. If you're starved, you can't really play sports," Chung said.
Yet Chung argued North Korean football players are by far more mentally powerful,
pushing them past other financially well-sponsored groups. North Koreans are
persistent, aggressive, and they wield intense concentration on the field, he
said.
"For them, it's unthinkable to lose against countries like South Korea, Japan, or
the U.S.," said one man who chose to remain anonymous.
"It's because they're brainwashed," Chung agreed. "They are obsessed with
victory. All they think about is, 'We have to win to survive, so we must win.'"
Like in other countries, nationalism also plays out on the football pitch.
"In North Korea, like anywhere else, football is all about nationalism," Lee
said. "Even if you live in some strange country, you root for your team and you
feel happy and excited when your country wins."
During the off-season, children and adolescents favor football over other sports,
not necessarily because they hope to achieve glamor or success; it's just one of
the simplest ways to have fun.
"North Korea has no amusement parks. If you don't play cards, or Chinese chess
with the elders, sports is the only thing you can do," Chung explained. "And
there's no amateur soccer club that gets together every weekend mornings. People
can't afford it."
For Choi, 42, a North Korean who settled in Seoul seven years ago, football means
something more personal. He has been an active member of Club Gyungpyung, an
amateur football club for North Korean defectors living in northeastern Seoul.
He said the soccer club is "the only passage to society" for him, helping him
cope with homesickness and loneliness as he adjusts to an entirely different way
of life.
"It gives us a good excuse to get together," Choi said, "North Koreans who have
lived here longer help those who have just arrived."
ylee@yna.co.kr
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