DPRK WC
North Korea is in the World Cup for the first time in 44 years. They have a pretty good striker, Jong Tae-se. Problem is, he’s not North Korean. He was born in Japan to South Korean parents, and has never lived in North Korea. He plays for a pro club in Japan. In advance of North Korean international matches, he goes into the DPRK embassy in Tokyo, switches his South Korean passport for a DPRK one, and upon his return, reverses the procedure.
Their coach, however, is North Korean. The skill is home-grown — but lest you think that this has nothing to do with Kim Jong-il, the coach gets real-time coaching advice from Mr. Kim. On cell phones. In the coach’s words, “mobile phones that are not visible to the naked eye.” Mr. Kim designed these phones, by the way. In addition to inventing the hamburger.
Most North Koreans know little about soccer. They also, of course, are almost never allowed outside the country, and, if they were, any resident soccer fans would be unlikely to be able to afford transportation to South Africa. North Korea’s solution: Pay more than 1,000 Chinese nationals to sit in the stands — all dressed identically, by the way — to wave DPRK flags and cheer appropriately.
A plan with South Korea to broadcast World Cup games to North Korea fell apart. Something something North Korea alleged to have sunk a South Korean ship. Not that big of a deal, though. Very few DPRK citizens have televisions. They do, however, have radios. In Pyongyang, every house comes with a radio. A radio that cannot be turned off.
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