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| North Korean athletes Kim Jŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl compete in the 2013 Table Tennis Mixed Doubles World Championship. Src: Yahoo! News Singapore |
The plot is fairly standard, but the story demonstrates how the new prioritization of sports under KJU's leadership has to some degree supplanted the old priorities of film and the arts. It is also a good example of the use of military metaphors to describe non-military endeavors.
Most of all, this story is a prime example of how recent events (usually 4-7 years in the past) are re-interpreted via fiction in a way that reflects maximum glory on the Leader.
The Plot
The story opens with a familiar trope from North Korean fiction: The leader (KJU in this case) stops his motorcade on a country road to offer an elderly citizen a ride. Not realizing that she is in the presence of her Leader, the old woman airs her family laundry. She is headed to Pyongyang to fetch her granddaughter, Kim Yŏng, a table tennis player who recently failed spectacularly at the Pyongyang Invitational, before she can further embarrass her nation on the world stage. Without revealing his identity, KJU convinces her to return to her worried family, reassuring her that her granddaughter will soon be victorious.
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| The 4.25 Sports Club is most well-known for its soccer team, but it includes many sports. It is named for the day the KPA's predecessor was first formed. Src: Choson Shinbo |
Coach Kim has been working with them on a radical new game strategy that messes with the traditional gender dynamics of mixed doubles; instead of having the female set up for the male's attack, he has them both attacking. Unfortunately this requires more physical stamina than his players have in them, and they suffer a humiliating defeat at the 2011 Pyongyang Invitational.
Even though his team has earned a place at the 2013 World Championships, they are getting on in years, and many of the other coaches argue that they should retire rather than face another humiliation on the world stage. Coach K is inclined to agree.
But then one day, on the lonely stretch of mountain road where he has his players doing strength training, he is met by none other than Kim Jong Un. Still in grief over the recent National Tragedy (the death of his father Kim Jong Il), the Leader nonetheless makes time to give the coach and his players a pep talk.
He says he just came from a visit to the front lines, and the athletes remind him of the soldiers he met there. Both are fighting to defend their homeland; one from military conquest, the other from humiliation in the eyes of the world.
After this pep talk, both coach and players attack their training with renewed vigor. Kim Yŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl both ask to extend their training hours even beyond what they are already doing.
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| KJU speaks at the 4th Meeting of Secretaries of Party Cells (제4차 세포비서대회) in January 2013 |
He also has an aide personally deliver a record to Coach K, one that he says will surely inspire them to victory. It's a song the soldiers used to sing during the Fatherland Liberation War, "My Song from the Trenches" (전호속의 나의 노래).
With the world championships just months away, the athletes train hard against other players who mimic the features of leading foreign competitors. They get better and better. But still, Kim Yŏng's strength fails in the face of a strong attack from a male competitor.
Then just when Coach K's faith is ebbing low, he gets a call out of the blue from KJU. He has reviewed the tapes and identified the problem. Kim Yŏng's failure is not due to her advanced age, but rather a lack of spirit. The Leader notices that she starts out strong but loses all hope after a few mistakes.
KJU then makes a speech that I'm pretty sure is ripped verbatim from one of the Rocky movies, about how true champions are people who can get knocked down and get right back up again. He also tells the story of seven soldiers during the War who fought to the last man to defend a certain hill from the enemy. That last man? Kim Yŏng's grandfather.
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| North Korean champions on the medal stand at the 2013 World Table Tennis Championships in Paris. Src: Sina |
At last the team takes the stage at the world championships in Paris. They make a gutsy comeback against Hong Kong in the semifinals before going on to beat South Korea in the finals.
The story lingers on the scene of the athletes saluting from atop the podium as their national flag flies high overhead and foreign sportscasters look on in uncomprehending awe.
Fact and Fiction
This story provides a good example of the limits on naming names of actual people in North Korean fiction. As this blog has noted many times before, with the exception of the Leader Kims, characters based on identifiable individuals are usually given pseudonyms. In this case, the actual athletes who won the mixed doubles table tennis event at the 2013 World Championships, Kim Jŏng and Kim Hyŏk Bong, are given the pseudonyms Kim Yŏng and Kim Hyŏk Chŏl respectively.
It's anyone's guess what the average North Korean reader makes of these name changes. By all accounts the two champions were feted with a lavish homecoming after their victory and are presumably household names. It seems impossible that anyone could mistake the characters for some other mixed doubles table tennis players who won gold at the World Championships in 2013.
Giving them pseudonyms perhaps allows the author some artistic license with the details of the players' lives; for instance, the real Kim Jŏng would have been only 22 when the story opens in 2011, not "approaching the summit of 30" (서른고개에 접어들고있었다) as the story has her, making her lack of marriage prospects and flagging strength more immediate concerns. But other facts about the player, like the fact that she is left-handed, are reflected accurately in the story.
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| Pak Yŏng Sun was a North Korean table tennis star in the 1970s. Src: Choson Shinbo |
The story accurately states that the North Koreans played the strong Hong Kong team in the semi-finals, and that they lost the first three rounds before coming back to win in a stunning upset. It also mentions that they defeated the South Korean team in the finals, which had earlier defeated the "top-ranked" Chinese team. At the end, the story adds that the pair went on to win gold at the Asian Games the next year.
Choson Shinbo uploaded a video from Choson Central TV in 2015 in which you can see the real Kim Jŏng talking about how her mother encouraged her to play table tennis against her grandmother's wishes, how it felt to meet the Leader, and her relationship with her boyfriend. There is also a video of the real Kim Hyŏk Bong talking about his inspirations in the sport, how his career affects his marriage, and his hopes for his young son, as well as deflecting a pointed question about his relationship with teammate Kim Jŏng. They both confess to crying when they met the Leader, though they don't mention having ever met him before becoming world champions.
Athletes as War Heroes
The story hammers again and again at the theme that athletes are like soldiers fighting in a war. KJU diverts his motorcade to meet Coach K and his players with the words "Comrades, let's meet our warriors of the sports battlefield" (우리 체육전장의 전우들을 잠간 만납시다). Observing Coach K's glum look on the practice field, KJU jokes, "How grim is the commander's face before battle." When he meets the athletes he tells them,
"When our people sent their sons and husbands to war, what did they hope for most? That even if they gave their lives, they would acquit themselves without shame before the nation."War comrades" (전우) have a special meaning in North Korean propaganda as the only kind of common folk with a direct connection to the Leaders.
"You could say that sports are a battlefield without the sound of gunfire. There's no other arena where people come together in peacetime to compete for the right to fly their nation's flag and play their nation's song.
"Athletes who compete at international championships are just like soldiers on the front lines defending their county. And so I think of you as my war comrades (전우) just the same as those soldiers defending our most forward outposts."
The players are amazed that KJU knows all the details of their family lives. He tells them, "Family bonds are what give our athletes their strength. During the Fatherland Liberation War, even when communications were at their worst, the Great Leader made sure to keep the mail cars running above all else."
He recalls that Kim Yŏng's grandmother mentioned that her husband died during the war defending a place called Chŏlbong pass, near Hill 1211. He tells them, "You have inherited the legacy of victory from the heroic soldiers of the Fatherland Liberation War."
At the Party Secretaries' Meeting, he tells the assembled KWP leaders: "The athletes who represent our country in international competition are just like soldiers fighting on a battlefield. Therefore you should treat their families just like KPA soldiers' families." Later Kim Yŏng is amazed to hear that the provincial authorities have been lavishing attention on her relatives "just as if they were a soldier's family" (후방가족과 같다).
Coach K, contemplating his players' sacrifices, thinks to himself: "Just as our soldiers fought for the day when they could stand proudly before their families wearing their medals, our athletes also fight as sons and daughters of the nation."
The Power of Positive Thinking
The other big message of this story is that if you can visualize victory in your mind, you will achieve it in real life. In his pep talk to the athletes, KJU says:
KJU also tells his athletes,
New Emphasis on Sports
This story bears many of the hallmarks of past stories heralding the nation's achievements in the arts and sciences. One can clearly see how the new priority for sports achievement has been layered onto the same story format that was used in the past for artistic priorities like architecture and the mass games. The story also takes pains to explain how sports achievements will benefit the nation as a whole.
In an early scene, Coach K remembers the late KJI visiting the 4.25 Sports Club syhortly before his death and giving the following speech:
Coach K in particular before his death, and that KJU is just carrying through with his late father's wishes.
Later KJU is shown thinking to himself,
At the 4th Meeting of the Secretaries of Cells of the KWP, which was held a little over a year into KJU's reign and was one of the first publicly televised party meetings under his command, KJU delivers a speech to the assembled Party secretaries in which he says:
He recalls that Kim Yŏng's grandmother mentioned that her husband died during the war defending a place called Chŏlbong pass, near Hill 1211. He tells them, "You have inherited the legacy of victory from the heroic soldiers of the Fatherland Liberation War."
At the Party Secretaries' Meeting, he tells the assembled KWP leaders: "The athletes who represent our country in international competition are just like soldiers fighting on a battlefield. Therefore you should treat their families just like KPA soldiers' families." Later Kim Yŏng is amazed to hear that the provincial authorities have been lavishing attention on her relatives "just as if they were a soldier's family" (후방가족과 같다).
Coach K, contemplating his players' sacrifices, thinks to himself: "Just as our soldiers fought for the day when they could stand proudly before their families wearing their medals, our athletes also fight as sons and daughters of the nation."
The Power of Positive Thinking
The other big message of this story is that if you can visualize victory in your mind, you will achieve it in real life. In his pep talk to the athletes, KJU says:
"I just came from a forward outpost, and I was amazed by what I saw there. Those soldiers, even as they faced down the enemy, held the Dear General (KJI) in their hearts and were overflowing with faith in their victory.Through this pep talk, Coach K realizes what he was missing: he had lost faith that his athletes could win.
"The patriotism of the Dear General who gave his life for our nation has taught us this: that if we are firm in our faith, victory is certain. That is the wellspring of the strength of our people, who don't know the meaning of 'impossible.' Before technique, before physical strength, it is our faith in victory that allows us to win under any circumstances."
KJU also tells his athletes,
"A gold medal is not just a symbol of being number one, it is like a gold brick in the fortress of our nation's psyche. The more gold medals we pile up, the stronger we will be in spirit. There is nothing stronger than a nation with a strong spirit.
"In our history, our nation was strongest during the Koguryo Era, when martial spirit (상무기풍) was at its zenith.
"Therefore athletes must develop their spirit alongside their physical skill."
KJU leaves them with this parting thought:
"Our nation's history has been nothing but victory since the day of its founding, and we will continue to be victorious. But to win we must first have victory in our hearts.
"When the Great Fatherly Leader organized his first platoon, even though it was tiny compared to the million-strong Japanese army, he already had a vision of his ultimate victory. And the Dear General, even during the darkest days of the Arduous March, already foresaw a strong and prosperous nation and spared no expense investing in cutting edge technology.
"Comrades, if we fight with the indomitable will of the Great Leader, we will surely be victorious."
New Emphasis on Sports
This story bears many of the hallmarks of past stories heralding the nation's achievements in the arts and sciences. One can clearly see how the new priority for sports achievement has been layered onto the same story format that was used in the past for artistic priorities like architecture and the mass games. The story also takes pains to explain how sports achievements will benefit the nation as a whole.
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| A new facility for the 4.25 gymnastics team, shown in 2018. Src: Sogwang |
"In the near future our nation must achieve the status of a sport powerhouse. In order to do that, we must first promote events where we have a good chance of winning, before expanding to other sports. Table tennis is one of those events. After all, we've won two world championships in the past.The story takes pains to mention that it was KJI who first took an interest in the sports club and in
"Sports are important to give our people pride and confidence in the task of socialist construction. With every victory our athletes achieve, our national status rises and our whole nation basks in the glory of victory."
Coach K in particular before his death, and that KJU is just carrying through with his late father's wishes.
Later KJU is shown thinking to himself,
Lately, as the military pressure and sanctions by the imperialist forces has thrown up barriers to our economic construction, some in the sports field have given in to defeatist thinking - suggesting limiting our delegations to championships and paring down the renovations of sports facilities.... But in hard times past, like the Chollima era and the time of the Arduous March, how many great sports figures emerged? ... All these victories were made possible by the victorious spirit passed down from the Great Leader through the anti-Japanese struggle and the Fatherland Liberation War. Without faith in the victory of our Revolution, our people would have no confidence.
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| KJU views an archery demonstration at the 4.25 Sports Club in 2013. Src: UriDongpo |
"Sports aid our people's solidarity and sense of collective purpose.In conclusion, KJU tells the Party secretaries to devote their energy to developing sports in all regions, and to treat athlete's families with as much respect as front-line soldiers' families.
"A year ago, when I asked a local party secretary how the county electric grid was completed so quickly, he said it was through the power of athletics. It seemed he had led a rope-pulling team (바줄당기기, a traditional Korean sport) to victory in the regional championships. They'd always been dead last in the past, so that victory inspired everyone. In the end, the people of Sangan County learned that if they set their minds to it, they can accomplish anything (마음만 멀으면 못할 일이 없다).
"And yet, there are some party secretaries who don't even know how many athletes from their province are on the national team."
