The New York Philharmonic held an unprecedented concert in Pyongyang that was supposed to lead to warmer ties between North Korea and the United States. Oh wait, let me rephrase that; better relations between Kim Jon-Il and the United States.
I can be pretty confident in saying that the people of North Korea bear no ill feelings toward the States. It was great, I suppose: a bunch of Kim Jong-Il’s cronies and supporters dressed up in suits and hanboks (Korean traditional wear) attending a concert for the sake of friendship. They played the respective national anthems of each country as the crowd held their applause until they both finished, just as they were ordered to, I assume. And ‘Arirang’ was played, a traditional Korean song, which lead to many of the crowd to tears; tears of happiness and joy, again I assume. Ironically, the almighty dictator was not present. Music director Lorin Maazel dismissed the significance of Kim’s absences:
“I have yet to see the president of the United States at one of my concerts. Sometimes a statesman is too busy.”
President and Dictator are synonyms to the musically inclined, I assume. (Wow, a lot of assuming I’m doing here.) He went on to say that this concert may have “This might just have pushed us over the top” in finding a way of the two countries cooperating. Really?
And more on the audience: they wore badges of Kim Jong Il’s father and had digital cameras… because you know people in North Korea don’t have food, but they have digital cameras. Oh wait; these were Kim Jong Il’s cronies, I forgot.
I have a hard time taking news like this seriously. Oh, and Kim Jong Il’s desires to have Eric Clapton to perform there soon also.
Diplomacy. Yup.
