I have written a separate review on the Stadium itself – Kim Il-sung Stadium. This review relates to a couple of soccer matches I watched (or more to the point, I didn’t watch) in the Stadium.
I have to say first up that I am not a soccer fan – to be honest, I hate it. Imagine the sense of disgust on my brothers faces, one an ardent Liverpool fan and the other a Manchester United fanatic when I told them that I had seen both teams play each other in Wembley Stadium years before either of them made it to a first (now premier, I think) division match. They were in total disbelief when I told them that, for the duration of the game, I didn’t even know which team was which. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
I am a great fan of people watching and where better to do it than in Wembley Stadium or indeed in Kim Il-sung Stadium, in Pyongyang.
My being in Kim Il-Sung Stadium was occasioned by the fact that I was there to watch the opening and closing ceremonies for the Pyongyang Marathon upon which I have written a separate review. While waiting for and watching the runners return to the Stadium at the end of their run and for the prize-giving to commence we were ‘entertained’ by not one, but two soccer matches. I have no idea who the teams were or who won as I watched the soccer no more than five or ten minutes. Apart from the half hour or so I spent in a special visitors lounge drinking the most vile coffee I have tasted for a long time and scoffing some rather dry biscuits and cakes, I was there to watch the crowd and what a treat that was.
While we waited outside to enter the stadium local spectators were arriving, many coming out of the adjacent subway station, many arriving by bus and many walking. There was hardly a car to be seen – though, to be fair, some people may have parked a distance from the stadium and walked in.
Very few people arrived in family units, everyone seemed to come as part of a work, school or other group. Women arrived with women and men with men. School kids arrived in school uniforms, workers arrived in work uniforms and, of course, the army arrived in army uniform.
While the male attire was almost universally dull and drab many of the women turned up in colourful national dress. No-one was dressed in team colours and flags and banners were noticeably absent in a country not afraid to wave the odd flag or two.
Spectators filed into the stadium with military precision and a sense of great seriousness. This process was reversed at the end when everyone obediently filed out again in their work groups, back to their bus, the subway station or headed off on foot as they had arrived. The Stadium emptied in around half an hour and not a traffic jam in sight. Amazing to watch and compare to the bedlum many of us are more accustomed to at large events.
Inside the stadium, rather than the usual singing, taunting, cheering and general merriment one sees elsewhere, good passes or tackles and indeed goals were met by the subdued applause of 50,000 people. A very strange experience – were all 50,000 spectators bored and only there because they were told to be there? Certainly some of the ladies didn’t look overly excited.
Embedded in the crowd were four brass bands which played one at a time for the duration of the football matches – this I quite enjoyed.
The only note of disharmony (read that as difference) in the stadium was one small section containing around 150 people – the tourists. We (and I have to admit being one of them) stood out in our varied coloured attire, our standing up, our ongoing loud chatting and our cheering. Nothing unusual for a football match in the UK or elsewhere but in Pyongyang it was very unusual. What was rather stark and very depressing was the amount of rubbish 150 people left behind. I sadly suspect we left more behind that the remaining 49,850 spectators!
Certainly a very different and most enjoyable experience – so if you do make it to North Korea be sure to go to a soccer match or other large scale sporting activity, should the opportunity arise. Whether you like the sport or not is not really important – perhaps best if you don’t as you can concentrate on other more interesting things, exactly as I did.
This blog entry is one of a group (loop) of entries on The Rambling Wombat’s trip to Pyongyang, North Korea which I recommend you read in a particular order. I suggest you continue with my next entry – Reunification Monument. If necessary, go to my Pyongyang introduction entry – Pyongyang – A Capital City Unlike any Other – to start this loop at the beginning.
The Rambling Wombat 