Word: arirang
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...reality, life in the kingdom of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is always as pleasant as a picture postcard. The streets are tidy and orderly, the citizens patriotic and the children sing in perfect harmony. From the plastic flowers in the hotels to the plastic music of the Arirang mass-gymastics-and-propaganda fest we were expected to attend, sugar-coated kitsch appeared to have run amok...
...regime likes to show off the Arirang festival to foreign visitors (Kim took then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to a similar event during her 2000 visit). Staged at night in the giant May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, the pageant features tens of thousands of costumed dancers, gymnasts and singers performing an elaborate tribute to Kim and his father - North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Thousands of children seated on the bleachers opposite the spectators flip colored flash cards to create an ever-changing backdrop of slogans and uplifting images. ?They are fighting for the happiness of our people...
...gathering places across the U.S. they recognize each other when they hear such terms as "bahli-bahli" ("hurry up"), or "no sweat." Their password is a mangled version of Arirang, the Korean folksong taught them on a quiet night by ROK soldiers in the bunkers. The badge of their fraternity is the fatalism by which they say, when things go wrong: "That's the way the ball bounces...
...Arirang, Arirang, my love is going over...
...Arirang mountain...