Remembering the 2003 Daegu Universiade (and those women).

A couple of weeks ago I was reading some old Marmot's Hole entries when I came across a story he was running third-hand from a newspaper article quoted by a now-defunct blog. Here is an excerpt, apparently from the other blog, that the Marmot quoted, and which I will quote in full:

At the men’s volleyball competition Wednesday between the United States and North Korea at the Universiade games in Daegu, the Americans were booed upon entering the court. They say it went on for quite some time, stopping only after the announcer asked for restraint.
Reports are that the crowd numbered around 4,000, and that many in attendance were part of the university student movement. When you consider how American athletes have not been given that kind of treatment in other Universiade competitions one can assume that the behavior was instigated by such students; but more importantly, it was an example of the confused state our society is in these days.
It’s not as if the Americans committed some terrible, insolent incident that would put the reception they got into context; and still, here in Korea, they get publicly heckled like that, and in front of the Northerners. According to one journalist present, some children waving American flags were made to cry when confronted by one adult, who asked, “Where do you think you are, carrying those things around like that?"

The article and the Marmot's entry was from 2003, when the Summer Universiade was held in Daegu. I couldn't find any reference to the incident in the media or in other blogs, but it's still an interesting anecdote considering the articles I'm about to quote. Given the nature of what I'm about to quote, and given the number of articles and sources I've combed through, I'm inclined to believe it apocryphal and unlikely to have slipped through the hypersensitive media of the day. But the reason the story stood out to me is because next Wednesday, May 31st, the International University Sports Federation will decide if Gwangju will host the 2013 Universiade, or if the games will go to Kazan, Russia, or Vigo, Spain. Also known as the World University Games, the Universiade will feature about 10,000 athletes from some 170 countries. Should Gwangju win this will be Korea's third time hosting. Daegu had it in 2003, and Muju, Jeollabuk-do, hosted the Winter Games in 1997. I couldn't find much information online about the Muju Universiade, aside from this interesting write-up from the FISU site, but there are plenty of articles out there on the Daegu Games. Most of the domestic articles come from the Joongang Ilbo. The Korea Times changed its url last year, thus losing all articles written previously. The Chosun Ilbo has a few, but the user-unfriendly Korea Herald forces you to pay for articles older than a couple weeks.



Probably the best-known story to come out of the Games revolved around the busload of North Korea cheerleaders who noticed a picture of Kim Jong-il out in the rain and went batshit crazy. From CNN.com, an excerpt:

For the most part, North Korea's cheering squad for the University Games in South Korea last month lived up to their reputation as "the army of beauties."
Singing and smiling, the women became the center of attention wherever they appeared.
But one incident, captured by South Korean media, has shocked many South Koreans.
It involved a busload of the North Korean cheerleaders who became extremely upset over, what some onlookers said, a very trivial matter.
The cause of the emotional distress was a banner with the picture of what North Koreans they call their "dear leader", North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which was hung crooked and left out in the rain.
For those North Koreans, it was considered sacrilege.
"How could you place our general in such a place?" a cheerleader said. "He deserves only respect. We cannot stand for this."

The Chosun Ilbo has a little more of the story of these loons. An excerpt:

The group of 150 cheerleaders, here as part of the North Korean delegation to the Universiade games in Daegu, first saw the banners at about 1:40 p.m., as the women were returning from an archery competition.
One banner had a picture of Kim Jong Il shaking hands with former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung at one end and a picture of the reunification flag at the other. In between was a message welcoming the North Korean athletes.
The women, who were in six separate buses, demanded that the vehicles stop. According to one bus driver, some even stepped on his right foot while trying to apply the brake themselves.
Then about 30-40 of them ran the 300-500 meters back to where the banners were. Protesting, they pointed out apparent horrors such as that a seal was stamped on Kim Jong Il's image, that the banners were hanging too low, that they were beside a scarecrow and that they had been left to the mercy of the rain and wind.
Several of the women, helping each other, managed to climb up a two-meter tree and pull down the four banners. They rolled them up, making sure to keep the images still visible, and carried them reverently back to the bus, while weeping out loud. About 10 of them also wrested a camera away from a South Korean reporter who was on the scene.

The North Korean cheerleaders were apparently a big deal here in 2003 and also in 2002, when they first arrived for the Asian Games in Busan. More on them a little later.

Reading through the Joongang Ilbo's stories I was surprised at how much protesting was going on before and during the Games, and how amped up at least the Joongang Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo are making things out to be. That makesthat original post on the Marmot's Hole seem very out of place, if true at all. Given the climate of the time, less than a year two girls were killed by an American military vehicle, it's not that out of the question, especially since those anti-American protests continued for years. Many of the articles indicate an unhappiness with welcoming North Korea considering that country's human rights record. So while the crowd may not have booed the U.S. volleyball team, it apparently quieted considerably when the U.S. and Japan entered the World Cup Stadium, as the North Korean cheerleaders, predictably, refused to cheer. From a Japanese source:

Some 300 young North Korean cheer girls, who stole the show at last fall's Pusan Asian Games with their show of patriotic support, suddenly became quiet when the Japanese and US delegations came forward and resumed cheering immediately after they marched off.

Demonstrations against North Korea seemed destined to derail this display of Korean unity before it even started. An excerpt from an August 18, 2003 Chosun Ilbo article, "Pyongyang Indicates Boycotting Universiade":

North Korea, offended by anti-Pyongyang protests here, said Sunday that it would not send its athletes and cheerleaders to the Universiade Games in Daegu.
According to its state official broadcaster, a spokesman for North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland explained that because conservative groups in South Korea had insulted the Pyongyang regime at an anti-nuclear and anti-Kim Jong-il rally last week, Pyongyang could not send its athletes to "a dangerous South Korea, which did not guarantee the safety and dignity of a brother country."

An article titled "North Korean Athletes Again in the South" in a 2003 edition of the journal Korea Scope has a bit more of the statement:

Angry at some South Korean citizens’ burning of its flag and an image of its leader Kim Jong-il two days earlier, North Korea threatened on Aug. 17 to boycott the Universiade. The North’s move came in a statement issued by a spokesman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. “There occurred in the heart of Seoul in broad daylight such extreme and reckless provocation as seriously hurting the dignity and the prestige of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and malignantly insulting it,” said the statement, adding: “This compelled us to take a resolute measure as regards the issue of our people’s visit to South Korea fraught with the danger of openly infringing upon the security and the dignity of fellow countrymen in the North, the issue of sending our players’ team and supporters’ group to the Daegu Universiade at present.”

The news of the potential boycott came four days before the Games were set to begin, but South Korea apologized two days later and the North withdrew its threat. North Korea boycotted the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games, and had, according to that Korea Scope article

rejected all of Seoul’s proposals for the North’s participation in international games hosted by South Korea such as the Seoul Asian Games in 1986, the Summer Olympic Games in 1988, the Busan East Asian Games in 1997 and the Kangwon Asian Winter Games in 1999, among other events. The North’s participation in the Busan Asian Games was the results of the South’s two-year efforts to persuade the North Koreans to take part in the games.

The blog Korean Unification Studies has a list of times where North and South have competed together under the same flag. The North's decision to participate in the Games cheered a lot of people up in Daegu. An official for the Taegu Summer Univeriade Organizing Committee was quoted in a Yonhap report saying:

"We had a depressed atmosphere here due to the subway arson attack but the decision by North Korea to dispatch a large delegation to the Taegu Summer Universiade and active promotion campaigns by the city council and administration officials have been heating up the atmosphere."

Right before the games security was tight. South Korean authorities were already on alert, distributing pamphlets on airport and seaport safety, and slightly restricting flights over Daegu, Gumi, and Yecheon during the games. The U.S. warned of possible attacks that would coincide with the anniversary of 9/11. In fact South Korea was warned of a possible terrorist attack during the games, according to Yonhap:

Security authorities were alerted against chemical weapons terrorist attack during the Taegu Universiade from an intelligence tip that the game sites were among possible targets by Islamic extremist groups, the Environment Ministry said Thursday [21 August]. Security surveillance has been intensified around North Korean team accommodation facilities, especially against suspicious substances.

Police have also bolstered their surveillance around game venues, restricting passage of dangerous material within 5 km of the venues. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) has received information from foreign sources that the Universiade is included in the list of possible attack targets, ministry officials said citing recently received document from the NIS.

But apparently the Games got off to a good start. From an understated Yonhap piece on the opening ceremony:

. . . [A]t 7.50 p.m. [local time], some 50 minutes after Ghana had led the procession of teams into the Taegu arena, hearts and voices were lifted skywards in unison with the sight of the blue and white Korean Peninsula flag fluttering in the Taegu night air. With flag bearers Choi Tae-woong and Kim Hye-yong leading the way, the young athletes must have been well aware they were representing not only the sporting hopes of the two Koreas, but also the dreams for peace, reconciliation and unification of a divided people.

The protests weren't confined to the August 15th Liberation Day holiday, but continued throughout the Univeriade. From an August 24th report:

North Korean reporters clashed Sunday [24 August] with a group of protesters demanding Pyongyang improve its human rights record in front of the Universiade Media Centre (UMC) in Taegu.

The reporters were returning to the UMC after covering North Korean athletes competing in the archery and diving events of the Taegu Summer Universiade when scores of ralliers raised placards saying, "Bring Down (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il and Save North Korean Residents", witnesses said.

The North Korean reporters initially asked the demonstrators to get rid of the placards before moving inside the UMC.

Minutes later, however, several of the journalists re-emerged from the centre and struggled with the protesters to try to remove the placards, according to the witnesses.

Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor noted for his efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the North, was pushed to the ground during the fracas, a witness said.

Shin Hye-sik, president of Internet newspaper "independent.co.kr" who took part in the rally, said, "Vollertsen, who was taking part in the rally with damaged feet, collapsed when a North Korean reporter hit him."

North Korea's KCNA has a slightly different take:

rowdyism was kicked up in Taegu where the 22nd universiade is under way. At least 100 members of the ultra right reactionary conservative organizations of South Korea including the South Korean netizen Solidarity for Democracy and the Youth Committee for Solidarity with Citizens for Freedom on 24 August staged such rowdyism as defiling the dignity and system of the DPRK and assaulting reporters from the North in front of the press centre in Taegu.

This rash act was kicked up again in South Korea in the wake of the frantic racket reported on the 15 August Liberation Day when the spirit of national reconciliation and unity and peaceful reunification for the implementation of the 15 June Joint Declaration is running high across Korea and the inter-Korean cooperation and exchange are brisk as evidenced by the joint march of the groups of the North and the South at an international sports function with the Korean Peninsula flag in the van[guard]. This is an open challenge to the will of the fellow countrymen for reunification.

Haha, interesting use of the passive voice in that first line. You can find a list of other statements made around that time here, and can get to other dates by playing with the numbers in the URL. There's a release available here, and I can't tell but looks like a different translation of the same one I just quoted. Its language is a bit more colorful. An excerpt:

This incident is through and through an intolerable criminal manoeuvre by heinous nation-sellers and human trash, who do not welcome the nation's reconciliation and unity, and is nothing but a desperate worthless rash act by those who are on the verge of death for being driven out in the great flow of the nation's history, which is moving towards the fatherland's reunification under the banner of the 15 June Joint Declaration.

Damn. It concludes with:

In this land, which is turning into a confrontation arena where personal security is seriously threatened because the Republic flags worn on the chests of our members and their clothes were torn by South Korean ultra-rightist groups and slogans calling on compatriots to topple their compatriots are shouted, it is very obvious that we cannot participate in the games without worries.

The South side should take due responsibility for this incident, immediately punish the leaders, apologize to us, and guarantee that such incidents will not recur.

We will watch the South-side authorities' attitude.

The South apparently did apologize, or "express regret" rather, and the North was placated long enough to not walk fly back home. Yonhap tells us:

North Korea's delegation to the 2003 Taegu Universiade said Wednesday [27 August] it will continue to take part in the sporting event despite the sporadic anti-Pyongyang rallies it said have seriously undermined inter-Korean relations.

In a press conference held at the Universiade Media Centre (UMC) here, Jon Guk-man, North Korea's chief delegate to the Taegu Universiade, said, "We have decided to continue to take part in the remainder of the Taegu Universiade because the South Korean authorities expressed regret, which clearly amounts to an apology, and pledged to prevent a recurrence (of the clash involving North Korean reporters and anti-Pyongyang ralliers in front of the UMC last Sunday).

"Our decision to continue to participate in the Taegu Universiade was made out of respect for the noble ideals of the ongoing sporting event and appreciate the brotherly love of most South Korean people and Taegu citizens," Jon said.

The North Korean official, however, warned right-wing forces in the South not to commit provocative acts that could hinder the progress towards national reconciliation and reunification.

Jon's remarks were in contrast to his statement the previous day in which he reiterated a threat to withdraw from the Taegu Universiade if South Korea fails to apologize for the recent incident and take measures to prevent future anti-Pyongyang rallies.

On August 28th an attempt to burn a North Korean flag in downtown Seoul was foiled by police. Said one of the participants:

“We were trying to protest against the North Korean journalists who committed acts of terror against South Korean citizens.”

Perhaps the aggressive tone towards the North and towards the South's toadyism in 2003 is a trait unique to the Joongang Ilbo, and to a lesser extent the Chosun Ilbo, or perhaps they were borne out of tense times between the two Koreas, but nevertheless I was surprised to read rather harsh words printed in that paper the week after the Games wrapped up. I'm not sure we would find such language in the papers today. Here is an excerpt of an editorial from "a former director-general of the South-North Dialogue Office at the Unification Ministry":

. . . [A]t the Daegu Universiade, North Koreans not only picked a quarrel about the behavior of South Korean citizens who exercised their freedom of expression within the lawful limits of the South Korean system, but they also showed a propensity to use violence themselves.
One of the “rules” which has been followed in the interactions between the two Koreas is “to follow the other’s guidance and order in the other’s region.” That means “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
Nevertheless, the Roh Moo-hyun administration, far from censuring the North Korean team who followed Pyeongyang’s law in Seoul, blamed and regulated its own citizens.
And the government, from Mr. Roh to the culture and tourism minister and the mayor of Daegu, was intent on “apologizing” to the North Koreans.
This country must be going really wrong. Doesn’t this government have a backbone? We note the fable that an anchovy does not marry an octopus, which has no spine.

A September 2, 2003 editorial titled "No place for politics in sports" criticizes the nationalism that enshrouded the games, making the assembly of 174 nations seem like a cross-border intramural tournament. An excerpt:

The 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu, where young athletes from 174 countries around the world forged friendship and harmony, has ended. The event, supposedly a festival for world university students, was operated and reported as if the games were a celebration for the two Koreas only. That was not a mature or appropriate practice and we should learn a lesson from that.
The two Koreas marched together for the opening ceremony, following the precedents of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the Busan Asian Games last year and the Aomori Winter Asian Games early this year. That heightened the expectation that the two Koreas would march together again and form a unified team for the Athens Olympic Games next year. It was encouraging that the two Koreas affirmed their reconciliation, cooperation, trust and friendship through sports. But outside the sports arena, the North threatened to boycott the games after some South Korean activists burned its flag. It is regrettable that politics overwhelmed the sports festival.
Moreover, the media and citizens focused their attention on the two Koreas, particularly the beautiful North Korean cheerleaders, instead of emphasizing the sports event itself, making the games look like a domestic festival. The two Koreas should reconsider their behavior in creating such an atmosphere, which was inappropriate for a world festival.

A blogger wrote pretty much the same thing regarding the coverage of the North Korean women in 2002 and 2003.

I remember when I was living in Seoul the Asian Games were held in Busan, and then the Universidad games in Taegu. I remember that for both these games, the biggest hits were the North Korean cheerleaders. They were extremely good looking girls that came cheering for their team, with DPRK and Korean unification flags. In fact, much more airtime and newstime was spent on them than the rest of the games. And not without reason: they were sweet cheery nice girls from North Korea. When they weren't performing their cheers ("Skill! Technique! Focus!") they were staying at a hotel off-limits to anyone else (many young guys would drive up there to meet them and get turned away).

North Korean cheerleaders in Busan (I think).

There is a lengthy piece on the North Korean cheerleaders here. It begins:

“They’re so beautiful!” cried Yang Hyeon-jeong, a 25-year-old volunteer at the Summer Universiade Daegu 2003, as a bus filled with North Korean cheerleaders prepared to depart.
Using a camera phone, Ms. Yang took a picture of two of the girls sitting on the bus. Then she held the phone up to the window so the cheerleaders could see their picture.
The North Koreans looked at the image with apparent amazement. They nudged a friend so she could see it too.
“Look how flawless their skin is!” cried Ms. Yang’s friend Lee Hae-shin, 21, also a volunteer.
The South Korean girls jumped up and down with joy, making the universal sign of love, putting their hands over their head and shouting, “Saranghaeyo” (“I love you”).

And continues:

That squad took the South by surprise. These were not the dark-skinned, malnourished-looking women often shown in TV news stories about North Koreans in Pyeongyang. Instead, plump, smiling, timid, fair-skinned girls walked into the public’s heart.
Before long, some of the cheerleaders had their own fan clubs in the South. One, Ri You-kyeong, still has a fan club at Daum, an online community.

There was also an interesting write-ups in the Washington Post and a smaller one in New York Times. From a September 9, 2003 Washington Post article:

Since the squad’s arrival here at the 22nd annual Universiade games, an 11-day sports competition that ended Aug. 31, the well-scripted women have become South Korea’s unlikely sweethearts—and a symbol of the South’s recent embrace of its old enemy. Even as North Korea squared off in a six-nation summit over its nuclear weapons program in Beijing last month, the cheerleaders, gushing with expressions of love for their dear leader, Kim Jong Il, were winning the admiration of millions here through poignant TV coverage and adoring newspaper headlines. Smitten South Koreans traveled hundreds of miles to offer roses and serenades to the Beauties from the North, as one headline called them.

The Joongang Ilbo piece I quoted a few paragraphs above concludes:

Not everyone in South Korea has been charmed by the cheerleaders.
“It was great, at first,” said Park Jin-suk, 25, a viola player for the Daegu Philharmonic Orchestra, which performed for the North Koreans during Saturday’s luncheon. But she added, “They were very different from us.”
How so? “They seemed to be trained,” Ms. Park said, with a tone of uncertainty. “The North Koreans’ movement seemed awkward and artificial, as if they’d been heavily trained.”
“They’re pretty, but their looks seem to be artificially made,” said Shin Gyu-beom, a 22-year-old police officer assigned to guard the squad. “They don’t seem to have any individual movement of their own.”
If the two Koreas reunify, Mr. Shin said firmly, he doesn’t want a North Korean girlfriend.

Getting a little ahead of ourselves, I came across a Japundit post from 2005 that says while these women are quite popular throughout Asia, some worry that impressionable young South Koreans may be mesmerized and influenced by these Northern Beauties (duh).

I'm not swept up in the love affair with North Korean women, and because of their hollow movements and vacant, lifeless smiles, I place such feelings of lust just a touch above necrophelia. Maybe that's an insensitive analogy, since some North Korean cheerleaders did end up in prison camps in 2006, reportedly for talking about what they saw while touring the South on three different occassions. While the media doesn't seem to know for sure why the twenty-one women were arrested, the Chosun Ilbo reports on some testimony from a defector:

Another defector explained the cheerleaders are picked among university students, propaganda squad members and music school students from good families. Before they were sent to South Korea, they had to sign a pledge bearing their 10 fingerprints that says if they are going to an enemy country -- Pyongyang’s epithet for the South -- they must fight as soldiers of leader Kim Jong-il and never talk about what they have seen or heard in South Korea once they return. They agree to accept punishment if they break the promise.

So bitterly ironic. Representing at one time the simplistic, beautiful utopia many South Koreans imagine to exist, and later falling victim to the country's harsh reality. I like how commenter "slim" summed things up on a One Free Korea post from 2006:

I was in Pusan in 2002 and the striking thing for me is how the Korean press and public were affixed on the women, while Western reporters focused on the cage.

Those who aren't locked up will be forming a single cheerleading team with South Korean cheerleaders for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but they won't be---in a strange choice of words---"unifying the dormitories." There are a couple other stories that didn't fit in anywhere else up there, such as this one on the disappearance of Nepalese runner Alisha Awal in the middle of the Games. According to Yonhap:

Police assume the 21-year-old athlete has contacted her boyfriend, Siraram Chaudary, who fled the athletes' village in similar circumstances during last year's Asian Games held in the southeastern port city of Pusan.

Also, looks like an Iranian Taekwondo athlete lost his medal to a South Korean guy over some bad officiating. And, another story that I can't fit anywhere else happened in Japan.

Tensions are rising across Japan before the scheduled docking of a controversial North Korean ferry (Monday) at the northern Japanese coastal city of Niigata. Steven Shayman in Tokyo reports that Japanese police have defused two bombs planted by suspected rightists near a North Korean-linked bank and a building of a pro-Pyongyang residents' group in the western Japanese city of Fukuoka.

More from the New York Times and the BBC.

And, while all this brouhaha was happening in South Korea, a group of 256 Jeju residents made a visit North bringing gifts of carrots and tangerines.

And this doesn't really fit the general trajectory of the post and with the Universiade, but on the topic of "North Korea's living exports" and North Korean women, I was reminded of the series cell phone commercials a few years back with Lee Hyori and North Korean dancer Cho Myong-ae. There is one commercial on youtube here. Googling around I see Cho also participated in a cross-country drama called "Sayuksin." There's an article here from the Korea Times, and I would make a joke about "all look same" but I don't think you'd find it funny, so I won't.

Epilogue: Matt pointed out in his comment something I'm frequently guilty of, the tendency to ramble on to no point and to forget what I was talking or writing about when I started. He suggested I put together a concluding paragraph to tie things together, and I'm a little embarrassed to say that the articles themselves were kinda the point. After I came across that Marmot's Hole post I started googling around to find other accounts of the story, but instead found many articles talking about palpable tension between the North and South. I found them interesting mostly because I had never paid attention to the Universiade before, and wouldn't have even heard of it at all if Gwangju weren't trying to host it and if stories about it didn't pop into my news feed. Now, I think there are several issues here that could be fleshed out into huge posts, if not chapters, by more able writers: the cheerleaders, for example, or why President Roh "apologized," why---or why not---it was necessary, expected, or typical. If I can think of a better conclusion I'll add it.

I suppose the point of this post, long-winded as it was, was to talk a little about what happened when the Universiade was last here, since I wonder how many people in the area even know what Universiade is. Personally I don't care too much about those Games, and I don't pay attention to college sports that aren't played on a gridiron on Saturday afternoon. Am I suggesting those conflicts will happen again? No, and I'm not trying to compare those demonstrations to, say, what I saw in Gwangju last weekend. I guess "그냥" is a bad answer to people who spent a long time scrolling through this, but I just thought the topic was kind of interesting.