Record US$2.5 million bill for North Korean cheering girls and orchestra at Winter Olympics
It is the most the South has allotted to pay for more than 400 people from across the border, only 22 of whom are athletes
How much was it worth to Seoul for hundreds of North Koreans to attend the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics? Try US$2.5 million.
According to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, that is the record amount the country has allotted to pay the bills of more than 400 North Koreans, only 22 of whom were athletes, at the Pyeongchang Games.
The North’s performers – a 140-member orchestra with vocalists and dancers, an all-female 229-member cheering squad and a demonstration taekwondo team – have been a major attraction at and around the Games. That is both because their presence itself is seen as a sign of eased tensions after a very rough year and because of the exotic appeal they have because of the general isolation of their country.
The cheerleaders have been an especially big hit and an unmistakable part of every event they have attended – though their cheers usually have little connection to the action on the ice or snow.
It may seem odd or even self-defeating for the South to pay Pyongyang to send delegations that are heavy on propaganda vehicles like cheering squads or artistic troupes and light on athletes. In recent years, though, it has become something of a given.The North has sent big delegations similar to the one now stealing the off-competition spotlight at Pyeongchang three times before.