I wanted to post kind of a happy diary. I assume more than a few have heard that a few months ago the New York City Philharmonic played in North Korea, at the request of the government of NK.
Well tonight CNN ran one of their hour long Special Investigations with Christiana Amanpour reporting (they need to do more of them) from NK. Follow me below for more and a little nice music on a Saturday night.
It should be noted the hour long CNN special seemed pretty even handed. It covered NK's nuclear program, including a visit to the nuclear plant we hear about so much. The plight of the people. The history of the government, with great interview footage with Madeline Albright, Bush officials (who seemed sane BTW!), and more.
But the core of the show, what Amanpour comes back to again and again is the cultural exchange.
The importance of music in NK is talked about in detail. Including interviews with several world class NK classical musicians that defected or were tortured for years. Cause in NK you can only sing about the "leader" or the importance of communism. It is better of course if you sing about both.
Albright has a great, if not sad quote here, about the "state" performance I think most of us might have seen during her visit when 100,000 people danced in perfect unison for her. "Only a dictator can make a 100,000 people dance in unison."
But we had that exchange. And cultural exchanges are important. I won't continue the story to long, but when I was the head of a journalism grad school student association in 1991 we had a group from Russia attend.
They were trying to open up. They had a "minder," although more of a tourist guide then what NK had to say the least.
And as I talked with people, one a former submariner, when he learned my father was a high level DoD official he said something to me like, "we never wanted to fight you, never. We just wanted to live our lives. We thought you wanted to conquer and control us." When I said we also thought the same there were both tears, hugs, and some shots of Russian vodka they had brought with them (wow that was nasty stuff).
So on to the music. Of course the NY Philharmonic rocks. It is worth it just for their music. And if you have time, find this CNN show.
I should also mention, which you don't see in the above, the NY Philharmonic played both the NK national anthem and the United States to open the show. They closed the show with Gershwin's an American in Paris, with the note maybe at sometime in the future somebody can write an American in Pyongyang. More cultural exchanges can't be a bad thing.
