In 1979, an opportunity came up to enter the Korean People's Republic. The World Table Tennis Championships were scheduled to be held that year in Pyongyang.
The North Koreans, though reluctant to open their borders, could not hold the event without letting in the world's table tennis players, their managers, coaches and — horror of horrors — Western journalists.
That is how I suddenly became Assistant Coach to the Finnish table tennis team, just as Ian Wooldridge simultaneously became the Table Tennis correspondent of the Daily Mail.
My Finnish friends were only too delighted to join in this mild conspiracy and various other British and Western European individuals who had never seen a table tennis ball smashed in anger in their entire lives, penetrated Kim Il Sung's steely borders under the guise of similar subterfuges.
Amidst the ubiquitous cultural idiosyncrasies and anomalies of our North Korean experience, the staging of the table tennis events progressed with some normality: one acceded to a world of sporting sanity each time one entered the stadium. In a way, the table tennis matches provided lucid intervals between the sessions of doctrinal conditioning that we experienced outside.
And yet it was a scene in the stadium which, in the end, provided us with the deepest insight into North Korean behaviour and organisation. North Korea had a good table tennis team. They did quite well in these championships, though their best chances for medals lay in the individual events. They had two strong men in the Singles, while Li Song Suk, their star female player, was fully expected to win the Women's Singles.
The stadium was packed each evening by Koreans, most of them drafted in from the countryside to give maximum support to their stars. They did not seem to understand the game, but they applauded vociferously as each Korean player won a point and hissed loudly when an opponent scored. This behaviour put us all off at first, but we got used to it and put it down to partisan enthusiasm. We had seen similar crowd comportment in Yugoslavia. The two Korean male stars were knocked out in the quarter-finals, but the brilliant, scowling Suk got through round after round in convincing fashion and eventually made the final of the Women's Singles.
The Finals, for men and women, were due to be played on the last Saturday. There was not a single seat vacant in the stadium — the crowd was more than 90 per cent Korean. The prospect of a Suk victory — and a gold medal — had raised Rent-a-crowd's expectancy to fanatical heights. The rustic masses waited impatiently as the Women's Doubles, Men's Doubles and Mixed Doubles finals were played. There were no Korean participants. The last two finals scheduled were the Women's Singles and, of course, the Men's Singles.
There was a great hush as Suk took the table against a Chinese opponent. Suk was a sturdy figure, rather tall for an oriental, with long, black hair, fine wide cheek-bones and a perennially frowning expression. The Chinese girl, by contrast, was diminutive, dumpy and bespectacled. The stage was set for the JUCHE heroine, who won her first game comfortably. The crowd nearly raised the roof off. The Chinese girl, amid great hissing, unexpectedly won the second game. The crowd went deathly quiet as the Chinese led throughout the third and decisive game. Suk, though attacking brilliantly, was off her timing. Time and again she stamped her foot in rage as smashes missed the table. She lost.
The Chinese victor went up to the umpire for the usual handshake. Her coaches rushed to congratulate her. All Korean eyes were on Suk, who, hanging her head and ignoring her coach, walked slowly out of the arena. A new umpire arrived to take the Men's Final, which was to follow immediately. And then a strange thing happened.
As Suk exited, the entire crowd rose quickly and evenly to its feet and vacated the stadium. One moment we were 5,000 spectators, the next we were 300 foreigners. I had never witnessed anything like it at any sporting event that I had attended. Sports journalists of 40 years' experience said the same thing. Seichi Ono of Japan and Guo Yuehua of the People's Republic of China played the Men's Finals of the Pyongyang World Table Tennis Championships of 1979 to an empty stadium. It was exciting in the extreme, with Guo three times falling on the floor with violent stomach cramps and Ono eventually triumphing to end 12 years Chinese domination in the event. Not one Korean was there to see it.
Richard Lewis | Business Insider
No comments:
Post a Comment