N. KOREA ‘ARMY OF BEAUTIES’ SET TO INVADE SOUTH

Cherry-picked by Pyongyang, young cheerleaders a major ticket draw

WITH their good looks and sharp moves, North Korea’s female cheerleaders are a marked contrast to the regime’s menacing nuclear ambitions.

Dubbed the “army of beauties” in South Korea, the young North Korean women, mostly in their late teens or early 20s, have attracted huge publicity whenever they have been sent to the South.

North Korean leader Kim Jongun’s future wife Ri Sol-ju was among the group who attended the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon.

The cheerleaders are set for their fourth appearance in the South after Pyongyang agreed this week to send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, 80km south of the Demilitarised Zone.

Any North Korean delegations to its neighbour are carefully chosen by Pyongyang, and their movements are tightly controlled in the South.

An Chan-il, a defector researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, said the cheerleaders were cherry-picked by the regime based on tough criteria.

“They must be over 163cm tall and come from good families. Those who play an instrument are from a band and others are mostly students at the elite Kim Il-sung University.”

The Koreas’ separation makes citizens of the North an object of some fascination for Southerners.

The cheerleaders made their first appearance at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, hitting the headlines when nearly 300 of them arrived on a ferry dressed in colourful hanboks and waving so-called unification flags, a pale blue silhouette of the Korean peninsula.

With their tight choreography, sometimes using props such as fans, the cheerleaders were lavished with attention as they sang and danced in the stands.

In 2005, former North Korean cheerleader Cho Myung-ae, whose good looks had gained her a huge following in the South, appeared in a television commercial for a Samsung mobile phone with South Korean pop star Lee Hyori.

The supporters have always proven to be a major ticket draw, and their attendance is good news for the Pyeongchang Games organisers.

“It will help with ticket sales,” said Pyeongchang Organising Committee spokesman Sung Baik-you.

“It will fulfil our desires for a peace Olympics.” AFP

AFP PIC North Korean cheerleaders waving during the women’s football match between North Korea and Germany in Gimcheon Stadium in South Korea in August 2003.