Party cadres and the donju [new affluent middle-class] offered up hefty bribes in order to get their children exempted from the Arirang Mass Games gymnastics training sessions taking place at city and county middle schools in honor of Kim Il Sung's birthday - or 'Day of the Sun'- celebrations, Daily NK has learned.
"The gymnastics training sessions for the Mass Games began at the end of March at county and city middle schools. Students were required to gather in the gymnasium through the beginning of April for group rehearsals,” a source from North Pyongan Province said during a telephone conversation with Daily NK on the 16th. “The parents needed to purchase specials clothes, flowers, and shoes at a total cost of about 50,000 KPW [6.25 USD] for each child, which amounts to a large financial burden [especially in context of the low average salary of area families]. Even poor families who weren't able to afford the gear were not granted permission to forgo the training, while the children of donju and cadres were exempted from the training.”
Participation can be detrimental to one’s health as well. "The students who participate in the background section as card holders [the ones who flip colored tiles in synchrony to create a vast image] are forced to sit for three straight hours until the end of the training session. Some of them have contracted bladder infections,” she said. “Instead of getting the proper rest they need, they simply buy medicine from the jangmadang [markets] and continue through the pain.
According to the source, the "Day of the Sun" tradition of annual student-based Arirang Mass Games exhibitions began at Pyongyang in the 1970s. The Arirang Mass Games have been used by the regime as propaganda throughout North Korean history.
[Source: DailyNK]
