Cancelled band appearances offer a glimpse into the terrifying realities of a Socialist Dictatorship.
According to the Huffington Post, Kim Jong Un has cancelled the much anticipated Chinese leg of his Moranbong Band tour. Mystery still surrounds the last minute cancellation. It’s not known whether it was because rumors were circulating that Kim was having an affair with one of the singers, or because China refused to provide a bowl of brown M&Ms backstage.
The North’s decision to cancel the concerts might have been related to stories circulated by the South Korean media about a rumored past relationship between the married Kim and a female member of the band, which also made rounds on Chinese social media, said Yang Moo-jin, a North Korea expert at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Here in America, it’s pretty much expected at least one of the members of a girl band would be sleeping with the producer (it’s even expected with some boy bands). However, in North Korea, it’s a scandal, perhaps because it makes Dear Leader appear too Western.
In my opinion there is another reason why the show might have been cancelled: Defection. For the same reason Cuba never wanted to send its National Baseball team to the United States, bringing a couple dozen attractive young women to a Nation where population control has created a scarcity of females, combined with new economic policies that are creating a billionaire every week, is a temptation too great. It would be like asking a Fraternity house to store your collection of rare 100 year old bourbon. Kim might find by the end of the tour, the act had become the Moranbong Girl.
After reading the story, curiosity got the best of me, and I spent an hour or so watching their videos. The songs all pretty much sound the same, and the titles are exactly what you would expect in a centrally planned society: Let’s Study, Let’s Support Our Supreme Commander with Arms, Our Country Is the Best, and Our Beloved Leader. The singing numbers look a lot like those groups from the Seventies, when Lawrence Welk was still on the air, that would tour around the country singing patriotic songs with a positive message. I would suggest that some American pop stars, who’ve had flirtations with Marxism, watch these videos very closely to see what rock and roll looks like in a Communist Utopia.
This one was my favorite: Without a Break. While there is something incredibly comical about the squat leader of North Korea producing a musical act, there is also something really creepy about this performance. The strange snowmen on the sides of the stage, the audience in identical suits clapping in perfect rhythm; the cheering every time a picture of the Dear Leader or artillery pops up on the back stage screen; The forced smiles on the performers. You just know that everyone in that room has been forced there under the penalty of death (or worse). It has happened in the past:
The reports in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper indicate that Hyon, a singer with the Unhasu Orchestra, was among those arrested on August 17 for violating domestic laws on pornography.
All 12 were machine-gunned three days later, with other members of North Korea’s most famous pop groups and their immediate families forced to watch. The onlookers were then sent to prison camps, victims of the regime’s assumption of guilt by association, the reports stated. (fullstory)
The band sounds pretty much like popular American Christmastime acts like the Mannheim Steamroller or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I’m guessing the snowmen on the sides of the stage indicate that this would be their Christmas concert, if Christmas were allowed to be celebrated in North Korea. Even funnier to me: they kind of resemble Kim. I can’t help but wonder if the stage craftsman who built those snowmen knew that. If he did, it was quite a bold revolutionary act. Imagine being put to death for building a snowman.
Elsa and Anna would be aghast.