By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
North Korea presented a specially modified Arirang performance for President Roh Moo-hyun Wednesday, the second day of the 2007 South-North Korean Summit.
The president watched the 80-minute show with first lady Kwon Yang-suk and South Korean delegates at the May Day Stadium in the evening. The outdoor event was on the verge of cancellation due to rain, but was finally held as scheduled after the bad weather lifted.
There was speculation that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il might watch the show together with Roh and have a casual discussion, but Kim did not appear. Instead, Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, was with Roh during the performance.
Roh's attendance at the performance has been controversial, as the mass gymnastics show is considered propaganda-motivated. But Seoul accepted Pyongyang's proposal for the event as a token of respect.
Considering this, several parts of the large-scale Arirang performance by more than 60,000 performers at the May Day Stadium were changed for the South Korean audience with less propaganda content.
A Taekwondo demonstration substituted for scenes of North Korean soldiers' defeating South Korean and American troops.
Among the card sections, where thousands of performers simultaneously flip colored paper to form words or pictures, scenes featuring military parades and North Korea's national flag were also deleted so as not to trigger a backlash from the South.
Since its first showcase in 2002, the Arirang performance has become one of North Korea's top tourism programs. According to the North, about four million people watched the show from April 26 to Aug. 15 in 2002, and 2.5 million from Aug. 16 through Oct. 29 in 2005.
The event was not held in 2003, 2004 and 2006 due to several reasons including flooding.
In October 2000 when then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited North Korea to talk with the North's leader Kim Jong-il about issues between Pyongyang and Washington including the missiles program, the two together watched a gymnastics show named ``Invincible Workers' Party,'' a predecessor of the Arirang performance.
The performers at that time created an image of a Daepodong missile during the card section. Kim then told Albright that the missile on the cards would be the first and the last one the North would produce. After the meeting, missile program talks between the two countries saw a great improvement, and then U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Pyongyang was promoted although this eventually was not achieved.