Just a few years ago, she was reportedly executed by a North Korean firing squad. Now, Pyongyang’s top pop diva is a senior ruling party official and a sur
PYONGYANG – Just a few years ago, she was reportedly executed by a North Korean firing squad. Now, Pyongyang’s top pop diva is a senior ruling party official and a surprise headliner in the run-up to the South Korean Winter Olympics.
Hyon Song Wol, the photogenic leader of Kim Jong Un’s hand-picked Moranbong Band, has made two excursions across the Demilitarized Zone as a negotiator and advance team leader working out the details of Kim’s surprise offer for the North to participate in the Pyeongchang Games.
South Korea’s media have been treating her like a true K-pop celebrity.
On Monday, as she wrapped up her latest visit and prepared to return to Pyongyang, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported a large crowd waited outside her hotel for a glimpse of her eating breakfast. Journalists, it noted, received only a “subtle smile” in response to their questions before she was whisked away with the North Korean delegation.
But not all South Koreans welcomed her or North Korea’s plan to join the games.
After a visit to the eastern city of Gangneung, Hyon was met at Seoul railway station by about 150 to 200 activists. The demonstrators later burned Kim’s photo, a North Korean flag and a “unification flag” the rival Koreas plan to carry during the opening ceremony.
North Korea is expected to send 22 athletes, a demonstration taekwondo team, several hundred members of an all-female cheering group and the 140-member Samjiyon Band to the games.
Hyon will lead the Samjiyon Band, which is made up of an orchestra with dancers and vocalists.
Hyon is no stranger to the South Korean media.
Several years ago, it was widely reported in South Korea that she had been executed in connection with a salacious sex-and-porn scandal.
