North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was “deeply moved” after watching a two-hour concert in Pyongyang with South Korean performers playing the music that is banned in North Korea.
It might be a diplomatic breakthrough: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un admitted this week that he likes K-pop music, saying he was “deeply moved” after watching a two-hour concert with South Korean performers in Pyongyang.
That’s no idle comment. K-pop and other South Korean entertainment, including its popular soap operas, are banned in North Korea. People have been imprisoned for watching or listening to it.
The concert was the latest in a series of diplomatic moves designed to ease tensions in the weeks leading up to a possible summit between President Trump and Kim. It was partly in response to North Korea’s dispatching of its highly regimented cheerleaders, the so-called army of beauties, to the Olympics in South Korea in February.
But K-pop, with its highly choreographed dancing and slickly produced videos, has been a powerful diplomatic weapon in its own right. South Korea has frequently blasted the music across the demilitarized zone in an effort to entice soldiers from the North to defect.
On occasion the siren song has worked. A North Korean soldier who dashed across the DMZ last year and was shot five times by his fellow troops asked to listen to K-pop girl bands while he was recovering in the hospital.
“A lot of North Koreans are secretly fans of K-pop,” said Euny Hong, journalist and author of The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World through Pop Culture.
The concert Kim enjoyed Sunday featured popular girl band Red Velvet and singer Cho Yong Pil. Kim and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, clapped along with the music, and Kim later posed for pictures with the artists backstage.
Experts remain wary Kim’s enthusiasm signals a change of heart and say it is unlikely Kim would ease those and other restrictions.
