News Features

Photos: North Korea's surreal Mass Games

While everyone else watches the Olympics, Asia's weirdest sporting event transpires in the world's most secretive country

By MICHAEL GAO | September 8, 2008

080808_NK5
Photo by Michael Gao

The backdrop of the Games, held in Pyongyang's 150,000-seater Rungrado May Day Stadium, takes the form of a huge and ever-changing mosaic. It covers one entire side of the venue and is created by 20,000 children flipping through the coded and coloured pages of pre-prepared books. Their heads peering over the top, they react in unison to the flag-waving commands of more than a dozen backdrop conductors. Koreans claim the mosaic it to be the largest work of art ever created.

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There is very little new in N.C. Heikin's documentary attack on North Korea's endless dictatorship that hasn't been seen or heard before.
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