Looking Strangely at Haram Ggun

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In the middle of a busy shopping street in Seoul, a flock of people wearing masks appear. One is that of Kim Jong Il. Soon the other, white-masked men start dancing upon the command of the strange ‘Kim Jong Il’. The white-masked men dance reluctantly at first, but then one of them picks up a nuclear missile and threatens to attack the people standing nearby. Then suddenly, and apparently without knowing what they are doing, they collapse to the floor on the command of ‘Kim Jong Il’.

As the performance comes to an end, the audience of Koreans and foreigners applauds. These people are ‘Haram Ggun’. ‘Haram Ggun’ has been performing this dance show designed to criticize the North Korean regime, its nuclear weapons and its succession, in various places in Seoul since 2010.

[imText2]After the performance ends, 30-year old group leader Lim Byong Doo explains to Daily NK, Our performance is designed to criticize the nuclear weapons and 3rd generation succession of North Korea. We hope that our performance will help draw more attention to the problem of North Korea and unification.”

Lim says it all started because he was looking for a way to get a younger generation which doesn’t tend to care about social issues to take an interest in something, so came up with the team ‘Haram Ggun’.” ‘Haram Ggun’ does performances on a number of social issues besides North Korea.

“I wanted to be an artist able to communicate with the community on social issues, and particularly the North Korean human rights problem is something I am very interested in,” he adds.

However, he says, “Some people look at you very strangely if you tell them of your interest in North Korea. We started our performances mainly to talk about the severity of human rights abuses in North Korea but because of the people who look at us strangely we are now working even harder.”

“We think to ourselves, ‘Why are people not interested in Unification?’ We are hoping that our performance will raise awareness of this issue.”
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Lim even expressed the concern that more foreigners might know about Kim Jong Il than South Koreans, saying, “It is embarrassing that someone like Kim Jong Il is widely known in the international community, more than the greatest heroes in South Korean history like Admiral Yi Sun Shin and King Sejong.”

‘Haram Ggun’ will perform at Cheonggye Plaza on the 10th to commemorate the arrival of the ‘Rescue the Daughter of Tongyeong’ march in Seoul.