Cars, houses, heroes: North Koreans win hearts at Asian Games

Yahoo – AFP, Daniel HICKS, Aug 28, 2018

The North Koreans were joined by the South Korean weightlifting team to celebrate
 the end of the competition with an unprecedented joint team photo.  (AFP Photo/
CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN)

North Korea's athletes are not only scooping record numbers of medals at the Asian Games, they are winning hearts with an unprecedented charm offensive and will go home as heroes -- rewarded with new cars and houses.

At the weightlifting competition which concluded Monday with an eighth gold -- smashing North Korea's previous best of four in 2014 -- the team's attitude has been the polar opposite from Incheon four years ago.

There, every medallist trotted out a well-worn script of thanking leader Kim Jong Un for his inspiration to reporters before being whisked away.

But over eight days at the Jakarta International Expo their athletes have gone off-piste to talk frankly about their nerves, fears, emotions and life back home while mingling freely with spectators and reporters.

They even were joined by the South Korean weightlifting team to celebrate the end of the competition with an unprecedented joint team photo.

"I think we have shown the world that the people of Korea are the greatest as one," +75kg winner Kim Kuk Hyang told AFP after posing with her South Korean counterparts, an astonishing statement from a North Korean given that the two countries have technically remained at war for the past 65 years.

Then she was off to grab tiny 4ft 7in (140cm) Ri Song Gum, the 48kg class gold medallist, and carry her aloft around the stage with the pair laughing, joking and punching the air.

Little and large: Kim Kuk Hyang carries Ri Song Gum around as North Korea 

celebrated their record weightlifting haul (AFP Photo/CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN)

Selfies and smiles

Hardly a single request for a selfie by a fan or Games volunteer has been turned down -- most have been accommodated with huge smiles. At the 2014 Asian Games none was entertained.

The shackles are off, athletes are revelling and happy to reveal their personal stories for the first time.

Om Yun Chol even thanked South Koreans for helping him to win 56kg men's gold.

"The passionate support from the South Korean cheerleading squad is my source of great strength," he said while posing for pictures.

Was this really the same man who four years earlier had thanked leader Kim for teaching him how to "crack a rock with an egg"?

O Kang Chol cried buckets for his dead mother after his maiden gold medal in the men's 69kg.

It was a touching moment as he mourned his mum who passed away earlier this year and whose ambition had been to see him win a first title.

Gold medallist O Kang Chol of North Korea celebrates during the victory ceremony 

of the men's 69kg weightlifting event  during the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta 

on August 22, 2018. (AFP Photo/MONEY SHARMA)

"I will visit mother's grave and give her this gold medal," he told reporters, still weeping and unabashed at baring his grief -- a huge contrast to the robotic strongmen and women paraded at previous championships.

It is an eye-opening change, which appears to have gone hand-in-hand with the thawing of global diplomatic relations culminating in the historic summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.

South Korean observers have been taken aback. "We have never see the North Koreans like this," Yonhap news agency reporter Joo Kyung-don told AFP.

The new open attitude appears to have been encouraged right from the top.

North Korean Sports Minister Kim Il Guk, one of Kim Jong Un's right-hand men, was in attendance Sunday and giving his blessing to team officials spilling the beans on previously taboo topics.

'They are not scary'

"The weightlifting champions who raise the country's honour will be rewarded with a new house and a new car," head coach Kim Kwang Dok told AFP, for the first time confirming something that had long been suspected in the secretive nation -- that sporting glory is a way out of grinding poverty.

"Our athletes will get national hero status once they return and will get big attention from our people. Everyone will be proud."

It is not just at the weightlifting arena that heads have been turning and relationships opening up.

The two Koreas marched together at the opening ceremony, fielded a joint team in women's basketball and so far have won a historic gold and two bronzes in dragon boating.

North Korean team members mingle with the public in the stands at the Jakarta 

International Expo during the Asian Games weightlifting (AFP Photo/CHAIDEER

MAHYUDDIN)

"They are not scary or anything like portrayed on the internet," South Korea basketball player Kim Han-byul said. "It's been the normal girl talk with them."

Weightlifting sisters Rim Un Sim and Rim Jong Sim tenderly cried tears of joy at each other's success as they pulled off a golden double and said they couldn't wait to get home to show off their medals to their family.

Rim Jong Sim was one who did remember, albeit briefly, to thank Kim Jong Un. "This gold medal isn't for me, but it's for my country and our supreme leader," she said.

But such expressions were few and far between and her sister had soon changed the subject.

"I can't describe how happy I am," Rim Un Sim said. "We competed together and won medals at the university championship last year, but this is the Asian Games."

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Science & Spiritually Conference 2018, BC – Canada (4), June 16-17, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Predictions - Text version) - New 

"The second thing I told you about was this: There's a 50% chance that the new leader of North Korea, the son, would not follow in the footsteps of his father. I told you there was a 50% chance of this. Then I started itemizing the reasoning why this might make sense, especially to the Korean leader. I then told you it might take a long time if it manifested at all. I told you the problems would be within the old advisors for his father's family. He had to tread slowly and lightly to do something against all odds. This will all come out someday because of the handshake.

Here was the potential or the prediction of what might happen: Those who had the machine guns in the DM zone would drop them, because this North Korean leader would unify the two Koreas. There would be no nuclear weapons in his land and there would be the beginning of abundance for his people. His people and the world would then give him something he had always wanted and was imbued with from birth - the desire for accolades and more accolades. Like his father before him, he was the premier egotist, and this would be the unexpected way to create a world at his feet. That's what I said. Then I said, "Watch for it, but don't be anxious." I talked about that in 2013, and five more times since then. In August 2017, I itemized my advice for him, point by point. The advice that I gave followed the potentials that were there and those were the very points in the handshake this week in June of 2018.

Now, you tell me what happened. "Kryon, you're going to be famous because you predicted these things!" Dear ones, all I did was look into a field that is being shown to you today [by the scientists at the conference]. And all I did was to show you the potentials that were already there. In other words, he was thinking about these things and talking to others behind the scenes about them. No matter what his advisors told him right up to the brink of sending his missiles, he was always thinking that there might be another way that would gain him ultimate fame. Dear ones, this has been in progress since his father died! Therefore, it was in the field, but not a given, dear ones - a potential.

Next, I want to show you the bias of humanity at this time, something I have spoken of many times. This potential of the handshake is amazing, and it has started to be manifested. What should the reaction be to something that deflects the potential of war, or saves thousands lives? Instead of joy or amazement or celebration, Humans go for the reverse: It can't happen. It's a trick. It's a bad deal.

I want you to start reading the reactions of the press. I want you to read the reactions even from the South Koreans. They said, "Well, we know North Koreans, and that's never going to happen. We know who they are, and we know their nature. Because in the past, they never performed what they said they would. So it's a joke." That is a quote from a South Korean. "It's a joke."

What happened to this comment? "Isn't this a beautiful potential? Look at this amazing thing - against all odds!" Now, your free press, the reporting segment of our culture, has decided not only to report it, but to let you know it's probably not going to happen! They say: "Nay. Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll see. We expect the worse." And this continues and continues, and all it shows you is the monstrous bias of the dark side that wants to pull anything good back to what the past gave to you."