88 MAKEUP PALETTE

Canon 50mm Tilt shift.

All over the capital, the Arirang adverts (« Grand mass gymnastic and artistic performance », « Welcome to Pyongyang » and so on) warn the profane…Between August and October, takes place one of the biggest and most impressive performances in the world. The tone is set : even the Beijing Olympics ceremony can’t compete with the mass games organized by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The show is held several times a week and welcomes tourists from all over the World, including the US, in one of the most isolated and despised country on earth. The well-called « mass games » are designed to emphasize group dynamics rather than individual performances as the supreme emblem of communism. Prepared by hundred of thousands performers all along the year, after their classes for the youngest of them, they are entirely dedicated to the NK’s leader Kim Jong Il and his deceased father Kim Il Sung, considered as the « Eternal president » and « sun of the 21st century »…


In the surroundings of Pyongyang's May Day giant Stadium, two girls are running to perform for the Arirang show. They are already dressed in their gymnastic outfits, as well as some 100,000 others who participate to the performance. They all come to honour their self-proclaimed « dear leader » Kim Jong Il, after a very hard and gruelling training, since their earliest age. Yet, it has been many years that Kim Jong Il has not shown up, formally for business reasons. But officials now admit the western medias’ assertions of illness. Anyways, Kim Jong Il or not, the mass games are held every year in Pyongyang, as a means for the regime to show to the entire world the country’s strength and good shape. To reach this sole purpose, not less than 100,000 people are involved in a choreographed show of simultaneous dancing and gymnastics. Many symbols are displayed by thousands of trained athlets, whether they are adults or even children. Hand over their heart, the young pupils sing in chorus "We are the happiest children in the world", one of the famous propaganda songs in North Korea. Many dancers make movements either with ribbons or colourful flowers named « kimjonglias » after the leader Kim Jong Il. All along the show, a live band plays a ceremonious music.

On the background, some 20,000 young koreans sit on the terraces, facing the spectators. They flip coloured cards at a high speed to form a fresco of animated and detailed images, changing from one to another. Each time they turn the page to create a new giant picture, they cry out. It creates a awe-inspiring atmosphere, as the shout is mixed with the noise of thousands of pages turned at the same moment. The figures are stunning : to compose these images, 2000 children are needed to make only one soldier, 20,000 for a north korean flag. Hiding a much more grim reality, the panels represent Pyongyang enlightened by night, wheat fields ready for harvest, scientists at work, atoms as symbols of the nuclear bomb and others for the reunification of two Koreas. One of the North Korea’s myths (history according to them) is recounted by the means of a huge image made by thousands of children. It represents the two pistols reportedly used by Kim Il Sung, when he founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army in 1932. When the pistols appear, the audience applauses loudly. Among them, many soldiers attend the show as the ultimate award after years of good and faithful service.The thousands and thousands of boys and girls involved create a giant mass movement in the stadium which leaves the public stunned. These talented performers are used to that kind of performance: in North Korea they have to dance, sing, jump and spin around as many times as there are celebrations, always in praise of their leaders. There are mainly two sorts of shows. The first one is the classical artistic show, named "Arirang" after the famous korean folk song (whose story sometimes changes, but most often recounts the legend of a disappointed woman who hopes that her lover will return to her –metaphor of the break-up with South Korea). The second one is a more political show, which was untitled in 2008 "Prosper our country" and intended to show the country’s greatest achievements and its struggle against the foreign oppressors.

The show continues in the same way for one hour. Thereafter, the thousands of people present vanish in the dark and silent streets of Pyongyang, which contrast with the flood of lights and music in the stadium. Within the space of a few hours, it gives us a a strange feeling, between the real and unreal, of another universe both terrifying and fantastic.


Dans toute la ville, les publicites d’Arirang (« Grande representation gymnastique et artistique de masse », « Bienvenue a Pyongyang » etc.) mettent le profane en garde …Entre aout et octobre, a lieu l’une des plus grandes et impressionnantes representations au monde. Le ton est do

When I read this story in the local newspaper earlier this week, I decided to add him to my collection of 1000 faces... Here's the story:


A long journey
From community college to the Marines, Gibson is at home with the Bears

BY PAUL FOGLEMAN
Record Sports Correspondent
Wednesday, September 13, 2006




HICKORY - If you are sitting in the stands at Moretz Stadium on Saturday night for Lenoir-Rhyne College's 7 p.m. game with Davidson, you'll see him, but he won't seem much different than the others suited up in a Bears uniform.

He will wear No. 24, and he'll be the only freshman starting for the L-R defense, but at 5-foot-9, 195 pounds, his dimensions are hardly distinguishable.

But to be sure, Alvin Gibson is no ordinary freshman, and how he matriculated to the L-R campus and onto the Bears team is no ordinary story.

"Alvin is a very unique guy," said L-R head coach Wayne Hicks, "and his being here has been a real blessing for our program."

When it comes to blessings, however, it is Gibson who is the one counting them. Life is good these days, and the fact that he is on a football field, or in school at all, is the culmination of a long and winding, and at times perilous journey.

"Now, I just appreciate everything," the former Newton-Conover High standout said. "If you go through the situations I've gone through, you learn to take advantage of the opportunities you have, and you learn not to take things for granted."

To appreciate where Gibson is today, you have to look at where he was yesterday - or six years ago.

Upon graduating from Newton-Conover in 2000, Gibson was like a lot of others in similar circumstances. He was 18-years-old and in need of direction.

He enrolled at Catawba Valley Community College for a few classes, but performed miserably. A year later, though, he decided to make a change in his life and turned to the Marines to point him the right way. In January 2002 his stint in the corps would land him in Iraq for a six-month tour of duty.

Midway through his tour, the fears that befall almost every soldier were realized. On March 23, 2002 his company came under attack from insurgents.

After eight hours of continuous fighting had finally ended, 18 of his Marine brethren were killed, including a friend from Gibson's boot camp days, and another acquaintance he met in Iraq.

"That whole day, we were in situations that were pretty close calls," said Gibson. "You could hear bullets tapping against our AAV (Amphibious Assault Vehicle), and it was just an intense day."

"After getting through that, I wanted from then on to learn to cope with things pretty good, and I still wanted to live a normal life."

And upon his discharge three years later, he was determined that he would begin the next phase of his young life fulfilling a dream of playing college football."

"I knew when I got out of the Marines I wanted to play football somewhere," Gibson said. "I wanted to see if I could compete with 18-year-olds coming right out of high school."

It would be his high school coach who would help Gibson take that first step in living his dream when he put in a call to the L-R coach.

"Coach (Nick) Bazzle called me and said he had a young man who had played for him, and that he was getting out of the military, wanted to play football and he (Bazzle) felt like he (Gibson) could help us."

That led to a meeting between the potential player and coach, and after completing some classes at CVCC, Gibson enrolled at L-R in January of this year.

It wasn't long before his work ethic caught Hicks' eye.

"In January he got in our weight room and began working hard," said Hicks. "We saw he was a kid with athletic ability, but he was strong and could move."

Gibson walked on to the team for spring practice and another attribute quickly surfaced.

"If there is one quality he does have, Alvin will hit," said Hicks. "He wanted to be close to the line of scrimmage, and instinctively he's more comfortable there."

The performance in the spring netted Gibson a scholarship, and on Aug. 26, just 12 months after his final days in the corps, he found himself starting in the defensive backfield in the Bears' season-opener against Livingstone.

Now, learning the responsibilities that come with his "bandit" position (a mesh between linebacker and strong safety) is his challenge. But it is a more welcome one than the battle for survival from day to day.

"I'm just trying to get better every day. I'm trying to learn the defense and get to the point where it's second nature," said Gibson.

The learning curve, he admits, can be a little steep, but Gibson, now 24, adds that his military days and time spent with his wife, Wanda, and 2-year-old son, Gavin, keep things in perspective.

"In high schoo

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