Pyongyang is now boisterous with preparations for the grand "Arirang" mass calisthenics. Large open spaces in Pyongyang such as the Kim Il Sung Square, April 25 Culture Hall and Taedong River banks are crammed with students and servicemen being trained for the forthcoming Arirang performances, according to South Koreans who have been to the North Korean capital recently.

When a South Korean visitor remarked, "The students look terribly cold on the streets," a guide is said to have responded, "Isn't it fine that they do physical exercise as well?" Earnest exercises for mass calisthenics used to begin in February or March with the cold months of December and January spent for the preparation of card section materials. But Arirang performance preparations appear to have been advanced because the number of people mobilized for the event has doubled since previous ones, and because its overall scale in terms of time span is larger. The Choson Shinbo, the organ of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, better known as the Chosensoren, reporting on January 30 on preparations for the Arirang Festival, said that college students were engrossed in the exercises, though some suffered from cold and injuries. Deployed at training sites are "Arirang Medic Teams," according to the daily.

In parallel with the preparations for the grand mass calisthenics, North Korea has been accelerating publicity efforts for the event. Having already opened web sites related to the event in Japan and China, it has recently created a Korean-language site. They have begun accepting package tour contracts in Japan and China.

A two day, three night package tour for Chinese costs 1,800 yuen (US$213) and one of six days and seven nights 3,300 yuen (US$395.) For watching Arirang performances, a charge of 250 yuen (US$30) is added. A six day, seven night package tour for Japanese tourists is expected to cost US$1,368 with an Arirang performance fare of US$250 included. Tour destinations are confined to Pyongyang, Kaesong, Mount Myohyang and Nampo. Tour sites in Pyongyang include Mangyongdae - the birthplace of Kim Il Sung - Mansudae Hill, Chollima Statue, Juche (self-reliance) Ideology Tower, Kim Il Sung Square, the Students and Children's Palace and the Acrobats Theater.

Boarding facilities in Pyongyang are also being expanded. Unlike the 1989 World Youth Festival in Pyongyang when they suffered from scarce lodging facilities in the face of the flood of many visitors at one time, the North Korean authorities expect, the forthcoming event will successfully cope with boarding facilities because the visitors will spread out over a period of two months.

Playing a key role in the forthcoming mass calisthenics are young students, undergoing indescribable pains, training all day long in the bitterly cold winter. According to North Korean defectors in the South who had taken part in mass calisthenics, a minor one takes four to six months to prepare, and accordingly they are unable to study six months out of a year. Training for the forthcoming performances began in November last year in earnest, and they are to end at the end of June and definitely affecting their studies adversely.

(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com )