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The Olympic teams from the two Koreas will effectively parade together at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on Aug. 8, although they have not formally agreed to do so, officials of the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games said Sunday.
During the opening ceremony, teams will parade according to the stroke count of their names written in simplified Chinese characters. Thus " " ("Han") symbolizing South Korea and "šČ" ("Zhao") meaning North Korea have the same stroke count of 12, and the two characters have the same radical on their left-hand side. The radicals normally serve as classification indicators. As a result, the Olympic teams from the two Koreas are expected to parade one following on the heels of the other.
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The Olympic teams from the Koreas parade jointly in under the Өunification flagӮ consisting of the undivided Korean Peninsula on a white background during the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic games.
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The IOC recently asked the Olympic committees of the two Koreas to let their teams parade jointly during the opening ceremony. The (South) Korean Olympic Committee has tried to send a telephone message via the Unification Ministry to the North to ask for a consultation on the issue, but the North refused to accept the message.
The Unification Ministry on Saturday said it would take only about 10 days to make joint parade uniforms. ”°The government still hopes for a joint parade during the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, and there still is time,”± it added.
But BOCOG officials said the Olympic teams of the two Koreas ”°are expected to parade according to the order of entry of teams we've decided on in consultation with the IOC. Even if the teams from both Koreas don't parade jointly, it can have the same effect as a joint parade if they wear joint parade uniforms."
The BOCOG officials said the South Korean team will parade ahead of the North Korean team. The first stroke of the right-hand side of "" is written horizontally, but that of "šČ" vertically. Given that in lexicological rules horizontal strokes take precedence over vertical ones, the South Korean Olympic team will parade ahead of their North Korean counterpart.
The BOCOG officials were quoted as saying while inter-Korean relations are tense in the wake of the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist at Mt. Kumgang resort by a North Korean soldier, ”°we hope that the virtual joint parade by the two Koreas' Olympic teams during the opening ceremony will contribute to creating a peaceful atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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