recruit competing at the annual Samsung Summer Festival, a gathering
featuring sporting events and a mass games ceremony, where recruits come
together to form images using individual placards—a practice associated
with communist and authoritarian governments. I saw the recruits create a
formation of a punching fist and a formation of the word “victory,” a
martial symbol I had also seen in photos of a formation of North Korean
patriots.
In the video, the recruits on the field also made a Pegasus formation. I
lit up at the sight. It looked like a Chollima.
When I had traveled in North Korea a few months earlier, my
government-assigned guide, Mr. Han, had taught me the significance of the
Pegasus, or Chollima, in Korean culture. It was a symbol of speed and hard
work used to inspire students and soldiers, who often double as
construction workers building apartments, schools, and hospitals in grand
nation-building campaigns.
“Charge forward at the speed of the Chollima!” Mr. Han told me,
reciting North Korean propaganda phrases as we walked outside the train
station in Chongjin.
Chongjin, a city with a heavy police presence even by North Korean
standards, was located near the Chinese and Russian frontiers. Looking up,
Mr. Han asked me to translate the phrase on the mountains overlooking the
city. “One heart united,” it read.