Could the Olympics help ease tensions between North and South Korea?
Welcome to Plain English, a podcast for English language learners. I’m Jeff, and I created this podcast so that beginner and intermediate learners of English could have something to listen to that doesn’t go too fast. I know from learning Spanish myself that it’s so hard to listen to regular radio and television, at least in the first few years of studying. If you’re listening to this now, then I know you’ll be able to understand native speakers someday at the normal speed. But until then, I hope you enjoy this podcast at a little slower than normal speed.
Today is Thursday, January 18th, 2018 and we’re doing something a little different this week. Instead of one weekly episode with two current events topics and two English words and phrases, we’re going to split the program up into two episodes a week—one each Monday, and another each Thursday, and each program will have one topic and one English word or phrase.
Today’s English word is rocky—and we’ll review that after our story about the Olympics.
North Korea to compete in Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympics are rapidly approaching and there might be a last-minute entrant into the games this year. North Korea has announced that it will send a delegation of athletes to compete in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the host of the 2018 Winter Games.
If they do compete, it would be an important occasion for both North and South Korea, and for the Olympic movement over all. The Olympics are often able to rise above world politics and provide a forum for nations and athletes to compete together peacefully, no matter what else might be happening in the world at the time. And while it’s not always possible for the Games to reach that ideal, they do often ease tensions and help countries and cultures get along, even if it’s just for a short time. Olympic organizers are hoping that North Korea’s participation in this year’s Winter Games can promote peace between North Korea and the rest of the world.
North Korea is an isolated nation that has rocky relations with much of the world, especially the United States, and an awkward relationship with its southern neighbor. North and South Korea are very different places. North Korea is a military dictatorship that severely restricts the freedom of its citizens; people there are not allowed to leave the country, for example, and they’re not allowed to read information from other countries. North Korea’s trade with the outside world is very limited and its citizens are very poor. South Korea, by contrast, has a democratic government, a strong economy and good relations around the world. Though the two countries are very different, they do share the same language and many families have members living on both sides of the border. North and South were only divided into two countries in 1948, after all.
Since the Korean War ended in the 1950’s, the two countries have been separated by a Demilitarized Zone, and their relations have not always been smooth. There has been some violence, a lot of propaganda on both sides, and threatening military exercises, but also periods where the two sides have engaged in dialogue. The relationship between the two countries often depends on the domestic politics on both sides of the border. Recently, though, the two sides are starting to get along a bit better.
So you can see why it would be an important achievement for the Olympics to play a positive role in easing tensions between the two countries. Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said that North Korea’s participation would be “a great step forward in the Olympic spirit.”
North Korea would most likely participate in figure skating, speedskating, and cross-country skiing. They only occasionally attend the Winter Olympics and their only two winter Olympic medals have been in speedskating; the most recent was in 1992. North Korea has traditionally had more success in the Summer Olympics, winning medals in weightlifting, wrestling, and boxing, among others. It’s not known right now which athletes will compete in the Olympics this year, but North Korea’s two best athletes are Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik, a figure skating pair that has met with success in international and regional competitions in the last few years.
One question is the extent to which the two Koreas can participate in some activities together. For example, the two countries are discussing whether they can march together during the opening ceremonies, as they did in the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. The most recent news is that South Korea has suggested that the two countries join together and compete as one team in women’s ice hockey. The North and South have competed together as one team in lower-profile soccer and table-tennis competitions and they’ve played each other in hockey, soccer and taekwondo. But if they field a hockey team together at the Olympics, it would be the first time they’ve cooperated on such a big stage.
So these are some reasons for optimism. But there is also cause to be cautious about what might happen at these Olympics. The last time the Olympics were in South Korea was in Seoul, the capital, in 1988. Ten months before those games, North Korea planted a bomb on a South Korean airplane and killed all 115 people on board, hoping to discourage the world from participating in the Olympics. When most countries showed up anyway, North Korea decided to boycott those games. Another reason to be cautious is that North Korea’s government is unpredictable and difficult for outsiders to read. They tend to alternate between peace overtures and threatening military exercises.
Most people now think that if North Korea participates in the Olympic Games, the chances of conflict are greatly reduced, and we can hope for that to be true. At the very least, the Olympics have served to get the two sides talking, in a friendly manner, in preparation for the games.
Before we get to this week’s word, I wanted to say hi to Antoine from France. He lives near Paris and discovered the show on Spotify. I’m glad Antoine is in the audience because just last week we introduced French as one of the languages we support on the interactive transcript. If you speak Spanish, Chinese or French, you can read a transcript of this episode at PlainEnglish.com/13. And whenever you see a highlighted word in red, just hover your mouse over the word, or tap on it on your cell phone, and you’ll see a translation into your language.
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