Today's IHT has an astonishing article about the North Korea Mass Games.

20,000 schoolchildren filling the side of one of the world's largest stadiums flip giant cards with such synchronicity that they form a gigantic screen flashing picture-quality images and communist slogans. ...

It gave me shudders. I watched again and again, but could see not a single child making a mistake ... the children moved as if they were controlled by the enter key in your computer.

Mass gymnastics foster particularly healthy and strong physiques, a high degree of organization, discipline and collectivism in schoolchildren ... The schoolchildren, conscious that a single slip in their action may spoil their mass gymnastic performance, make every effort to subordinate all their thoughts and actions to the collective.

When it comes to making people move like robots, nobody can beat North Korea.

Someone must have video.
culture
  2005-10-11 18:50 Z