GANGNEUNG, South Korea -- On the eve of the official opening of the PyeongChang Olympics, the Gangneung athletes' village was filled with hundreds of journalists, photographers, sports officials and even volunteers.
In the center of the large human circle, North Korea's Olympic contingent was welcomed to the village in a flag-raising ceremony, with the morning sun rising and the temperature going up.
During the official procedures of the ceremony like the village mayor's welcome speech and the exchange of gifts, 22 North Korean athletes, who are competing in ice hockey, figure skating, short track, alpine skiing and cross country, stood motionless with a cold demeanor.
They just clapped for a while when the South Korean dancers tried to grab their hands and ask them to dance together.
It looked more rigid than the welcoming events for Canada, Romania and the United States held in previous days, where athletes danced together with the crowd and enjoyed the festive mood.
North Korean athletes dance at the welcome ceremony in the Gangneung athletes` village on Feb. 8, 2018. (Yonhap)
After the ceremony ended, however, the hard atmosphere suddenly changed.
An 80-member North Korean female marching band dressed in red uniforms and white boots started to play some familiar North Korean pop songs and the Korean traditional hit "Arirang."
As their compatriots played their music, the athletes started to relax and move their hands and legs. They chanted, waved their hands in unison and danced to the music together even with the South Korean dancers who they had looked away from a couple of minutes earlier.
They did not stop smiling and dancing during the 30-minute performance, while journalists got in close to catch every movement of the North Koreans.
With the seventh, and last, song playing, they created a smaller circle hand in hand with the South Korean performers and danced together, looking like a traditional group dance, called "Gang-gang-sullae" in Korean. Inside the circle, Soohorang, the official mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics, led the dance.
"The performance by our North Korean people heated up the atmosphere here," said Won Kil-u, the head of the North Korean delegation to PyeongChang. "How nice is this, seeing these people enjoy themselves together?" (Yonhap)
