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Thursday 2006-09-07 - P’yŏngyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Growing talent
In every school in the country, children can take part in all sorts of extra-curricular activities. Those who show real talent for something can move on to one of the 11 Children’s’ Palaces in the country; then they go there every day after school to practice and receive high-quality instruction.
This afternoon, we visit one such Children’s’ Palace in P'yŏngyang, the Mangyongdae School children's Palace. It really is a palace, fitted out in local marble with decorations of other types of stone. For a change, we get a tour not from a professional local guide, but from a teenage girl (she's 15, maybe) who tells us about the building and smoothly shows us around along various classes. We see children taking lessons in music (both on the traditional zither and on accordion), swimming (a large swimming hall with jumping boards of different heights, the highest 5m high), calligraphy, embroidery (using a technique that's more like painting with colored threads -- the best done so that both sides of the cloth are "good" so the painting can be put up in a free-standing frame). Some of the kids are already very good, while others are still learning basic techniques.
After visiting these classes (obviously a small selection of what’s on offer), we get to see one of the weekly performances. In the theater, all foreign tourists sit in the middle section of seats, while other visitors, mainly schoolchildren, sit on either side: as usual we’re kept carefully apart from local people.
The kids, of a variety of ages, present a dazzling show with song and dance, mime, acrobatics, and both modern and traditional music. These kids are so good, I get goose pimples every now and then — and I’m not the only one. True, they’re the cream of the cream, but it’s extremely impressive.
Wednesday 2007-04-11 - Al Mukalla, Yemen
School girls
The center of the old city of Al Mukalla lies on a little land tongue, not far from our hotel: First a little walk along the boulevard, with a view of the harbor with lots of little fishing boats anchored there; then into the the narrow little streets of the old city. I roam around, planning to come around at the other side and then round the city along the sea. Suddenly I see a group of girls near a doorway who cheerfully greet me, obviously wanting a chat. They’re all school girls, just home from school. It’s still a little hard for me to estimate ages here, especially since some of the girls wear a niqab, but they must be teenagers, going to secondary school.
We chat, they haltingly, suddenly remembering phrases they learned at school, their English popping up in bursts. Two girls are sisters, they tell me (they do have similar eyes). They also point out the fact that some of them wear a niqab while others don’t (yes, I had noticed that already) but when I ask why, I get no answer; maybe they just don’t know how to answer that question, or their English isn’t up to it. What do they learn at school? English (obviously), Arabic, Islam — they mention at least two other subjects which I don’t catch since they mention it in Arabic. “What are you doing here?” they ask; when I grab my camera to show them some things they suddenly shy away. “No, no,” I say, “I won’t take your picture, I just want to show you.” That proves a great success: they all crowd around me while I go through the pictures I took today. Happy sounds when they recognize a wall painting nearby. The picture of the two different right-foot bath slippers in my hotel room causes a lot of hilarity.
Then I walk on, regretting I could not talk with them more, but their English isn’t up to it yet. At least these girls get a good education, a good thing since the illiteracy rate in this country is still very high, especially among women. They happily wave me goodbye.
