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Rodman worms his way into N. Korea
Source: Agencies |
February 27, 2013, Wednesday
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FORMER NBA star Dennis Rodman has brought his basketball skills and flamboyant style - tattoos, nose studs and all - to a country with possibly the world's strictest dress code: North Korea.
Landing in Pyongyang yesterday with VICE television, the American athlete and showman known as "The Worm" became an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea.
Rodman is joining three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and a VICE correspondent for a news show on North Korea that will air on HBO later this year.
The Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" by running a basketball camp for children and playing with North Korea's top basketball stars and, they hope, drawing leader Kim Jong Un to a game. Kim is said to be a huge basketball fan.
"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing."
Rodman was a poster boy for flashy excess during his heyday in the 1990s. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.
Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"
Rodman, now 51, was low-key yesterday and soft-spoken in cobalt blue sweatpants and a Polo Ralph Lauren cap. There was a bit of flash: white-rimmed sunglasses and studs in his nose and lower lip. He said he was there to teach basketball and talk to people, not to stir up trouble.
But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind. "They shouldn't be scared of a few piercings."
Landing in Pyongyang yesterday with VICE television, the American athlete and showman known as "The Worm" became an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea.
Rodman is joining three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and a VICE correspondent for a news show on North Korea that will air on HBO later this year.
The Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" by running a basketball camp for children and playing with North Korea's top basketball stars and, they hope, drawing leader Kim Jong Un to a game. Kim is said to be a huge basketball fan.
"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing."
Rodman was a poster boy for flashy excess during his heyday in the 1990s. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.
Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"
Rodman, now 51, was low-key yesterday and soft-spoken in cobalt blue sweatpants and a Polo Ralph Lauren cap. There was a bit of flash: white-rimmed sunglasses and studs in his nose and lower lip. He said he was there to teach basketball and talk to people, not to stir up trouble.
But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind. "They shouldn't be scared of a few piercings."
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