All eyes may be on the North Korea-United States relations after Pyongyang carried out on Sunday its sixth and most powerful test of a thermonuclear bomb thought to be five times more powerful than the device dropped on Nagasaki during the Second World War. Yet the attention of the Internet has been focused for the last two days not on a possible nuclear conflict, but on the announcement of the successful test delivered by a popular North Korean TV newsreader, a well-known lady dressed in Barbie pink, who smiled and ebulliently announced the news.
Speaking with an image of Mount Paektu in the background, her voice brimming with pride and excitement, she beamed stating that the hydrogen bomb test was "a perfect success" and a key step in "completing the state nuclear force".
The newsreader in question is Ri Chun-hee, 74, and she is known for her bombastic announcements. Trained in theatre and drama (she studied performance art at Pyongyang University of Theatre), Ri Chun-hee, started working for the television in the early '70s, becoming chief news presenter of the broadcaster Korean Central Television (KCTV) in 1974.
Usually wearing the traditional Korean dress - known as hanbok in the South and as choson chogori in the North - Ri became popular for her trademark passionate, bombastic or dramatical announcements: she cried on air when announcing North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung's death in 1994 and delivered the news about his son Kim Jong-il's (the father of the present dictator) death in 2011, clad in black funeral clothes, her voice trembling.
Highly trusted by the state, and thriving under Kim Jong-un's dictatorship, she became known as "the people's broadcaster" remaining on-air until 2012 when she announced her retirement.
She reappeared on TV to announce some major North Korean military achievements - the H-bomb detonation in January 2016; a missile launch in February 2016 and nuclear tests in September 2016 and September 2017.
Ri is also partial to pink, that's why she is also known as the "pink lady" and she has previously sported on TV Western-style power suits in her favourite shade.
The pink colour of her garments conjures up in our minds something less serious than a nuclear test and, if you weren't provided with a translation, you could have easily thought she was announcing something incredibly jolly like world peace, the arrival of Spring or a fancy and fun wedding among famous celebrities.
Yet there's strategy behind this oxymoronic vision combining a visually pleasing colour with a dramatic announcement: Ri's powerful voice is indeed another way for the regime to return to the hard line Cold War-era ideology, and her dramatic voice becomes therefore an ominous sign when matched with her pink costume that suddenly turns into a way to ooze power and fear. Yes, this is a secondary piece of news compared to the numerous tragedies happening in the rest of the world, but the hidden meanings behind the appearance of the pink queen of propaganda is dark and scary (readers of news features about Ri stated in their comments that they may have found an idea for their Halloween costume in her pink attire...).
We had learnt that pink is punk, and the colour became one of the trendiest ones for the A/W 17 season (remember Missoni's "Pink is the new black" show?), but we never thought it could have been used to threaten the world. There's some other scary news linked with Ri: according to reports, she is currently training the next generation of North Korea's newsreaders. You naturally wonder if they will also be clad in pink and if they are also getting vocal coaching from her.
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