My arrival in South Korea on Feb. 10 for the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony was jarring.
I had just come from Washington, where the perception of North Korea as both a serious threat to U.S. security and as a barbarous dictatorship is deepening. Transiting from Incheon airport to the sleek KTX bullet train, en route to Pyeongchang — itself little more than 80 km from the demilitarized zone, I found South Korean travelers clustered around TV sets, raptly watching a North Korean symphony concert and absorbing news that Kim Jong Un's younger sister had also just arrived for the Olympics hours before.
Gangwon Province, where the Olympics are being held, directly borders on the demilitarized zone, and hosts 200,000 South Korean troops — one third of the country's entire land forces. Yet when I passed through the gate at Olympic Stadium there, one hour early, I competed futilely for attention with a comely North Korean cheerleading squad 230 members strong, stylishly yet informally clad in their red warmup suits, hustled rapidly through security just ahead of me, to a conspicuous yet secluded upper corner of the arena.