美国国家公共电台 NPR Rural South Korean County Prepares For Role As 2018 Winter Olympics Host

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Next February, South Korea is going to be hosting the Winter Olympics. It is being held in a county called PyeongChang which really does not like to be confused with North Korea's capital Pyongyang, so much so that it altered the spelling of its name. Even with that, though, a delegate to a recent Olympic conference flew to the wrong Korea by accident. NPR's Lauren Frayer did manage to visit the actual Olympic venues¹ in the correct spot, and she sent this report.

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LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE²: Jeon Chung-won tends sheep on a hilly farm where he was born in PyeongChang, 80 miles east of Seoul.

JEON CHUNG-WON: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: It's a simple, peaceful place where the mountain air hugs you," he says.

JEON: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: Only a handful of domestic tourists typically come here to hike green hills dotted with Buddhist³ temples or visit a small ski station nearby. But that is about to change.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: PyeongChang 2018, new horizons.

FRAYER: Next year, this county of just 43,000 people will host the Winter Olympics. Besides locals, PyeongChang was previously⁴ known only to athletes like Bae Ji-young, who moved here 15 years ago to train with South Korea's national cross-country ski team.

BAE JI-YOUNG: When I went here first time, this place was really undeveloped. Normally, we have a lot of heavy snow, so I climbed every mountain.

FRAYER: She's watched hundreds of buildings shoot up over the course of three Olympic bids - the third was successful. I got a tour of the Olympic venues. The wind is howling. The height is pretty terrifying. I'm staring down a narrow trough at the top of the PyeongChang ski jump.

NANCY PARK: We hear a lot of, you know, stories about the Olympic Games where people are, you know, they're still, you know, building things as athletes walk in. And we don't have that situation.

FRAYER: Olympic spokeswoman Nancy Park says 97 percent of the Olympic venues are already complete. The surrounding infrastructure⁵, on the other hand...

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FRAYER: Single-lane mountain roads are being widened. There's no local airport. A high-speed rail link is being built from the capital. Eight months out, all of PyeongChang is like an obstacle course of orange cones⁶. And then there's another possible hazard - North Korea, just 40 miles away. Olympic spokeswoman Park says North Korean athletes have been granted rare permission to drive across the demilitarized zone to compete.

PARK: As of yet, they don't have any qualified⁷ athletes. But if they do attend as qualifying athletes, of course, they'll be staying in the Olympic Village. Obviously, there is a lot of attention for these North Korean athletes, but they are a symbol of the peace element of the Olympics.

FRAYER: When a North Korean propaganda balloon recently flew across the border, South Korean soldiers stationed near PyeongChang fired 90 machine gun rounds at it. But locals are more worried about absorbing the estimated 80,000 tourists a day come February.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: Some of those tourists may book accommodation here, in a seventh century Buddhist temple, one of dozens in the PyeongChang Hills. Temple tour guide Choi Du-yeol is actually a Catholic.

CHOI DU-YEOL: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: But he says he takes pride in Korea's Buddhist history.

CHOI: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: "We're all working together to show off our tiny corner of Korea to the world," he says. This is the first winter Olympics in East Asia since the Nagano Games 20 years ago. The opening ceremony is set for February 9. Lauren Frayer, NPR News, PyeongChang, South Korea.

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