In silence, Pang Un-sim stared down at jumbled-up playing cards for one minute, slowly shuffling through them. Putting the pile aside, she took a second pack and arranged them in order. One by one, the two sets were turned over. They matched perfectly.
Behind her stood four trophies and a tableful of medals, the North Korean haul from the World Memory Championships in December last year — the first time the nation had entered.
Despite fielding a team of just three contestants, led by Pang, they collected seven gold medals, seven silvers and five bronze.
Photo: AFP
“I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but when you put in the time and make an effort, you can remember,” Pang said. “When you are having fun memorizing, it is not as hard as people think.”
At the championships the 22-year-old came in second overall. Her feats including memorizing 5,187 binary numbers in order and 1,772 cards in an hour, while her fastest time memorizing a pack of playing cards was 17.67 seconds.
Her teammate Ri Song-mi — who came seventh overall — set a world record by recalling 302 words in 15 minutes.
In the hour numbers event, when competitors have 60 minutes to memorize as many digits as possible, all three North Koreans came in the top five. Two of them beat the previous world record, with Pang scoring 3,240.
Organizers had no idea until the last minute that a North Korean team was entering the contest in Hong Kong.
“They arrived and registered just before registration closed,” championships founder Tony Buzan said.
“It was like a battering ram of surprises, because every one of the 10 events featured a North Korean in the top three,” Buzan, who has since died, wrote in the magazine of his Brain Trust charity earlier this year.
“Out of nowhere came this meteorite and shooting star, and it was shocking in the most delightful sense,” he added.
Every January, North Koreans are required to study leader Kim Jong-un’s annual New Year speech extensively, and the team’s coach Cha Yong-ho said that memorization techniques are taught as standard during middle school.
Cha heads the speed reading research department at the Kim Hyong-jik University of Education in Pyongyang, where all three teammates were students — and Pang, whose subject was mathematics, has now joined the faculty.
Many memory competitors use a technique known as the Dominic system that replaces numbers with letters and represents them as images and actions that they connect by making up a story. By retelling the story to themselves, they decipher the items to be recalled.
“For example, this is an ox and the next one is a bed,” Pang said. “The ox is sleeping on the bed and the bed is wobbly and because an ox is sleeping in the bed instead of a person, the bed breaks in the end. That’s the scene I see... I use my imagination.”
However, the North Koreans have broadened the standard method to bring in other variables, enabling them to memorize faster and remember more, Cha said.
“We use all the senses for association,” he said. “Feeling, taste, movement, imagination, rhyme and everything you could do in your brain.”
Entering the championships was intended to test their system on the world stage.
“It works very well,” Cha added.
The team trained six hours per day for two months before the event.
“I put their success down to national discipline and determination,” the championships’ global president Raymond Keene said.
“When we actually competed, I learned that we Korean people are smart,” said Pang, who wore a badge depicting North Korean founder Kim Il-sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-il.
“We were far superior than contenders from other countries and our memorization techniques did not lag behind, but were enough to compete squarely with the world,” Pang added. “Because we had mental strength we swept the competition.”
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