SEOUL: South Korea went into swoon mode on Sunday — at the feet of a party apparatchik from the North.

Hyon Song-Wol is, however, no dourly-dressed, suit-wearing bureaucrat from the nuclear-armed nation, but the leader of Pyongyang’s most popular girl band.

Cameras followed her every move as the glamorous songstress swept through Seoul at the head of a North Korean delegation sent to inspect performance venues for the Pyeongchang Olympic Games.

Wearing a fur muffler and exuding an air of confident calm, Hyun was unphased by the throng of cameras that followed her everywhere.

Believed to be in her late 30s or early 40s, Hyon is as close to a megastar as North Korea probably has.

Her “Excellent Horse-like Lady” — a term describing a smart and energetic woman — was a big hit in the 2000s.

She is also a politically powerful figure as an alternate member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s central committee.

Hyon was once rumoured to be a former girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and became the subject of lurid and — as it turned out — incorrect 2013 reports in the South that she and a dozen other musicians had been executed for appearing in porn movies.

North Korea watchers dismiss speculation over her ties with Kim, saying in the deeply patriarchal North, romantic partners of leaders past and present are forced to keep a low profile.

Hyon heads the 10-member Moranbong Band — the public face of North Korean soft power.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2018