PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - Former NBA star Dennis Rodman brought his basketball skills Tuesday and flamboyant style - tattoos, nose studs and all - to a country with possibly the world's strictest dress code: North Korea.
Landing in Pyongyang with VICE television, the American athlete and showman known as "The Worm" became an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
Rodman is joining three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and a VICE correspondent for a news show on North Korea that will air on HBO later this year, VICE told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday before they landed.
Rodman and VICE said the Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" by running a basketball camp for children and playing with North Korea's top basketball stars - and, they hope, drawing leader Kim Jong Un to a game. Kim is said to be a huge basketball fan.
"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing.
Rodman might seem an odd fit for North Korea, where men's fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and where growing facial hair is forbidden. Though there's a burgeoning fashion sense among the women of Pyongyang, the men in this conservative society still tend dress austerely: khaki work suits, military uniforms, dark blue Mao-style suits or Western-style suit jackets.
In contract, Rodman was a poster boy for flashy excess during his heyday in the 1990s. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" - and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.
Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"
But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships.
On Tuesday, Rodman, now 51, was low-key and soft-spoken in cobalt blue sweatpants and a Polo Ralph Lauren cap. There was a bit of flash: white-rimmed sunglasses and studs in his nose and lower lip. But he told AP he was there to teach basketball and talk to people, not to stir up trouble.
Showier were three Harlem Globetrotters dressed in fire-engine red. Rookie Moose Weekes flashed the crowd a huge smile as he made his way off the Air Koryo plane.
"We use the basketball as a tool to build cultural ties, build bridges among countries," said Buckets Blakes, a Globetrotters veteran. "We're all about happiness and joy and making people smile."
It's the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.
Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.
Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.
North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.
VICE, known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the "VICE Guide to North Korea." The HBO series, which will air weekly starting April 5, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.
The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea.
Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.
The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture.
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