That autumn, I returned to my parents’ home after receiving news that my father was in a critical condition. He had already lost his ability to speak by that point, but his emotions were very much alive. I saw him cry when he saw my second sister; that might have been all he could do for his poor little daughter.
I believe that my father’s life had been a clean one, throughout which a man tried his best to be faithful to the teachings of Confucius. When our house was flooded in the great flood of 1967, he worried about others first. When I told him that I had been condemned by the party and could be exiled to the countryside, he simply said, “People in government can experience such things; if you have not prepared yourself for that, how can you be a government official?” He did not look particularly worried.
My father closed his eyes quietly before me. He was 89 years old. His grave site was not proper, so we buried him in mother’s tomb.
The night of the funeral, I returned to the villa at Dalcheon. My mind was full of ideas about formalizing and systematizing my new philosophical theories; indeed, I had nothing but philosophy on my mind.
Dalcheon was at the foot of Guweol Mountain, so there were many pheasants and deer. One day, my driver went out hunting and caught 15 pheasants in a very short time.
Kim Il Sung and his wife were also at a villa near Dalcheon with his brother-in-law and children. Unfortunately, Kim Yong Won went out hunting that night and ran into Kim Il Sung’s brother-in-law. At that time Kim Il Sung’s brother-in-law had graduated Kim Il Sung University with a degree in economics, and was working at the Central Party’s Document Organization Office (the clerks’ office). He was not on good terms with Kim Yong Won.
“Kim Yong Won doesn’t do anything here. He followed the president here just to go hunting at night,” he apparently told Kim Il Sung.
At this, Kim Il Sung got very angry and told Kim Young Ju to take Kim Yong Won away. Kim Yong Won was sent back to Pyongyang just like that, and I was left alone with the vice-chief secretary. At the end of the year, I moved to Yeonpung Rest House in North Pyongan. That was because Kim Il Sung told us that it was hard to call Dalcheon, which was in Hwanghae-do.
