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\n\u201cEven after I got separated from my family during the War, my mother would still set out a place at the table for me. At night she would make my bed and hope for her son to return. She died before I ever got the chance to see her again.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is how 79 year-old Kim Dae Jong retells the tale of his mother\u2019s life, as relayed to him by his younger sister, who he finally met after 60 years of separation at a reunion in November last year. When the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, Kim fled his hometown in Poongsan County, North Hamgyung Province, and headed south on his own, not knowing it would be the start of 60 years of longing to see his family again.<\/p>\n
Although the memories had faded with time, the tales of his mother brought to the surface all the tears Kim had been holding back until then. His heart was tight at the thought of the countless number of sleepless nights his mother would have spent thinking about her son. Kim says his final wish is to visit her grave, alongside his sister, to pay his final respects.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cWe had spent so long apart that we didn\u2019t recognise one another, but as soon as I saw my sister\u2019s face I could tell we were the same flesh and blood. She told me that my mother had wanted to see me just once before she died.\u201d It is a matter of boundless sorrow to Kim that he couldn\u2019t be by his mother\u2019s side when she died, weighed down with the anguish of separation.<\/p>\n
The lead up to their reunion was not without its own complications, but it finally happened last year. Now, with Chuseok having just passed he has mixed feelings at recalling their meeting, namely because the first ancestral holiday since they parted ways again has reopened the wounds of separation. The hardest thing for Kim is that he cannot visit his parents\u2019 grave back home, a traditional event at Chuseok.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not that envious seeing other families go to pay their respects together on other holidays,\u201d Kim said prior to Monday\u2019s holiday. \u201cBut now that Chuseok is getting closer, the yearning for my hometown is deep. Before I die I would like to visit my mother\u2019s tomb to pay my respects. I want to stand in front of my parents\u2019 graves and yell \u2018Mother! Father! Your no-good son has returned!\u2019\u201d He looks like he wants to say more but his words trail off.<\/p>\n
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\nKim isn\u2019t giving up hope that he will meet his sister again, the only blood relative he has left. He is holding onto the thread of hope that unification someday will allow them to live out the rest of their days together.<\/p>\n
And although it has been a year now since their reunion, Kim says the memories of that day are still vivid in his mind. \u201cWhen I was told last year that I would be able to meet her I couldn\u2019t sleep properly. I spent three days preparing gifts for her and wondering what she would look like now, whether she was keeping well. You have no idea how much I missed my family those 60 long years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I woke up on the morning of the reunion, it was a fine day. \u2018Even the sun knows you are seeing her for the first time in 60 years!\u2019 I thought to myself. When we first saw each other again we talked about where it was that I had become separated, and she still remembered all of those details. We embraced straight away and started sobbing, even though we told one another not to cry. \u2018We\u2019ve already lost 60 years, who\u2019s got time to cry?\u2019 we said. I don\u2019t know why but that one hour went by so quickly, it felt like 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nGo Jae Hyeong, 87, is another to have met his younger sister at the reunion event last November. Like Kim, he too feels the pangs of yearning at Chuseok – especially so this year, the first one since that day. Go left behind a wife and daughter in Yeonbaek, part of Hwanghae Province. He had been a town official in Yeonbaek and was on business on the day of the 27th – the day President Truman ordered the US Navy and Air Force into Korea – and found himself severed from his family trying to flee the conflict.<\/p>\n
Go\u2019s reunion was bittersweet. His sister had the unenviable task of informing him that that right after the war an infection spread around which had killed his wife and parents. Until then he hadn\u2019t given up hope that he would still see them all before he died, but they were already long departed. The only ones left in North Korea now are his younger sister and his daughter. He says that the reunion with his sister gave him a chance to find out some information about his daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister and my daughter are still in North Korea. Apparently my daughter has epilepsy, which can be treated here in South Korea, but not in North Korea because the medical facilities aren\u2019t good enough and there is not enough medicine. I\u2019d like to bring her here to get treated but I can\u2019t, and that saddens me,\u201d Go says rather sorrowfully.<\/p>\n
Naturally he would like to see unification happen as soon as possible to reunite him with his remaining family, but for now all he can do is hope that they live well. \u201cI spent the last 60 years counting each day and hoping the time would come where we could live out our time together, but frankly I just don\u2019t know when it will happen. I\u2019m physically and mentally exhausted, it would just be nice if my sister and my daughter were living well,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cMy sister said she would like to see me again while we are both alive. But it doesn\u2019t work like that, does it? We can\u2019t meet just because we feel like it. It would be so nice if times became better and we could see one another again, but all we can really do is try to stay as healthy as possible for as long as we\u2019re alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister has problems with her hip, so her children came along to help her move around at the reunion. It looked like she hadn\u2019t been eating properly or getting the right treatment back home. That made me very sad. Unification would be nice, but I would just like her to get some treatment and to see her one more time looking healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although both Kim and Go and their respective families were unspeakably happy to see each other again, both men sensed the barriers of ideology at their relatives\u2019 constant parroting of indebtedness to Kim Jong Il.<\/p>\n
Says Go, \u201cThere were agents watching over them at the reunion. It seemed like my sister and her kids couldn\u2019t say what they wanted to because they were trying not to displease the agents. My sister kept repeating how she was eating and living well thanks to the Dear Leader. I couldn\u2019t say anything; I just sat there and listened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim observed the same thing. \u201cTo be honest, I noticed there was a kind of fence between us when she said not to worry about her because she was going to live well by the grace of the Dear Leader. We got to have our own individual reunions in private at the hotel, but even then my sister and her children didn\u2019t feel free enough to talk about their lives in North Korea. Even though there was nobody there they chose their words carefully as if somebody was watching over them. North Korean society is just so\u2026\u201d Kim says before his words trail off again.<\/p>\n
In 2005, Statistics Korea estimated that the number of separated family members is still as high as 710,000 in South Korea alone. Over the 60 years that have passed, many have died or given up hope of ever seeing their relatives left in the North, although more than 80,000 still express a desire to be reunited with long lost family members.<\/p>\n
These families do not want politics to stand in the way of this fading dream. Ideally, a designated meeting spot should be established at Panmunjom or somewhere else for reunions to be held frequently, regardless of the state of inter-Korean relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political problems between North and South only worsen the grief of separated families,\u201d says Go. \u201cFrom a humanitarian standpoint it would be nice if they could just forget about who is right and who is wrong so there could be more frequent reunions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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[imText1] \u201cEven after I got separated from my family during the War, my mother would still set out a place at the table for me. At night she would make my bed and hope for her son to return. She died before I ever got the chance to see her again.\u201d This is how 79 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":16537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n