or because I wanted to tour Mount Kumgang. I wanted to
meet President Kim Il Sung and have a serious discussion on the
future of our homeland. Yet, six days into my visit, there was no word
arrived back at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport by helicopter after visiting
my hometown, however, I found that Vice Premier Kim Dal Hyun had
unexpectedly come to meet me.
“The Great Leader Kim Il Sung will receive you tomorrow,” he told
me. “The place will be the Majeon Presidential Residence in Heungnam,
so you will need to board a special flight immediately, and go to
Heungnam.”
I thought to myself, “They say he has many presidential residences.
Why, of all places, Heungnam?”
On my way, I noticed a large sign for the Heungnam Nitrogen Fertilizer
Factory, where I had been forced to labor. It reminded me of
my time in prison and gave me an odd feeling. I spent the night in a
guesthouse and went the next day to meet the president.
As I approached the official residence, I found President Kim at the
entrance, waiting to greet me. The two of us simultaneously embraced
each other. I was an anti-communist and he was the leader of a communist
party, but ideology and philosophies were not important in the
context of our meeting. We were like brothers who were meeting for the
first time after a long separation. This was the power of belonging to the
same people and sharing the same blood.
Right at the outset, I said to him: “Mr. President, because of your
warm consideration, I have been able to meet my family. There are,
however, 10 million Koreans who are members of families separated
between North and South, and they are unable even to know whether
their relatives on the other side are alive or dead. I would like to ask you
to grant them the opportunity to meet each other.”
I spent a little more time telling him about my visit to my hometown,
and appealed to his love for the Korean people. He and I spoke the same
dialect, so we were at ease with one another.
President Kim responded, “I feel the same way. From next year, let’s
begin a movement that allows separated compatriots of North and South
to meet one another.” His acceptance of my proposal was as natural as
the snow melting in spring.
After speaking of my visit to Jeong-ju, I moved on to my views on
nuclear weapons. I respectfully proposed that North Korea agree to a
declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and sign a
safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
President Kim responded with candor, “President Moon. Think for
a moment. Who am I going to kill by making nuclear weapons? Kill
my own people? Do I look like that kind of person? I agree that nuclear
energy should be used only for peaceful purposes. I have listened attentively
to what you have to say, and I expect it will be all right.”
At the time, North-South relations were at a difficult point over the
issue of nuclear inspections in North Korea, and so I had made my proposal
with some reluctance. Everyone present, however, was surprised
that President Kim responded in such a pleasant tone. At this point, we
adjourned our meeting to a dining room, where we took an early lunch.
“President Moon, are you familiar with ‘frozen potato noodles’? It’s a
dish I ate quite often when I was active as a partisan on Mount Baekdu.
Please try some.”
“Well, of course I know it,” I said, responding to his words with delight.
“We used to enjoy this dish in my hometown.”
“Well, I’m sure in your hometown you ate it as a delicacy,” he continued.
“I ate it to survive. The Japanese police used to search for us all the
way to the top of Mount Baekdu. We didn’t have a chance to sit down
to a decent meal. What else is there to eat at the top of Mount Baekdu
other than potatoes?
“We would start to boil some potatoes, and if the Japanese police
came after us, we would bury the potatoes in the ground and run away.
It would be so cold that by the time we got back, the potatoes would
be frozen solid in the ground. The only thing we could do was dig up
the potatoes, thaw them, and then turn them into powder, so we could
make noodles out of them.”
“Mr. President,” I said, “you are an expert on frozen potato noodles.”
“That’s right. They taste good mixed in bean soup, and they also taste
very good if you eat them in sesame soup. It’s a dish that is easy on the
digestion, and because potatoes have a tendency to stick together, it is
very filling.
“Also, President Moon,” he continued, “it tastes really good if you
do like they do in Ham-gyung Province and take some leaf mustard
kimchi, like this, and put it over the noodles. You should try it.”
I did as he suggested and ate my frozen potato noodles with some
leaf mustard kimchi over them. The tasty flavor of the noodles matched
well the spicy kimchi and left my stomach feeling light.
“There are many delicacies in the world,” President Kim said. “I’m
not interested in any of those. There’s nothing better than the potato
cakes, corn, and sweet potatoes that I used to eat in my hometown.”
“You and I even share similar tastes in food,” I said. “It’s good that
people who share the same homeland can meet like this.”
“How was it when you visited your hometown?” he asked me.
“I was filled with many emotions,” I said. “The home where I lived
was still there, and I sat in the main room to think about the past. I
almost expected to hear the voice of my late mother, calling me. It was
an emotional feeling.”
“I see,” he said. “It shows that our country needs to be unified immediately.
I hear that when you were young, you were quite mischievous.
Did you have a chance to run around while you were there this time?”
Everyone at the table laughed at the president’s comment.
“I wanted to climb a tree and go fishing, but I heard that you were
waiting for me, so I quickly came here. I hope you will invite me to
come again sometime.”
“Well, of course. Of course I will. President Moon, do you like to
hunt? I like hunting very much. I think if you go bear hunting on Mount
Baekdu, you will enjoy it very much. Bears have big bodies and look
uncoordinated, but they are actually very nimble.
“I once came face to face with a bear,” he continued. “The bear
looked at me and didn’t move a muscle. If I had started to run, you
know what would have happened, don’t you? So what was I going to do?
I stared right back at him and just stood there. One hour passed, then
two hours, three hours. But the bear just kept staring at me. You know
how Mount Baekdu is famous for being cold. I was afraid I might freeze
to death before the bear ate me.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, President Moon, do you see the bear sitting here, or do you
see me?”
I laughed out loud, and President Kim immediately followed with a
suggestion.
“President Moon,” he said, “the next time you come, let’s go hunting
together on Mount Baekdu.”
I responded quickly with my own invitation.
“Mr. President, you like to fish, don’t you? On Kodiak Island in
Alaska, you can catch halibut that are as big as bears. Let’s go fishing for
those sometime.”
“Halibut as big as bears? Well, I will definitely have to go.”
The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies
of hunting and fishing. At one point, we each felt we had so much
to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting
after a long separation. Our laughter echoed around the dining room.
I also talked about Mount Kumgang.
“I went to Mount Kumgang, and it really is a beautiful mountain,”
I said. “It needs to be developed as a tourism destination for our
people.”
“Mount Kumgang will be an asset to our unified homeland,” President Kim
said. “So I have made sure that only certain people can touch it. If it’s developed
in the wrong way, it could be ruined. You have an international eye,
and I could trust someone like you to take it over and develop it for us.”
President Kim went so far as to ask that we develop Mount Kumgang.
“Mr. President,” I said, “you are older than me, so you are like my
older brother.”
He responded, “President Moon, from now, let’s refer to each other as
older brother and younger brother,” and he grasped my hand tightly.
President Kim and I held each other’s hand as we walked down the
hallway and took commemorative photographs. Then I left the residence.
After I had gone, I was told that President Kim told his son, Kim
Jong Il, “President Moon is a great man. I have met many people in my
life, but none were like him. He has a broad scale of thinking, and he
overflows with heart. I felt close to him. It made me feel good to be with
him, and I wanted him to stay for a long time. I want to meet him again.
After I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to North-South relations,
you must always seek the advice of President Moon.”
So it seemed that we had communicated very well.
Soon after I ended my weeklong stay and left Pyongyang, Prime
Minister Hyung Muk Yeon led a North Korean delegation to Seoul.
Prime Minister Yon signed an agreement to denuclearize the Korean
peninsula. On January 30 of the following year, North Korea signed
a nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy
Agency, thus fulfilling the commitments that President Kim had made
to me. These were the results I accomplished by going to Pyongyang at
the risk of my life.
-------------------------
Petition to governments of all countries to officially
accept Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon chosen
by God and called by Jesus Christ to fulfill the mission of the Messiah, Savior and Lord of the Second
Advent with the responsibility to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth by
2013, January 13 Heavenly Calendar.
Together with his loving wife, Mrs. Hak Ja Moon, they are the True
Parents of Heaven, Earth and all humanity who embody the true love of God.
Please sign, just
write your name and country below and
pass Petition to all you friends.
Read More As a
Peace-Loving Global Citizen Sun Myung Moon autobiography at: http://www.trueloveking.net/Sun_Myung_Moon_Biography.html
