October 2010 Report
Feed the Hungry has been involved in feeding North Korean children since 2006 in Sunbong, North Korea, which is an economic free zone close to the China border of Tumen River. We are to feeding 400 children with a piece of bread and a cup of soymilk during school days, we invite our donors to commit HKD$150/AUD$20 each month to feed four children. For the price of two cups of Starbuck coffees a needy child’s hunger pang is kept away. Most children went to school without breakfast, evening meals may or may not be served on the table, but the security of receiving something to eat in school is a joy and comfort to teachers and parents.
After a few years of good relationship building and trust, I have come to love and respect the hundreds upon hundreds of lives touched by the ongoing work of Christ in DPRK through Feed the Hungry, and through other Christian ministries, who quietly and faithfully working for the good health of North Korean children.
Over the summer period, I was invited to visit Children Homes in Pyongyang, to see if we would like to partner with a North Korean agency to help orphans, I said yes right away to such invitation, but the visa did not arrive till the last week of September, and we planned on leaving for Pyongyang via Beijing on 7th October. We were told by our minder, to bring a formal evening wear with us. We joked and said did they plan for us to have a photo session with their leader, Kim Jong Il….. little did we know, we were quite close to that.
Whatever fantastic tales come out of North Korea and quoting from the New York Times, “would-be successor has had cosmetic surgery to make him resemble his grandfather.” Or from a Newsweek recent issue, they reported “Kim Jr., now heralded as the “brilliant comrade” in Pyongyang propaganda. Some analysts believe he was the brains behind the March attack on the South Korean ship Cheonan.” I am just as curious about this nuclear-armed “hermit kingdom” and Kim Junior and if Pyongyang is a model city of North Korea, I would like to see. This would be a special trip to me. On one occasion, when I looked at Kim Jong Un close up, I thought wow he does look like his grandfather, Kim Il Sun.
Our formal dress turned out to be very useful, our minder never told us anything except once or twice he slipped and said we would see the power of North Korea, like all the Pyongyang citizens, our minder was keen to show visitors and the world through the eyes of the journalists that all is well in their country, the young heir has been appointed, the ruling power is still in control. I have visited Sunbong a few times, I walked the embankment of Tumen River many times, across the river, North Korea generally is all dark. But today the whole city’s lights were on, from my hotel bed room I could see the Juche Tower clearly. Juche ideology insists that 'humanity is the heart of everything’, this dominates how the North Koreans live, behave and call for total loyalty to the Kim Dynastic ruling power. Together with the military strong presence in the country, the two compliments each other well.
The celebration began with an extravaganza of 30 min fire work display in front of the Symbol of the Worker Party Square. The Party's symbol is an adaptation of the communist hammer and sickle, but with a traditional Korean calligraphy brush used for writing, symbolizing the "working intellectual. The following evening, we were entertained by the Mass Gymnastics and Artistic Performance Arirang performed by over 30,000 loyalists and 15,000 students acted as a backdrop, when Kim Jong Il came in, the whole arena went wild, shouting out his name and waving to him, I saw him waving back to the crowd, and the heir to be, Kim Jong Un was by his side with the Chinese Ambassador. Just before the closing of the event, China pledged her friendship and support to North Korea. We just witnessed a historical moment.
The whole city did not sleep, people began preparing for the next morning’s military parade since 4 am in the street, masses and masses of ordinary citizens came with the pink and red plastic flowers that you saw on TV creating the pink red effect, they were to raise the flowers up, to lower them down, changing to another color at a signal, everything was so orderly and in one accord to create that overwhelming masses of a sea of flowers, to be part of the military parade, part of the welcome party.
The World watched the Ruling Party introduced heir apparent Kim Jong Un to the North Korean people and the world, Kim Jong Un stood near his father on the dais, clapping and saluting thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, and reviewing missiles tanks and artillery rockets. Kim Jong Il looked fragile and walking with a limp as he waved to the crowd at the end of the parade. That evening in the Cultural Show, the Dear Leader did not come to the balcony, much to the disappointment of many, it was rumored that the crowd did not clap loud or fast enough when he walked in, perhaps he was tire and just wanted to retire early.
When the fun was over, we were back to the real agenda of our visit, which was to visit the Orphanage Schools in North Pyongyang. We took a six hours train ride from the city centre to Shinaju, along the way, it was nothing but rice paddy fields, as we travelled further away from the city, we saw many rice fields were destroyed by the recent flooding. This year will not be a good rice harvest, this year many will suffer from hunger again, even on a good harvest year, the nation’s demand was still higher than supply. We visited three government run Orphanage Schools. We travelled past so many check points, soldiers were everywhere, if we did not have our proper papers or right accompanying units, I don’t think we could travel around the country side at all.
At the age of 5, children enter Kindergarten for 2 years, between the age of 6 years old to 16 years old, children need to attend school, which consists of 4 years primary school and 6 years middle school. Children came to the Orphanage School when their parents died and their neighbours reported them and the school would take these children in. When we met with the workers and helpers, they admitted honestly that the Government had tried to supply their needs, but much resources were still lacking to support the young children in their formative years, their main sources of supply for food, for building materials, for general needs are from the designated village that were called to provide. But the farmers themselves were also in the lacking. The first school principal was sharing how some of the windows in the school could not shut well to keep the rain or wind out, farmers in their unit, whenever they got money, they would supply two or three new window frames or glasses, then they had to wait for the next round of haves. The School Principals were reaching out for help for the good of their children.
The second school tried to do experimental farming within the school, their tries brought them extra 10-12 tons of vegetable last year, and they were happy with the result, the green house technology, know-how and equipment was the contribution and donation from a group in Europe. They admitted children were under nourished, they needed better food; the school faced clean water and sanitation issues as well, the children became sick because of these two unresolved issues, and they did not know how to resolve the problem given the lack of resources. We found a school hall of over 200 children watching DVD cartoon on a little TV set. We were shown 7-8 children a room playing or singing with their minders, this would be their sleeping area as well as play area. When we walked in, they were so happy to greet us in traditional Korean greeting, but they would not have a second greeting or any other answers to any questions we asked. It was sad to see the children were like robots being winded up, and computed to say certain greetings. Despite it all, we found them happy, playing football and skipping ropes in the playground, no toys around, we did not see any. No school library, no computer room, no game room.
The third School was deep in the countryside, we found classrooms to be basic, good stationery and reading books were absence, no educational toys, no musical instrument that one would see in a school. They were supposed to be high school kids, but they looked so tiny small compared to their same age group counterparts in Asia. The average intake of any given orphanage school was 1,000 children maximum, with 45 teachers serving these children. Most of the funding to sustain these schools came from overseas. In an open conversation, the Principal shared their needs of stationery, warm clothing, noodles, sugar, cooking oil, soybean, wheat flour, bedding etc; their roof top needed fixing, windows were falling away; no medicine in the medical room. The list went on.
As we winded down our journey, we deeply felt the urgency to help these orphan school children, most of the children carry the after effect of one that gone through hunger or malnutrition. Hunger created many ill effects to the development of a child’s future growth, not just physically but the development of the brain too. We need to help them to eat well when they were young. We also believed God would use His Church strategically to make disciples of all nations. It is our sincere prayer that many people will be raised up to help the poor, feed the hungry and have God’s heart for North Korea. To give hope and a future to those not able to help themselves.
This report filed by our FTH Hong Kong Director, Armanda da Roza
