Opening Doors : N. Korean in L.A. on a Bittersweet but Historic Trip

In a new sign of gradually easing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, a North Korean man arrived Monday in Los Angeles on a bittersweet journey from here for a family reunion and his mother’s burial.

Kang Dae-Yong’s visit, the first of its kind since the 1950-53 Korean War, could help open the door for other North Koreans to visit relatives in the United States. It also may constitute a cautious overture toward improved relations between Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and Washington.

While North Korean diplomats and scholars have visited the United States previously, Kang’s trip marks the first time that Pyongyang has allowed a North Korean citizen to travel to America for a family visit, according to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. State Department.

Asked whether Kang’s trip might lead to similar journeys by others, a North Korean Embassy official, who did not give his name, replied, “We hope so.” But another North Korean official said that further visits would depend on improved “institutional” arrangements between Pyongyang, and Washington. He did not elaborate.

In South Korea, about 10 million people are estimated to be separated from family members in the north. Virtually all Korean immigrants to the United States are from South Korea, and it would be significant for many families if Pyongyang starts allowing its citizens to make family visits to the United States.

Kang and his Los Angeles relatives, separated since the Korean War, re-established contact only two months ago. His mother, Haeng-Ok Kang, started making plans to visit him in Pyongyang. But she suffered a stroke and fell into a coma before she could make the trip.

Kang, 60, then received permission from the North Korean government to visit his mother in Los Angeles. That approval was revoked after she died Aug. 1. A few days ago, Pyongyang reversed its stance again and said he could go.

On Monday afternoon Kang was reunited with his family for the first time in 41 years.

Kang arrived at Los Angeles International Airport and was driven directly to a gathering of family and friends at a Korean funeral home in the West Adams district.

Wearing a dark blue business suit and traditional Korean starched-linen mourning headwear and leggings, Kang performed a series of three deep bows in front of a shrine to his mother.

“During this hectic time, I appreciate having all of you here with me. Thank you,” he said in Korean, before making a traditional offering of flowers, rice wine and fruit to the photos of his mother displayed around the shrine.

Kang planned to spend the evening with the families of his two brothers and three sisters, all of whom live in the Los Angeles area.

Drained by the events of the past month--during which he said he had lost 20 pounds and slept infrequently--Kang also has plans to see a doctor, family members said. He will stay in the United States for at least one week.

Before his arrival in the United States, the elder Kang had been preoccupied with paying respects to his mother, said his American nephew, Hyungwon Kang, who flew from Los Angeles to Beijing on Saturday to meet his uncle and a North Korean official accompanying him.

Hyungwon Kang and his uncle, who had never met, talked emotionally for three hours Sunday night over dinner at a Beijing hotel. On Monday, shortly before noon Beijing time, Kang Dae-Yong and Ro Chol Su, a leading official of North Korea’s Committee for Reunion of Divided Families, were granted visas by the U.S. Embassy. Ro apparently is on the trip partly to ensure that Kang returns to North Korea without incident.

The three men left Beijing for Los Angeles a few hours later.

The elder Kang did not immediately discuss the political significance of his visit, his nephew said Monday, adding that Kang Dae-Yong would comment on non-family matters after the burial of his mother, scheduled for Thursday at a cemetery in Glendale.

A State Department official said that Kang’s was the first family reunion visa ever granted to a North Korean citizen, simply because he was the first person ever allowed by Pyongyang to apply. Family reunion visas fall in the same category as academic and sports visits.

The U.S. government has been prepared to grant such visas for nearly three years but until now the North Korean government only allowed its citizens to leave to study or participate in sports.

“This has been possible since October, 1988,” the State Department official said. “Whether additional visas will be issued depends on whether additional North Koreans apply. But I don’t imagine that your average North Korean has a passport and can travel outside the country.”

The official noted that the United States has said it is prepared to improve its relationship with Pyongyang, provided that the North Koreans place their nuclear facilities under international inspection, cooperate in resolving Korean War MIA cases and make other similar gestures. “If they were to meet our concerns on these matters, we would respond,” the official said.

Granting of a visa to Kang “doesn’t mark any change from the U.S. standpoint,” the official said. “Whether it means something new to the North Koreans, I don’t know.”

Hyungwon Kang, who wrote an article about his sick grandmother and long-lost uncle that was published by The Times in July, said he believed that “with this case, the Korean-Americans can at least be assured that there is hope.”

“My hope is that the North Korean and U.S. governments make substantive efforts to alleviate the pain and suffering that people have been living with for more than four decades,” he said.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and John H. Lee in Los Angeles contributed to this article.