Painfully Short Reunion Wraps Up in Koreas

The 200 Koreans reunited with relatives after half a century of separation had only just begun to talk--introducing themselves, catching up on lives, reminiscing--when they were forced to end their conversations, perhaps forever.

As the three-day reunions of the separated families wrapped up this morning, with 100 North Koreans heading home from Seoul and 100 South Koreans returning from Pyongyang after simultaneous events, the specter of another endless separation loomed, and the tears flowed like a river.

“How can I say goodbye to my wife--my beautiful wife--whom I’ve waited 50 years to see?” said a sobbing Kim Hee Young. “The reality is too much to bear.”

North Korean Seo Ki Suk, 67, said parting once again was more emotionally overwhelming than the initial reunion of families separated when war erupted on the Korean peninsula 50 years ago.

He wept as he stroked the gray hair of his South Korean mother, Kim Bu Sen, 87. “When can we meet again? She’s so old, and I’m so old. . . . I believe unification can come fast, but it’s not something that can be done in a day.”

The reunions left all the participants--and seemingly the rest of the Korean peninsula--hungry for more time. Amid goodbyes here Thursday afternoon, South Koreans clung to their North Korean relatives’ hands through bus windows as the vehicles pulled away, then fell to the ground weeping inconsolably.

‘Looking Forward to Seeing You Again’

This morning, family members waited in the sweltering heat for at least an hour, hoping to catch just a few more minutes with their visitors departing the hotel for the airport. Some wailed, or posted signs that said, “We’re looking forward to seeing you again.”

One family handed an elderly relative a parting gift of a hearing aid, which a Red Cross worker helped him put on. Several helicopters hovered overhead, and a few hundred police stood sentry.

Some followed relatives to the airport, where the Northerners boarded Korean Air 815--named for Aug. 15, the first day of the reunions.

The South Koreans ached, knowing that even if the leaders of the two Koreas make good on their vows to hold more regular and less rigid reunions--others are already planned for September and October--there are at least 7.7 million South Koreans who haven’t had a chance to see loved ones and now are in line ahead of them.

The Joongang Ilbo daily newspaper noted that if members of 100 families exchanged visits each month, it would take hundreds of years for all separated relatives to see each other.

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, whose June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il paved the way for the reunions, on Thursday said the visits show that the once-isolationist North is serious about opening up.

“I believe inter-Korean ties will steadily improve, although there might be some twists and turns,” the South Korean leader told reporters. “Now, it will be difficult for North Korea to make a U-turn.”

The poignancy of the reunions--with scene after scene of long-lost offspring, now elderly themselves, bowing to their aged parents--seemed to ignite a sudden volcano of emotion born of long-simmering frustration, sadness and despair here among those with family members still in the North.

Some began taking matters into their own hands.

One man wore a sandwich board in front of visiting North Koreans. It listed the names of his parents and siblings. “My friends from Pyongyang, please find these people,” the sign pleaded. “I have to go and apologize for leaving them behind.”

Many others at the airport did the same thing, hoping to be spotted by North Korean television.

Although those chosen for the reunion were the lucky ones--to know that their relatives were at least alive and to spend even a few hours with them--the separated families spent only about 10 hours together. The rest of the time, the visitors were obliged to tour cultural sites and attend official meals with their delegations.

No Defections Are Reported

So structured was the event that South Koreans were placed at tables separate from their North Korean relatives at a dinner after the first emotional meeting here Tuesday. They stayed at separate hotels: The North Koreans on the north side of the Han River, the South Korean families they were meeting on the south side.

Each family had to choose five members to attend the reunions. Three weeping nieces of Choi Sang Kil who didn’t make the cut followed the North Korean visitors to Changdeokgung Palace here, then held up a small boy to the bus window. The uncle broke down and cried.

The reunions went off without any political catastrophes such as defections, which could have jeopardized future programs. Security was so tight that Yang Han Sang, a North Korean, was not permitted to travel to the Seoul home of his ailing mother. She was too sick to make it to the hotel.

The best they managed was a phone call--their first ever, as telecommunications do not exist between the Koreas.

“Mother?” he said into the phone.

“Where did you go [when you left South Korea] and why did you come now?” came her reply.

Early this morning, the authorities, after a lengthy negotiation, relented after she was hospitalized overnight. At 2:50 a.m., Yang was taken to her bedside. He bowed as he entered the hospital room.

“I’m sorry I left you and lied to you,” he told his mother, sobbing, presumably describing his escape to North Korea during the war. Television cameras hovered over the bedside, horning in on what seemingly should be a private conversation. But the reunion participants have seemed oblivious to the constant surveillance by TV and other media.

“Mother, you’ve been through a lot of hard times,” Yang said. “You can’t leave me now.”

The frail woman lay sobbing on the bed, saying, “You can’t go back to Pyongyang.”

“Mother, forgive me. Forgive me. . . . Thank you, Mother, thank you. Please stay alive, I will be back.”

It was impossible to exit from hotel elevators onto the North Koreans’ floors: They were blocked by minders. Callers could not reach the North Koreans by phone, even if they knew their room number and were calling on an in-house line.

And there was one tragic mistake. South Korean Kim Hee Cho, 73, thought that she would be meeting her little brother when she arrived in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. She had been told that just one of her relatives was alive, and she assumed that it was her younger brother, Kim Ki Cho, who would have been 67. “I thought he would be alive, because he was particularly smart and intelligent,” she said in a television interview. “I thought he would have survived.”

But it turned out to be her cousin who was waiting. Her parents and all five siblings were dead.

“Why did this happen?” she said, sobbing, in Pyongyang. “Why is everyone dead?”

Since no visits to parents’ grave sites--considered obligatory in the Confucian Korean society--were allowed, some improvised. Yang Won Ryul, a 69-year-old North Korean, came to see his 82-year-old South Korean brother, Yang Jin Ryul, and learned that his mother was dead.

In one of two private two-hour meetings they were allowed, they erected a makeshift memorial in the hotel room, putting their dead mother’s picture on the table along with fruit, rice, meat and Korean shoju whiskey. Then they began the traditional jaesae ceremony, usually held at the eldest son’s home on the anniversary of a parent’s death or holidays such as Korean Thanksgiving. They bowed several times to the makeshift altar, in sets of twos as is customary.

“I returned after 50 years to only see my mother in the photo, but at least I met my siblings,” said Yang Won Ryul. “At least I came home in 50 years. Our mother’s tears have dried up.”