Mysteries Unraveled Amid Smiles, Tears at Reunion of Korean Families

How did 16-year-old Kang Young Won wind up in North Korea, never returning for the sweet potatoes he’d asked his mother to make for him on the summer evening in 1950 when he disappeared?

That was one of the many mysteries that unraveled in the emotional reunions last week of families that hadn’t seen each other since war divided the peninsula half a century ago. Kang was among 100 North Koreans selected to travel to Seoul to meet the families they had left behind.

The stories they told brought life to the chaotic early days of the war, when armies marched up and down the length of the Korean peninsula.

Unbeknownst to their families, many of the North Koreans at the reunion were either conscripted or had volunteered--it wasn’t clear which--in 1950 for the North Korean army. They now are among North Korea’s elite: scientists, professors and artists.

The 100 South Koreans who traveled to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, for reunions with their families were a far different group: They were chosen by computer based on age, relationship and a few other criteria, and seemed to be mostly lower or middle income. Most had fled North Korea as refugees.

Kang’s 90-year-old mother, Park Bo Bae, and the rest of his family had given him up for dead when he didn’t return after attending a job fair. It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion: the 1950-1953 war would claim the lives of 2 million Korean civilians and soldiers and leave the peninsula in tatters.

The family’s anticipation of the reunion and wonder about Kang’s life were profiled in an Aug. 14 Times article before the reunion. They were astonished to learn that Kang had wound up in North Korea, about 250 miles from their home in southwestern South Korea.

Kang had little education, and according to his mother and sister, had not the slightest bit of Communist ideology when he left. “We didn’t know anything about the North or South,” his mother said.

His sister, Kang Son Ja, 62, added: “He didn’t know anything about politics. He was always worried about helping support the family and getting food for us.”

Catching Up on Latest Family News

For the first hour of the tearful reunion, no one brought up the subject of what happened to him that night. Instead, they brought each other up to date on the family.

He asked where his little sister was--she had been sick and died shortly after he left--and asked about his father, who died seven years ago. He seemed to know that his brother had died because he didn’t ask initially: The brother died of cancer in April. He showed pictures of his healthy and prosperous-looking five children. And they talked about what had become of his former friends.

Over the three-day reunion, the answer to what had happened to Kang gradually gained some focus.

When a reporter first asked the question, the family listened intently.

“I followed the North Korean army to the Great Gen. Kim Il Sung,” he said. “When the war broke out, I realized how poor we were, and my pride was hurt.”

Earlier in the conversation, he reminded his mother that he’d spent just a short time in school. “Remember, I was only one year in elementary school?” he told her. “Remember? I couldn’t go to school.”

That was news to his mother, who looked bewildered.

Kang said he was illiterate when he left. “How could I bear that?” he said. “I just ran away.”

Later, he would tell his family privately that since they were starving, he had decided to leave.

He recalled that his mother was always foraging around the village for food. Sweet potatoes were among the few foods she could find. He reminded his sister that his mother occasionally was so hungry that she would eat ashes.

That sweltering summer evening in 1950--the family can’t remember the exact date--he went to apply for a job at a school where a job fair of sorts was being held by a cigarette company.

“He didn’t have any intention of going anywhere,” he told the family, according to his sister. But “recruiters moved him to so many places,” he told them, ending up in Seoul. There they told him “they had to go north,” she said, and promised him a job when he got there.

All the while, “there was gunfire, crazy gunfire,” she said he told her.

While many questions remain, in the chaos of the early days of the war it appears that North Korean agents were using the prospect of jobs to lure young men to the North.

Indeed, the North was once more prosperous, with more industry and electricity.

Teen Didn’t Have to Go Into Combat

Kang told them he was in the army during the Korean War but that he was not on the front lines and never held a gun.

When he got to the North, he attended schools for those who couldn’t pay any tuition and hadn’t previously attended.

When he left the army, he said, “I realized the only place to live was in the Chosun Democracy [North Korea]. For 10 years out of 50, I was able to live without paying a single cent.”

“Although I had only one year of education in elementary school, I was in college for two years and a research institute for three years. Now I’m a university professor,” he added. He teaches economics.

During the reunion, he talked a lot about Kim Il Sung, and how it had been because of him that he’d become a professor, his sister said. He seemed to mention the Great Leader, as the late Kim is known in North Korea, more when the North Korean escorts were nearby, his sister said.

But despite his successful life in the North, he still missed his home in the South.

Kang Son Ja noticed her brother’s chain smoking and asked about it. He took up smoking at age 55 because he couldn’t stop thinking about his hometown, he said.

He kept repeating how happy he was to see his mother. “I was always thinking what happened to my mother. . . . Now if I die, it’s OK, because I’ve seen my mother.”

During the 10 hours they were actually allowed to spend with each other, they exchanged gifts: He gave them liquor, cigarettes, a bottle filled with a mysterious liquid, and ginseng root, for which North Korea is well known. He also brought dresses for his mother and sister. His sister said they were nice but not of great quality.

He was delighted with the suitcase full of clothes, medicine, toiletries and other things his Southern family brought him, but he couldn’t take everything, he said.

He took the shoes, the clothes, the hair dryer, the medicine--although at first he didn’t know what it was for--the calculator and socks. He left behind the soap, the toothbrush and toothpaste and some of the clothes he was wearing.

On the morning he was to leave, the family got up at 5 and went from the Seoul hotel where they were staying to get to their brother’s hotel an hour before departure. The North Koreans were allowed to come to the parking lot about 15 minutes for a final goodbye before the buses departed for the airport.

Kang hoisted his mother on his back to give her a piggyback ride, and told everyone in earshot to take good care of his mom. He told his tiny, serene mother to wait another 10 years and he would come back to take care of her.

“How will I live that long?” his mother replied.

“She will live 10 more years,” Kang told his sister. “That’s for sure.”