culture

Many working people fancy writing poems and singing songs as they lead an optimistic working life in the DPRK.

Among them is Ma Sun Jong, 26-year-old member of the youth workteam of workshop No. 3 of Pyongyang Kim Jong Suk Silk Mill. She has written a lot of poems as she works as a silk reeler at the mill.

She writes mainly about her pride in her workplace and job and her typical poems are “My Workplace”, “Our Home” and “Facelifted Mill”.

Her works are much loved by her fellows as they contain sincere feelings and praise for the fulfilling life.

Especially, the words of song “I Am a Silk Reeler” won a national mass literary work prize contest and got favour of many readers.

“Joy in working life and optimism motivated me to compose poems,” she said.

Ma had dreamt of being a musician in her girlhood.

Born into a worker’s family, she was admired by villagers as she sang so well in her kindergarten days. Her school teachers expected that she would become a singing star.

To everyone’s surprise, however, she chose to become a silk reeler.

She was so moved as she read a story about a girl silk reeler on a newspaper one day just before finishing her middle school course.

The article read that Kim Jong Hyang, silk reeler of Pyongyang Kim Jong Suk Silk Mill taking the lion’s share in improving the people’s living standards, made strenuous efforts to achieve unrivalled production results and received a Kim Il Sung Youth Honour Prize to become the pride of the mill.

Ma wanted to add lustre to her youth just like Kim did. So, she volunteered for the mill after finishing middle school. She was appointed to the workteam where Kim Jong Hyang was working as she wished and fulfilled her annual production plan every year without fail.

Later, she began to write poem.

She drew great creative inspiration from the labour innovators striving to spin more silk thread, the buzzing sound of machines, the nice mill well known across the country as “workplace in a park” and the joy and optimism felt in working life filled with songs.

She wrote poems on her pocket book one after another and recited them during the break at work and in the evening in the hostel, winning applause from her fellows.

She created the poem “Our Home” at a go during the night when they could hardly sleep after moving into a wonderful workers’ hostel, also known as “workers’ palace” and “workers’ hotel”, which was newly built under the care of General Secretary Kim Jong Un.

She further refined her creative skills at the literature group of her silk mill and some of her pieces appeared on such newspapers as Munhak Sinmun and Chongnyon Jonwi.

“Our socialist country, a paradise of working people, brings me hope, happiness and creative inspiration. All my poems put together will be a hymn to the era of the Workers’ Party,” said Ma.