culture

Choe Kuk Jin has worked at the large machine-tool workshop of the Ryongsong Machine Complex for more than ten years.

He not only overfulfilled his national economic plan every year but also invented and introduced various kinds of jigs and equipment necessary for manufacturing large machines to remarkably shorten the processing time of equipment and contributed to updating the equipment of the complex.

Well known as an innovator, he did not spare efforts in training young workers into skilled hands.

He always thinks about production and finds work by himself, and he has a badge he keeps as a treasure.

It is the Chollima badge symbolizing the Chollima era which is recorded in the history of the DPRK as a great era and the heroic struggle of the masters of the era.

At that time, his grandfather was awarded the Chollima badge as he made a great number of machines including an 8-metre turning lathe and 3 000-ton press together with Hero Ju Song Il, well-known to the whole country.

The day when Choe Kuk Jin’s father was assigned to the complex and went to work for the first time, the grandfather told him to keep the badge from then on as he handed it over to him.

And the father led a life as a famous innovator of the complex like his grandfather and handed the badge down to Kuk Jin.

Kuk Jin worked hard always wearing the Chollima badge smelt of his grandfather and father and shining with the precious sweat and fighting spirit of the preceding generations.

Then he felt as if his grandfather and father were watching him nearby and confident that he could do any difficult work.

Thus, he became an innovator and a highly skilled worker indispensable to the complex.

He has been honoured with the Kim Jong Il Youth Honour Prize and the title of socialist patriotic youth vanguard.

“Though decades have passed, the Chollima badge will shine through generations, and the spirit created by the grandfather’s generation will firmly be carried on. It is the duty for our younger generations to do so and herein lies the prosperity of our country,” said Choe Kuk Jin.