culture

In the DPRK society, it is commonplace to hear heart-warming stories about people helping and caring for others.

Pak Mi Ran, a 64-year-old woman living in Pongji-dong, Phyongchon District, Pyongyang, received help from such kind persons.

Early in the morning on a November day last year, she lost her bag containing valuable objects along with her citizenship card near a parking place on her way to the home of her friend in the city of Phyongsong adjoining Pyongyang.

As she grew older, her memory got weaker and therefore she could not remember where she had left it.

It was more difficult to find it as the street was covered with snow. She went up and down the street twice worriedly in search of the bag, but failed, so she returned home.

And then a happy event happened unexpectedly.

Those things she had lost that morning returned to her that evening.

Han Ok Ju, head of her neighbourhood unit, told her the following story as she passed her the citizenship card and bag:

That day, conductor Ri Un Ju and driver Ri Won Chol of the bus “Pyongyang 39-1596” belonging to the Pyongyang Municipal General Passenger Traffic Service Enterprise were waiting for passengers in the parking place. They happened to find a bag that looked like a pile of snow beside a bench in a snow-covered park.

They guessed that it might belong to a passenger who had been waiting for a bus, so they looked round the place, but failed to find its owner. However, as the bag was open, they could see the citizenship card and with the help of it they got to know the owner’s address and found out the phone number of the head of her neighbourhood unit through some channels.

That afternoon, they found time despite the busy service to see the head of the neighbourhood unit and hand over the luggage, before resuming their bus service.

In the phone call with Pak Mi Ran who expressed heartfelt gratitude to them, the bus conductor and driver said that she might have been so worried after losing her citizenship card and bag and that they were sorry for failing to find them earlier.

According to Pak and Han, their affectionate words were engraved on their minds.

In an interview with The Pyongyang Times reporter, Ri Won Chol said: 

"We have done what we have to do as servants of the people. All our drivers and conductors are of the same mind."

"One March 8 International Women’s Day, a regular user of our bus service came to congratulate me with a bouquet and cosmetics,” said Ri Un Ju. “I still vividly remember the fond memory of the day when I received an armful of bouquets with congratulations from passengers. The sharing of warm affections gave me feeling that they were all my relatives." 

According to Kim Jin Myong, a dispatcher of the Passenger and Freight Transport Corps of the Pyongyang Transport Trading Company, there are so many stories about the drivers and conductors of the corps who found and sent back the wallets, mobile phones and handbags lost by passengers. They even drove a passenger who was seized with a sudden illness to a hospital during bus service, he added.

Such impressive stories are on the lips of passengers travelling by buses running along beautiful Pyongyang streets.