culture

Everyone knows it takes much effort to raise a child. But in the DPRK, it is on everyone’s lips that families with many children are full of blessings.

Recently, The Pyongyang Times reporter Hwang Jong Ryol visited the home of Kim Yong Ok living in neighbourhood unit No. 14 of Hwawon-dong No. 1, Hwasong District, Pyongyang.

Kim Yong Ok said: “All kinds of blessings have come to my family since I gave birth to three children. The country provided us with a modern new flat free of charge and preferential treatment. Daily necessities are supplied for us on a regular basis and special subsidies are granted under the meticulous care of officials of our neighbourhood unit, dong and district people’s committee. Therefore, we lead a comfortable life free from the slightest inconvenience.”

According to her, their household doctor frequents their home lest the children should get ill to check up their health and all kinds of special benefits are given to them when they visit hospitals and amusement parks.

Kim Yong Ok said that as she gave birth to three children, they came to lead a happier and sentimental life. Her eldest son is Yu Wi Phyong, her second son is Yu Wi Gwang who is two years younger than the former and her daughter is Yu Ye Yong who is the youngest of the siblings. The home atmosphere has got livelier and the family is full of laughter every day, she said.

Seen on the wall of the boys’ room are emulation graphs. The two boys attending the primary school course of Hwawon Senior Middle School No. 1 in Hwasong District vie with each other to be better in study and the do-good-deeds movement. Sometimes, they boisterously go round the room to learn Taekwon-Do. The quiet and gentle daughter dances and sings the pieces she learned at school, giving pleasure to her parents.

Their father Yu Ho Yong said that there has been a big change in their routine of Sundays and holidays.

They spend a good time at the Central Zoo, the Natural History Museum, the Rungna People’s Recreation Ground and the Munsu Water Park. The parents implant in their children love for the capital city of Pyongyang where they were born and the country while walking the new street at night.

Wi Phyong says he will study harder to become a soldier of the Korean People’s Army who defends Pyongyang as his name suggests and Wi Gwang says his dream is to become a football star that flies high the national flag all over the world. And Ye Yong wants to become a gardener.

Wi Phyong and Wi Gwang went up to a higher grade in April when the new school year began and Ye Yong was admitted to the primary school course.

“People of old days said that many children require great pains. But to my family blessings come in succession,” said Kim Yong Ok. 

She added that her family is always filled with merry laughter as they live in the grand socialist flower garden as the name Hwawon-dong (Hwawon means flower garden in English) indicates.