culture

In Pothonggang District, Pyongyang, there is a family called a “flower home”. 

The balcony of the house is full of various kinds of ornamental foliage and flowering plants, which arouse a refreshed feeling and rich emotion and add beauty to the scenery as their leaves are all lovely and shiny.

The “horticulturist” of this family is Kim Jong Song.

The old man grows over 120 plants of dozens of species, including Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, Lilium philadelphicum, Scindapsus aureus and Sansevieria laurentii, not only in the balcony but also in the rooms.

He began to cultivate flowering plants more than 20 years ago.

He originally grew the plants to relieve mental fatigue from his work, and the cultivation gradually became a help to his work and life in many ways.

In the past, his office colleagues felt uneasy in the presence of him as he was taciturn and so an awkward atmosphere pervaded their office.

But since he began to cultivate various beautiful flowers in the office, the atmosphere had taken a turn for the better. His colleagues and visitors to the office began to have a chat about the flowers with him. And they came to have candid discussions about work in a friendly atmosphere and achieve satisfactory results.

Kim Jong Song still keeps close ties with many people who worked with him and is held in respect by his family members and neighbours.

Many new modern flats are under construction in Pyongyang and his family will soon move into one of them, he said, adding that he would like to decorate with flowers the whole of the new house he will receive thanks to the benefit of the state.