DONGDUCHEON, South Korea — Ninety-three-year-old Ham Sung-chan’s eyes widen with excitement as he describes the shock and euphoria of reuniting with his baby brother, now 79, during three days of family reunions in North Korea.
But there’s a deep and bitter regret, too, and it stems from a simple bit of math: After nearly 70 years of a separation forced by a devastating 1950-53 war that killed and injured millions and cemented the division of the Korean Peninsula into North and South, Ham and his North Korean brother got a total of only 12 hours together.
Ham was one of the 197 South Koreans who visited North Korea’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort from last Monday to Wednesday for rare reunions with relatives in the North. The heart-wrenching images of elderly Koreans embracing each other for the last time continued in a second set of reunions involving around 300 South Koreans that took place from Friday to Sunday.
“There’s a large sense of dejection that has set in,” said Ham, who described the details of his trip in an Associated Press interview in his home in Dongducheon, north of Seoul. “The time we spent together was too short, way too short. It wasn’t a week; it wasn’t 10 days. Just after we met, we had to depart.”
Here’s how Ham described the brief but intense time he spent with his North Korean brother after so many decades apart:
Sleepless in Sokcho
Ham’s two daughters and son bought gifts for their uncle, filling four large bags with underwear, long johns, duck-down parkas, medicine, vitamins, sugar, candy, instant noodles and five boxes of “Choco Pies,” a brand of South Korean-made chocolate-covered cakes known to be popular among North Koreans.
The day before the reunions, Ham, his wife and younger daughter drove to a resort in the South Korean coastal town of Sokcho, where the South Korean participants spent a night before crossing into North Korea by bus.
Red Cross officials arranged health checkups for the participants, who were told not to criticize North Korea’s authoritarian leadership and broken economy and not to point at portraits of the three leaders of the Kim dynasty that has ruled the North since 1945.
“I couldn’t sleep at all that night,” Ham said.
‘Brother, it’s me!’
On Monday morning, Ham’s bus crossed into North Korea. Ham said he felt “spooky” when three North Korean soldiers, in olive-green uniforms and large round hats, came aboard his bus during a border check.
“They only asked me when I had crossed over to the South,” Ham said. “I told them it was before the war.”
After arriving at the Diamond Mountain resort, Ham marveled at how the modern facility differed from the underdeveloped surroundings, where small, crude homes were scattered around fields and on hills. The resort was built by South Korea’s Hyundai business group during a period of rapprochement in the 2000s. Analysts say North Korea, which has long rejected South Korean demands to increase the number of reunions and participants, keeps the meetings at Diamond Mountain to limit North Koreans’ awareness of what’s going on in the outside world.
Ham unpacked in room No. 512 at the Kumkangsan Hotel at the resort. It had nice beds, air conditioning and hot water, but the bulky television did not work.
The first meetings took place at about 3 p.m. Ham’s heart trembled as he walked with his wife and daughter toward the banquet hall where the North Korean relatives were waiting at white tables. As Ham approached a table marked with the number 90, a slim, deeply wrinkled man in a suit and tie sprung from his seat. The brothers embraced tightly, smiling widely, tears streaming down their faces.
“He yelled, ‘Brother, it’s me!'” Ham said. “I recognized him right away. He was still that skinny, quiet kid. Maybe our bloodlines pulled us together.”
For four hours, Ham and his brother mostly talked about family, explaining to each other when their parents and brothers had died.
