Sighs and cries of anguish and joy were heard in the South Korean Red Cross office, where a computer lottery selected candidates for the upcoming family reunions this month.
The lottery drawn on the Red Cross computer randomly selected 500 from nearly 130,000 names of South Koreans looking for family members in North Korea. About 66,000 of them are still alive, with most aged 70 or more.
The process of choosing which families to participate is complicated. Five hundred South Koreans will be chosen at random. That list will be pared down to 250 based on the applicants health and whether they want to go. From that list of 250, 100 will be chosen at random to attend next month’s reunions.
Many of those gathered at the Red Cross left disappointed.
“I want to find my daughter as soon as possible, or at least know if she is dead or alive. I left her when she was three. My heart is going to burst. Although my legs hurt, I am here to see the lottery result. But my name is not there!” said Lee Yong-nyo, 87.
In contrast, Kang Neung-hwan, 94, won the draw. But he doesn’t feel especially lucky.
Kang was among 82 South Koreans picked to visit the North in February 2014, the last time the Koreas held reunions of family members separated by the 1950-53 war, briefly seeing the son he had never met and will probably never see again.
“We exchanged gifts and it was too bad because we had to part again after meeting briefly. I wish it was 10 days or two weeks, but three days went by so quickly,” Kang, now in declining health, said from the couch of his home in Seoul, pictures of his son on the wall behind him.
The next reunion, scheduled to begin October 20 at the Mount Kumgang resort north of the border, will last three days for each family member but include only two hours of private meeting time, judging by previous reunions.
Kang was a school teacher when he joined a wave of people fleeing the North as China entered the war, leaving behind his wife of four months. He had not known that she was pregnant, and that the border would be shut.
When he applied to join a reunion he hoped to see his long-lost sister. Kang learned that she had died but discovered he had a son:
“I hugged him and told him: be healthy and I hope unification will happen soon before I die so we can meet again,” he said.
Im Chae-yong’s siblings were unsuccessful on several attempts to see their eldest brother in the North.
Then, Im learned that his brother, now 83, was looking for relatives in the South. With his sister, Im joined the last reunion trip and saw the brother he had never met.
They brought a watch, socks and aspirin for their brother, who gave them photos of his own family and a gift of blueberry liquor and a red tablecloth.
Much of the event was held in a ballroom, watched by officials and the media.
“The North Korean song kept playing so loudly, so it was difficult to communicate with each other,” Im recalled.
The Ims were limited in what they could discuss even in private.
A government guidebook for South Korean participants discourages questions about whether their relatives eat well, advised them not to talk about politics, and warned them against getting drunk on potent North Korean liquor.
North and South Korea have held 19 such events since 2000, bringing together 3,900 families in tearful but highly choreographed events. (Reuters)