SEOUL — My three-day guided trip during mid-August to several places in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, one fourth the size of Jilin Province in Northeast China, which is almost the same size as the Korean peninsula, was very meaningful in various aspects. It left myself and all the members of my party, composed of 26 college classmates and 21 spouses, individually pondering different feelings of ethnic and historical irony, on the destiny of Korea, its land and people.
Due to the many Korea-related sights and sounds reminding us of our tragic past, I felt the short stay was very homelike. At first glance most official and commercial signboards are written both in Chinese and Korean. Korean is spoken everywhere, even by third-or fourth-generation ethnic Koreans, often called “Chosonjok.” A daily newspaper called “Yanbian Ribao” is published in Korean. Chinese TV stations broadcast KBS, MBC, and SBS programs. The Korean won is circulated freely, without the need to exchange it into Chinese yuan. A majority of tourists visiting Yanbian Prefecture are from Korea. Even ethnic customs like folk dance, music, swings and food are common to the 854,000 Koreans in Yanbian, representing more than half of the total ethnic Korean population in China.
Korean compatriots in Yanbian are not necessarily well-off compared to the other 44 minorities in the province of 26 million people. They show a strong interest in seeking lucrative job opportunities in South Korea. They depend largely on agriculture, using nightsoil that is of the same as in Korea. Besides the main crop, rice, they grow corn, eggplants, “frog melons,” peanuts, potatoes, sunflowers, pumpkins and tomatoes in the fields and gardens. They also breed livestock like hogs, goats, oxen, sheep, etc. Quite a number of them are engaged in small-and medium-sized businesses including restaurants, shops and trading offices. Gen. Cho Nam-ki is recognized as one of the most successful figures in public life among ethnic Koreans residing in Yanbian.
The former building of Daesung Middle School (now called Longjing Middle School) was turned into a museum displaying items of the school’s illustrious history and achievements made by the distinguished graduates who were active both in South and North Koreas. They include Generals Chung Il-kwon and Lee Joo-il, Painter Chun Kyong-ja, Pastor Moon Ik-hwan and North Korean Deputy Premier Lee Chong-ok. Above all, Poet Yoon Dong-joo is the most respected figure admired by Koreans in Yanbian. A stone monument with one of his poems inscribed on it is erected outside the museum building. One out of five middle school classes is composed of third-or fourth-generation ethnic Koreans.
The past of many Korean independence fighters against Japanese colonial rule can be traced through the Yanbian area. One particular pavilion, “Yisongting” erected by Chinese authorities in 1980, stands on the ridgeline of Mt. Piyanshan. It is the very site overlooking the Hayran River and the Ryongmoon Bridge where under a majestic pine tree patriotic Korean independence fighters would get together to plan and put in motion anti-Japanese activities. Kim Il-sung’s guerrilla activities were said to have originated here.
Longjing City and the Tumen River were areas of Chungshan-ri district in which major victories were won in the battle with Japanese invaders, led by such Korean Independence Army leaders as Generals Lee Bom-suk, Kim Jwa-jin and Hong Bom-do, on the way from Yanji to Mt. Paektu (Changbaishan in Chinese).
Kaishantun in Yanbian and Sambong in North Korea face each other across the Tumen River. I was allowed to go on foot to the mid-point of the 100-meter-long Tumen Bridge. There I could vividly see the North Korean border checkpoint with its flying red star banner and a couple of border guards. All my colleagues and their spouses seemed to be somewhat serious, thinking of the 55-year-old separation from our northern half, at a time when divided family members of the two Koreas were enjoying their bitter but sweet four-day reunion in Seoul and Pyongyang, respectively, engaging in wishful thinking for the eventual reunification of our fatherland.
The most inspiring event was climbing Mt. Paektu, a sacred mountain for both China’s Ching Dynasty (1644-1912) and the two Koreas, and looking into the famous crater lake called “Heavenly Lake (Tianchi in Chinese)” on the afternoon of August 17. Luckily enough, as we were driving along the edge of the crater the ominous thick clouds resting on the famous lake and 16 peaks of the great mountain were gradually moving to the Chinese side near the peak. Everyone was joyful and excited to clearly see the whole scene of the highest mountain peaks and the widely-known lake, and spent their limited time taking pictures of the lake and mountain peaks on the North Korean side as background before the clouds would hide the spectacular scene again.
Among the 16 peaks of Mt. Paektu, the highest one is General (or Paektu) Peak on the North Korean side with an altitude of 2,749 meters, followed by Balyunfong on the Chinese side with 2,691 meters. It was rare and wonderful to have a 9.82 square-kilometer lake on the summit of the 2,189 meters high mountain. The lake’s circumference is 13.1 kilometers. It is 373 meters deep, at points 4.85 kilometers south-north and 3.35 kilometers long east-west. Climbing on foot to Tianchi is permitted through the hill near the 68-meter-high Changbaishan Waterfall during the day only.
Yanbian Daewoo Hotel in Yanji has the most modern and elegant accommodations in the Autonomous Prefecture. Its management performs a consulate general’s role and function to some extent for the 854,000 ethnic Koreans in Yanbian and the rest of Koreans in other former Manchurian provinces. I heard that local Chinese people, including ethnic Koreans, had a preconceived perception of South Korea as a brutal puppet dictatorship run by American imperialists until the year 1987, when a Chinese passenger airplane accidentally landed on South Korean soil, and all the crew members were well treated and returned safely to China. Furthermore, the 1988 Olympiad in Seoul conclusively introduced South Korea to the Chinese as a remarkable country with big potential to be favorably recognized as a promising neighbor.
At Changbaishan Daewoo Hotel, a special freshwater fish named “mountain-stream fish” was served at our party’s dinner table. North Koreans raise four different kinds of such freshwater species in Tianchi, and the fully-grown ones are caught in a stream around the Changbaishan Waterfall in China. Other foods we were served were hare meat, roe deer and badgers as well as vegetables and fruits common in the Yanbian area.
With everything I experienced and witnessed at Yanbian Prefecture, I felt amused and at peace with the improved understanding of geographical and historical curiosity, as most Korean visitors agreed. Setting aside bygone agonies of Korean compatriots with sweat and toil, it is now time for present-day Koreans to enforce our efforts for mutual exchange and greater cooperation in various aspects between people of the two Koreas, north and south, and ethnic Koreans in Jilin and other parts of Northeast China and Russia’s Primorskii Krai (Maritime Province) in the vicinity. They can play an important intermediary role and function, not only on the path toward eventual reunification of the two Koreas but also as a means to be a very useful input in accelerating and furthering forth-coming growth and development in performing special Sino-Korean relations. From now on, we need to develop practical tools and techniques to help find out ways and means of ensuring, analyzing, and applying common interests and practical correlation between Korean compatriots residing in Yanbian and its vicinity, and Korean nationals dwelling in their peninsula, the fatherland.