The Five Northern Provinces Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul [Five Northern Provinces Committee website]
The Five Northern Provinces Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul [Five Northern Provinces Committee website]

The Five Northern Provinces Committee's South Pyongan Province office and the 10 Million Separated Families Committee jointly held an event titled "Tears of the Daedong River, Blooming as Flowers of Peace" at the Five Northern Provinces Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Saturday, the organizations announced Monday.

The event was designed to remind Korean society — home to the world's only divided nation and some 10 million separated families still living with unresolved pain — of the value of a peace free from war.

It particularly highlighted the lives of first-generation displaced Koreans who were forced into permanent separation from their families as they fled across the Daedong River railway bridge during the Korean War, conveying how their sacrifices laid the enduring foundations of today's South Korea.

The event unfolded in three parts.

The first part ran from noon to 2 p.m. in the plaza of the Five Northern Provinces Office, under the themes "Tasting the Flavors of Home" and "A Longed-for Hometown, Poured into a Bowl."

Organizers prepared and offered free of charge an array of authentic northern Korean dishes — including Pyongyang naengmyeon, mandu and jijimi — to evoke deep nostalgia among the displaced and to familiarize younger generations with traditional northern Korean food culture.

The second part, held from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the first- and fifth-floor lobbies of the building, centered on the themes "Recalling Those Days" and "Faces We Cannot Forget, Promises We Must Not." It featured a photo exhibition, virtual reality experiences, DNA collection for family tracing, a Korean War photo retrospective and a hometown-search service.

The third part, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the fifth-floor auditorium, presented a special music drama titled "Han Manheun Daedong River" — a musical lament of the Daedong River — subtitled "A Song of Peace Sent Floating on the Blue Waters of the Daedong."

Jeong Gyeong-jo, governor of South Pyongan Province and both the original creator of the performance and the event's organizer, said the Daedong River "is not merely a geographical space, but a historic scene steeped in the tears and sorrow of our people." Through the music drama, he said, he hoped "to comfort the long-held grief of the elders who have endured so many harsh years, and at the same time deliver to future generations a solemn message of peace — that war must never again break out on this land."


thlee@heraldcorp.com