The 4th Media’s Exclusive Report from Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK)
The Second Report
Dec. 25, 2011
Dr. Kiyul Chung, Editor-in-Chief, The 4th Media
December 22, 2011
On December 22nd around 5 PM, AirCorea JS 252 landed in Soon-ahn(順安) International Airport in Pyongyang.
It was so cold.
The temperature was minus 6 degrees.
The Pyongyang sky was already getting dark.
The deep sorrow the whole nation is going through at the moment was something very much detectable or easily noticeable in the heavy atmosphere amongst almost everybody I met there at both Beijing and Pyongyang International Airports.
Most of their faces seemed to have lost smiles.
It seemed as if nobody was talking.
Usually in the past, the relatively-small Pyongyang Airport’s Baggage Claim area was crowded and filled with the loud laughter of people, and conversations with a myriad of different languages.
However, this time, almost every Korean people I saw both Pyongyang Airport employees and people waiting outside the baggage claim area were all so quiet.
As if speechless!
It seemed they were avoiding each other’s eyes in order not to talk which might make them instantly burst out into tears.
This time however, the silence was so thick, the ringing in my ears was almost deafening.
Like at the airport, people everywhere moved and interacted quietly.
It seemed as if no one was making any eye contact.
For eye contact meant the possibility of having to talk about the issue that hung low in the air.
Later I realized that was the reason why they were avoiding any eye contacts.
A deep and deep sorrow!
That could be an appropriate word to describe what I saw and felt and realized at both airports.
Almost everybody had sad and grim looks on their faces.
They at least now for the moment seemed to have lost their usually very pleasant, broad smiles with much louder laughing sounds.
The whole city of Pyongyang seems to share their grief as we arrived on the evening of December 22, 2011.
Everywhere the faces of people I met look very much the same.
Again The 4th Media’s Exclusive Report directly from Pyongyang will continue daily.
This is the Second Report of The 4th Media’s first and official visit to DPRK.
Dr. Kiyul Chung, is Editor-in-Cchief at The 4th Media, is also a Visiting Professor at School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
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