Kingdom of Children

Babies are born in palaces

Children have palaces by right.

There are our palaces

Across the country.

Goody, goody, this is a kingdom of children.

Ours is the best land.

This is a quotation from Ours Is the Best Land, which is one of the most favorite songs of the children in Korea.

As the lyric denotes many palaces of the children are found in the country.

Typical of them is the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace on Kwangbok Street, one of the major streets in Pyongyang.

Occupying as wide as 300,000 square meters with the total floor space of 120,000 square meters, the complex was finished in May 1989. Its wonderful impression comes first from the shape which represents motherly embrace for all children.

In front of the building is found a group sculpture entitled "Blissful Chariot" that shows happy children dashing toward hopeful future.

Just across from the palace is seen a dancing fountain. And inside the magnificent edifice there are found 19.5 m-high marble pillars, a 2.5 t-weighing chandelier, and a 36 m-long string of the lily-of-the-valley-shaped lights.

High-class granite and marble pieces make up walls and floors reaching tens of thousands of square meters in area.

There are an automatically-revolving-stage-equipped theater with 2,000 seats, a special swimming pool with a wave-shaped ceiling, and a library that can keep a collection of 100,000 books.

More than 60 clubs are run for computer, scientific, artistic, and sports training, and they draw children after school who want to learn what they like.

The training is given free of charge.

Besides it, Korea has many palaces for children, like the Pyongyang Students and Children's Palace in downtown Pyongyang, and those in provincial places.

Additionally there are over 100 schoolchildren's houses across the country which are no different from the abovementioned palaces in their mission and operation.

Scenic palaces usually have nice children's camps, like the Songdowon International Children's Camp.

The Pyongyang Maternity Hospital is called "Babies Palace".

Innumerable are the instances that show Korea's supporting of the children as kings (or queens).

"The children are the kings of the country" was a famous statement made by President Kim Il Sung, father of socialist Korea, who maintained that the children are the future of the country and the nation and that they should grudge the children nothing.

Being such a kind of person who loves and treasures the children, he put the pencil production for the children on the agenda of the first session of the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea after the country was liberated from Japan's military occupation in August 1945.

The universal 11-year compulsory education, the government's provision of school things and uniforms to the children, and similar policies of Korea are all the fruition of the President's view of children.

On the New Year he used to go annually to the schoolchildren's New Year gathering without fail however busy he was, saying that the kings of the country were expecting him.

His invariable view of children is admirably carried on by leader Kim Jong Il.

In the latter half of the 1990s after the President's demise (July 8, 1994) Korea was in the worst ever condition partly due to the imperialists' sinister moves to isolate and stifle the nation and partly to catastrophic natural damages.

Even in those years the policies for the children, including the universal 11-year compulsory education, were invariably in force.

While all the people were starving, the bean-milk vans never stopped their routine delivery to the children by the state measure initiated by Kim Jong Il.

A story goes that when he came across bean-milk vans on his way back from a field-guidance visit, he stopped his car to give way to the vans.

Koreans nicknamed the vans "royal vehicle".

Songun politics that he administered in an all-round way in those years is also related with his deep-rooted love of the children.

The other day during the period, he, seeing some children going camping merrily while he was going to inspect a military unit, waved to them heartily for a good while.

This may well be translated as a sight of the personality of Kim Jong Il who loves the children most, dares to go whatever way there is if it is to make the children happy and finds his greatest happiness in the welfare of the children.

There goes a saying that you need to look at the children if you want to see the future of the nation.

Korea that puts forward the children has a really bright future.