Tuman

I planted our flag on the Ever White Mountain and watered my horse in the Tuman River.

“The sun goes down quickly in the north, you know, especially in the winter.” She pauses, remembering the twilight and the sunset in a small border town by Tuman River that separates northern Korea, Manchuria, and Siberia.

In this large-scale operation of advance into the homeland we plan to dispatch the KPRA in three directions: The main unit will cross the Amnok River and push towards Hyesan, a strongpoint of frontier guards of the Japanese imperialists; another unit is to skirt Mt. Paektu and push on, by way of Antu and Helong, to the northern border area adjoining the Tuman River; and the third unit is to advance as far as the Linjiang and Changbai areas on the shore of the Amnok River.

Surrounded by his wife, five sons and daughters, one of whom is seven months pregnant, their wives and husbands, five grandchildren and the border guard cousin who made the escape possible across the frozen Tuman River, Kim Kyong Ho told reporters: "I'm full of emotion that all my family has made it safely. We thank you, countrymen, for your warm welcome to our family."

Two-thirds of the region’s 150,000 people inhabit Rajin and Sonbong, many working in Rajin’s port, Sonbong’s oil processing refineries and the iron, magnesium and ceramics industries on the cities’ outskirts. As such, it’s been promoted less for tourists than for businessmen, but even then the zone’s development is taking time, and the Rajin and Sonbong zone, collectively known as Rason, encloses an area of forested hills and wetlands, lakes and the Tuman River delta with an abundance of wildlife.

In 1997, Hwangbo and her family boarded a small boat and crossed the Tuman River, North Korea’s northern border, into China before settling in South Korea.