hankyoreh

Orthopedic surgeon

By Han Seung-dong, senior staff writer

“About 60 years have passed since the country was split in two and went though a horrible war, yet we have never seen a Korean win a Nobel Prize for literature. This is all due to separation. When I think about it, I burn with anger. This must be resolved [before I leave this earth]. This year must be the last year [of hostile separation between the North and the South]. As soon as possible, we have to build an economic community, ‘North-South confederation,’ in which the South and North’s economy, culture, and art are united.”

Orthopedic surgeon Oh In-dong, a Korean who resides in the US, stopped by the Hankyoreh office on Nov. 8, after a weeklong visit to Pyongyang. He said that Pyongyang had changed a lot in the fifteen months since his last visit.

“It was my seventh visit to North Korea, and it looks different every time. This time I traveled there via China’s Shenyang. The airport and planes were packed with people, mostly Chinese. They even had to add an extra flight that day. A flight was added a half an hour after mine.”

There were more vehicles and high-rise apartment buildings than ever before in downtown Pyongyang. Many kids were riding around on roller-skates. The women were dressed just like South Korean women, and most of them were wearing high heels. In a popular restaurant, Okryugwan, North Koreans were using their digital cameras to take pictures of some celebration. The electricity situation has probably gotten better due to the Huicheon hydroelectric power generation built upper stream of the Cheongcheon river. “Streets of Changjeon were bathed in the neon glow of signs. Government officers said they are better off financially. There was some flooding, but the breadbasket was safe, so this year’s harvest was better than expected.”

Born in Ongjin, Hwanghaedo province, North Korea, he went to the US in 1970 after graduating Catholic University of Korea’s medical school. In the US, he became a world-renowned expert on artificial hip joint replacement surgery. Having first traveled to North Korea as a part of a group of Korean doctors living in the US in 1992, he turned into an enthusiastic advocate of Korean unification in his 50s. Based on his trips to North Korea and his ideas on unification, he has published two books “Surgery Bag Left behind in North Korea,” (translated title) and “The Day of Unification is the True Independence Day,” (translated title). He was also the recipient of the Hankyoreh Unification and Culture Award in 2011. This time North Korea granted him an honorary doctorate in medicine.

“In spite of difficult circumstances, South Korea has become an economic power and North Korea a military power. Since the birth of our nation, this is the fist chance for us to open the door to a new age. If we fail to take advantage of this chance, we will just waste another 60 years. If South and North cooperate, we can escape this condition as an isolated island. The inter-Korean coalition, which connects to Europe, passing through China and Siberia, can extend its economic territory to Manchuria and the Maritime Territory of Russia, using its geo-economic strength. But at present, we are losing the North‘s economic territory to China at an alarming speed.”

Before his most recent visit to North Korea, he delivered his set of recommendations, “2013, My Hopes for My Motherland, South (North) Korea,” through his online newsletter “Corea Correspondence,” (minjok.com) which has about 1,000 subscribers in the South and North, the US and Europe. He said he did it because he felt sorry for the situation in which even presidential candidates are afraid to make any remarks on an inter-Korean coalition. The point of his recommendations is to build an “inter-Korean economic system,” a community connecting the South’s capital and technology and the North’s resources, soil and labor without dependence on the US.

“We will then see the South’s income double and the North to be more prosperous. We can start the era of unification in a short time without incurring great expenses. Then, to handle economic activities and increasing demand for labor, the South and North cannot but carry out an arms-reduction. The South and North have 2 million troops, while the US has only 1.5 million. If we invest the combined funds from reduced military expense, along with international loans and unification national bond money into North Korea, the profits from the investment will far outweigh the costs of unification.”

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]