All kinds of trees and medicinal plants are growing thick on the hills around the village called Sinmi-dong in Hyongjesan District, Pyongyang City.
They have been tended by around 80-year-old Kim Sang Mok for nearly 20 years.
Kim Sang Mok says:
“Building up my native village is an important work to make it beautiful and good to live in. It is also a worthwhile and honorable work to provide the rising generation with better living conditions. That is why I am planting and tending trees.”
Kim Sang Mok reclaimed non-farming land to grow many saplings and medicinal plants. It was not because saplings produced at the tree nursery in his village were lacking.
He wanted to contribute even a little to increasing the wealth of the country and building up his native village. So he is still working though people advise him to have a comfortable rest at home as he is advanced. Every year he transplants many saplings on vacant land and tends them with sincerity so that they can strike their roots firmly. Not content with it, he is actively planting and cultivating medicinal plants.
He calls on experts to learn how to grow medicinal plants. Sometimes he reads books to find materials on the biological characteristics of medicinal plants. In this way he makes efforts to cultivate those plants in a scientific way. Villagers also followed him. They are sincerely planting and tending fruit trees and trees of good species around their village as well as in their yards.
Kim Sun Chol, son of Kim Sang Mok, says:
“We should invariably take the road of patriotism covered by the generation of our father, I think. Like our father we will build this land into a better place to live in.” As there are many genuine people finding the pride of life in creating happiness with their own efforts, the mountains and fields, streets and villages of Korea will be turned into a more beautiful paradise good to live in.
