culture

Among the express trains running through the DPRK is a special train with the trademark of “Mindulle” on it.

The train carries Mindulle notebooks all across the country.

I, The Pyongyang Times reporter, recently visited the Mindulle Management Bureau and had an opportunity to travel with an official of the bureau on the train.

The official said that the Mindulle Notebook Factory was built under the deep care of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government to exclusively produce children’s notebooks and a railway line was introduced into the compound, adding the special train has run a great distance to deliver Mindulle notebooks for the past eight years.

The train headed for Sinuiju City in North Phyongan Province.

The engineer said that he was pleased at the thought that he was directly carrying the notebooks supplied for regional children like those for children in the capital, though he was pleased to see the golden farm fields and regional areas undergoing sea change.

At last, the train arrived at a station in Sinuiju.

Many people and vehicles were waiting there to receive the notebooks.

At the station, I interviewed a man who was exchanging greetings with the train crew with a bright smile on his face.

As an official in charge of educational affairs in North Phyongan Province, he said that the supply of Mindulle notebooks has multiplied several times in recent years to provide enough notebooks to students, and added that the families with many children are supplied with so many notebooks that the whole families have to come to receive them.

An official from Sindo County said that the residents of his county, which is a remote island, had always been concerned about preparing notebooks for their children in the past, but they do not have to worry about it anymore as they are regularly supplied with Mindulle notebooks.

A member of the train crew said that she always sees the bright smiles of happy children and the same grateful looks of parents and educators everywhere they go with Mindulle notebooks, adding that she feels extraordinary pleasure and pride in her work at those times.

Then, the train left for the next destination amid a warm send-off of the people.

The whistle sound of the “Mindulle” train which resounds everywhere there are pupils was deeply impressed on my mind as the whistle of love for the children and that of blessing the bright future of the country.