culture

Kwon Yong An, a pensioner living in Kwanmun-dong No. 3 of Rangnang District, Pyongyang, obtained a patent again.

It was very uncommon and many people were surprised to hear that. 

“I only tried to undo the knot in my mind. I can hardly express my pleasure of having done it,” he told them.

After his demob, Kwon Yong An started to work at the Pyongyang Block Factory and became a technician.

When he approached the pensionable age, the factory was faced with the task of producing more Hume concrete pipes badly needed for the building of infrastructure networks for public buildings and houses under construction across the country.

It needed a new piece of equipment and so it held a serious discussion about whether it would import it or make it by its own efforts.

At that time, Kwon took it on himself to make it, saying that “we can do it and we should make it to suit the actual conditions of our country”. 

He directed painstaking efforts to building the new piece of equipment and finally succeeded in making an efficient cylindrical wire-net machine to earn a certificate of invention.

Although he retired after making a great contribution to the factory, his mind was always on it, feeling regret for not having fulfilled his job, namely for having failed to make it a modern and perfect one.

So he went to the factory almost every day and continued his research, carefully observing the operation of the machine.

His family members and relatives advised him not to make vain efforts for nothing, but have a rest as he had retired. But he continued his research, saying that it is not futile if a man does what he wants to do. 

It is not easy for everyone to deny by themselves their creation which was already recognized by the public and actually brought enormous profits to the factory and to start to make a new one again. But Yong An succeeded in making modernized equipment after years of hard work and it was his second invention.

“In retrospect, I’ve spent my life enjoying the repeated benefits of the socialist system, which brought me up to become a worker student and technician and provided me with a new house, since I began to work at the factory,” said Kwon.

“As I retired, I was sorry for having failed to repay the favour shown by the country. It inspired me to redouble my effort and produce such a fresh fruit of creation as of today.”