culture

What choices do triplets in the DPRK, who have grown up enjoying the special benefits of the state since their birth, make after graduating from middle school?

Ju Kwang Gwon, Ju Myong Rim and Ju Song Gwon, the 364th triplets born at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital 19 years ago, have been serving in the Korean People’s Army since joining it on the same day.

In fact, the eldest one of the triplets had a dream of becoming an artist in the future as he was good at drawing in his childhood and the second and third ones wanted to be famous artistes as they skillfully played such musical instruments as the accordion and percussion instruments to the admiration of all.

But they knew well that their skills were not only the natural gifts.

The more deeply they thought of the benevolence of the country which found out and cultivated the buds of their talents, the more dearly they cherished the preciousness of the country and the stronger their determination to firmly defend it with arms became.

That is why they went into the army.

Ri Chung Sim, Ri Hyo Sim and Ri Il Sim, triplets living in Mangyongdae District, Pyongyang, volunteered to work at the Power-line Construction Company.

One evening they had seen on TV the delegates to the Conference in Celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the Founding of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League having a photo taken with respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un. That day, their father said that he would have been happy if they had been among the delegates.

The triplets were lost in deep thought that night.

As they looked back on the days when they grew up happily under the benevolent care of the socialist system, they decided to volunteer for a difficult and labour-consuming site of socialist construction.

Their parents positively supported their choice, and their friends, teachers and villagers encouraged them.

At the Revolutionary Battle Site Management Station in the Area of the Paektusan Secret Camp, there are triplets Ri Jong Sim, Ri Il Sim and Ri Pong Sim who volunteered to work there from faraway Nyongbyon County.

Just before their graduation from middle school, their fellow students were said to be brimming with the zeal for volunteering.

Seeing their fellows volunteering for the posts for national defence and grand socialist construction sites, the triplets considered where they should go.

And they finally decided to devote their youth to the preservation and keeping of the revolutionary battle sites in the area of Mt Paektu where there is the Paektusan Secret Camp, Chairman Kim Jong Il’s birthplace, and where the Korean revolution started.

“All the children in our country, especially my triplet daughters, have been raised by the state. I only gave birth to them. It is quite natural for my children to make such choice,” said their mother.