I don’t know why, but we Koreans love to make a spectacle of everything, and the latest round of family reunions at the Mount Geumgangsan adds new wrinkles to the art of spectacle making. It was voyeurism of the worst kind, inhumane to the core, in which the players, including octogenarians and nonagenarians, played out scenes filled with real tears. 



These tears were painful to watch on television, a thousand times more painful for the elderly, no doubt, whether the tears were of elation or sorrow. They were elated because they got to see their long-lost kin who they had waited to see for 65 years, or had written off as dead. Their elation was brief, though. After intermittent get-togethers amounting to a total of 12 hours of actual contact, they had to say goodbye, according to the well-crafted script, and so flowed the tears of sorrow. They had to part yet again. 

Who is responsible for this awful script?

Well, it is a long story, and we need to go back, way back, to set the scene. There are about 10 million stories. That’s how many people were separated from their loved ones during the Korean War, which took place 65 years ago. They had sought peace and refuge from death and mayhem, not unlike the millions of displaced people escaping Syria today. During the process, they lost their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. The war ended with a cease-fire -- not a peace treaty -- along with a fortified fence across the waist of the peninsula, barring people from crossing it.

The only way to reunite with their families was the unification of the South and the North. And so they waited.

In the meantime, someone had a bright idea to bring the separated families together for a visit. The first one took place in 1985, followed by 19 more reunions throughout the years, 20 times in all. The most recent reunion involved 90 people from the South and 96 from the North over a three-day period.

In the South, there have been 130,409 applicants for reunion since the inception of the program. About half of them have died over the years, and 63,921 of them remain alive today. The number of people who have actually met their relatives from the North is limited to 3,999, about 3 percent of the applicants.

Why such a small number, and how do they get chosen? Nobody knows how the candidates were selected in the North; in the South, 90 lucky people were selected at random by computer. They rode buses northward to the Geumgangsan Mountains on the same road many had traversed during the war, in the opposite direction this time. They were checked into a hotel and gathered in a grand ballroom with numbered tables, where respective families were prearranged to meet.

So the stage has been set. People from the South are seated at these tables. Many cameras are poised to record the reunions to make sure they catch all the emotional scenes. The elderly are there to meet their family; cameras are there to broadcast their tears. And I watch the television broadcast from Seoul, 160 kilometers away. It is 3:30 p.m. After a pause, their northern relatives are guided toward them. They recognize each other, some quicker than others. They hug, cry, touch each other’s faces, hug again, cry again. Cameras are in their faces, but they don’t notice. Tears flow freely whether anyone is watching or not. In two hours, their reunion in the open is over, having completed the first item on their scripted itinerary.  
Next on their itinerary is a gala dinner at 7:30 p.m., accompanied by speeches and performances. They go to their own rooms after the dinner and sleep. In the morning, they begin their third, fourth and fifth items on the agenda. These include a second group reunion, a group lunch and individual family meetings, which last two hours each. On the third day, they meet again for another two-hour session, to say goodbye.

Families from the North (wearing a Kim Il-sung/Kim Jong-il badge all the while) are in the bus looking out the window. Their southern family members reach up to hold their hands. They can’t let go. They know in their hearts that this is the last time they will see each other. The bus starts out. They follow the bus as they wave goodbye, while others sit in their wheelchairs and watch the bus move away with their loved ones.

I have an idea. Let them go free. Let them get together as many times as they want whenever they wish, on their own, unsupervised. I say stop this annual spectacle of herding them in and out of a hotel ballroom packed with cameras.

Some say that it is impossible to unite them together, or let them live together wherever they want. I say to those naysayers, think again. Think about it from the other side: How we can set them free, instead of making excuses why we can’t do it. Give them time and space to cleanse away all the “han” (indelible sorrow) that they have accumulated over the course of their 65-year separation. Let them spend their remaining days with peace of mind. They deserve no less. 

By John H. Cha

John H. Cha, an award-winning translator of Korean literature into English, writes in Oakland, California. He has written several biographies about Korean and American leaders, including “Willow Tree Shade: The Susan Ahn Cuddy Story,” “The Do or Die Entrepreneur,” “Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il” and “A Small Key Opens Big Doors.” -- Ed.