I became very emotional when I saw Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Trump meeting in Singapore. When they shook hands, I felt a swirl of emotions.

I am now in my seventies and the Korean War broke out when I was a small boy. My parents and their six children (including myself) were living in South Chungcheong province some 150km south of Seoul.

We had to evacuate to a remote island to hide from the onslaught of North Korean soldiers. Our months on the remote island were a terrible time and I still have vivid memories and the occasional nightmares from that time.

While there, my father, who was the headmaster of an elementary school, was accused of betraying the people’s interest and he was sentenced to death by the so-called local police which was hastily appointed by a throng of village elders.

It cost my family nearly all of our life’s savings which we gave them as bribe money to save our father. As my parents had four children younger than myself, I had to help them out to look after my baby sisters during this time.

I remember seeing several incidents of extreme cruelty among people during this time on that remote island. It is a time I remember with a shudder of horror.

During my university days, the South Korean government used North Korea more or less as an excuse to oppress its own people and anyone that was deemed even slightly anti-government was labeled “pro North Korean”.

I had one conversation with a North Korean man while studying in Japan and told someone about it and I was labeled “pro North Korean”. I was blacklisted and that label remained on my family register which meant my whole family was persecuted by the government.

I met my wife after that situation but my wife was also included on the blacklist as well as my daughter who was born several years afterwards. It took my family several decades to get rid of that label. I blame the division of the peninsula for some of the hardships we underwent.



I have always thought of Kim Jong-un as a clever chess player in this game of international relations. I think the Sentosa Agreement must be a great, victorious event for him.

I think we should give Kim some credit for starting the road to achieve unification across the Korean Peninsula without war. Mr Trump knows North Korea’s nuclear threat is nothing but an empty one regarding its threat for the US. Maybe Mr Trump wants North Korea to have enough nuclear weapons to threaten the South. One never knows what these men’s true intentions are. South Korea cannot rely on the US for its own security forever. We have to learn to be independent in our defense.

Do I think the Sentosa Agreement is a good one? Sure. A positive promise is a good one even though some promises sometimes end up being broken. We will see what happens with the clever boy upstairs and the American businessman.

