Friday, July 07, 2006
CNN American Morning, July 07, 2006 (transcript, Lexis Nexis)
This week's increased tensions on the Korean peninsula reached far beyond global politics. They also affected thousands of families divided by political boundaries for more than a half century. CNN's Kyung Lah explains in a story that first aired on CNN's "American Morning."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Samuel Kim practices acupuncture seeing patient after patient, hoping to heal their pain, a kind of relief he can only dream about for himself.
SAMUEL KIM: Thousands and thousands of people.
LAH: In December 1950, with war raging Samuel, his brother and parents were among thousands to flee North Korea. When they crossed the bridge into South Korea, his mother realized Sam's father and brother had fallen behind.
KIM: My mom says Sam, you wait here with those stuff. I'm going to walk back. That's the la last -- that's the last.
LAH: For decades these pictures, one of his father and this other of his extended family were his only reminders of home. Samuel Kim moved to the United States in 1966 with his wife, raised children and enjoyed grand children. Then in 1992, a friend brought him this photocopy of an underground North Korea newspaper with front page pictures of a man and his wife and an older woman with an address at the bottom. They were looking for a Samuel Kim. He immediately recognized their faces and responded. Months later this letter from Pyongyang arrived.
KIM: So I knew how he still alive.
LAH: My precious brother (INAUDIBLE) wrote, I am alive. Mother died in 1976. Our father was killed just after our family was separated. The brothers have yet to meet as men. Their only communication these letters for the last 14 years. Now (INAUDIBLE) is dying from the after effects of a massive stroke.
KIM: Within a few years, one or two years, maybe there's a chance.
LAH: So you need to see him in one or two years.
KIM: That's right.
LAH (on-camera): Los Angeles is home to the highest population of Korean-Americans outside of the Korean peninsula. There are no official numbers on how many have family trapped in North Korea, but activists estimate it's anywhere from 50 to 60,000.
(voice-over): World leaders have said North Korea's missile launch this week will only further isolate the country. To some Koreans it's a development that dashes dreams of eventual north-south reunification, but to 76-year-old Samuel Kim -- have you lost hope? It's a brother lost.
KIM: I hope (INAUDIBLE)
LAH: Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.