Pyongyang and Hungnam

Bureau of Internal Affairs trial

Under the communists, annihilating religion was a state policy. Due to the jealousy and false accusations of Christian pastors, True Father was tried by the Pyongyang Bureau of Internal Affairs and incarcerated, beginning on February 22, 1948.

At his trial on April 7, he faced such charges as “disrupting the social order.” He received a five-year sentence. After the verdict was announced, Father submitted an objection to the wording of the decision that called him “false.”

This is because the truth that True Father announced is true and not false. Upon leaving the court, True Father waved his hands to the sorrowful church members to comfort them.

1. As I began my ministry, the number of members in my congregation increased. However, the policy of the North Korean authorities at that time was to annihilate religion.

It was at this time that Christian pastors brought allegations against me to the authorities because many people from their congregations were coming to join me. Consequently, I was imprisoned for the third time. February 22, 1948, was the day I was taken to the Pyongyang Bureau of Internal Affairs. (052-155, 1971/12/27)

2. April 7, 1948, was the day of my trial. It was a day I can never forget. I had been arrested by the Pyongyang Bureau of Internal Affairs. The arrest was triggered by the jealousy of Christian leaders and the communist government's policy of annihilating religions.

I was arrested on February 22, and my head was shaved on February 25. Under the rule of the atheistic communists, people accused of religious offenses do not receive a real trial. My trial was postponed from April 3 to April 7. April 3 was the 40th day after I was taken into custody. (016-201, 1966/04/03)

3. When I stood in the room for my trial at the Pyongyang Bureau of Internal Affairs, Christian pastors came and hurled insults at me. At the time, I thought, “Let's see whose children are trained better, yours or mine.

Let's see whose followers, the followers you teach or the followers I teach, will turn out better.

Even if I die here, mine will turn out better than yours.” I cannot forget that day.

I still cannot forget the shock that I experienced then; no one will be able to understand or feel it the way I do. That is why I suddenly wake up from sleep and agonize, “How can I ever fulfill the pledge that I made before God to follow the dutiful path of filial piety and loyalty to Him?”

That is why I cannot afford to be exhausted; I have no room for that. I keep myself busy to fulfill my pledge to God. Consequently, I do things that others cannot even imagine.

Whenever I am accused, I keep silent, but that does not mean I am spineless. I am just too busy with my path. I am the kind of person who does not tolerate what is not right. (062-045, 1972/09/10)

4. When I was jailed at the Pyongyang Prison, the members of my congregation were more anguished than if their spouses had died. They said, “Teacher, when will you return?” But I said, “I am going to prison because there is someone there I need to meet.”

At that time, I had been promised that I would meet a certain person in that place. That is why, even though it was a miserable path in which my legs would tremble and I would sigh and wail, I still accepted going on this path. That was because it was the path to the hoped-for kingdom of heaven.

If one goes forward with this kind of joyful heart, even hell can be transformed into the kingdom of heaven. Surely, it is in God's heart to do so. Accordingly, I left my followers for a second time while making a new determination that I would meet all the people who were prepared for me in that place. (021-267, 1968/11/24)

5. When I was jailed at the Pyongyang Prison, my trial was originally set for April 3, 1948. However, the Communist Party needed to make an excuse for suppressing religions, so the scheduled date was postponed to April 7. Our members joined that day, yet from that day also, some began to fall away.

Upon receiving my sentence and entering prison, I stepped forward full of hope in any case because I knew there were people there whom God had prepared for me to meet.

I was imprisoned at around three in the afternoon. Three days later, I met a young man whose family name was Kim. During Japanese rule, he had graduated from the artillery section of the military academy.

He was a captain in the artillery division when World War II ended. Thereafter, he enlisted in the North Korean People's Army and became an aide to the commanding officer of the artillery division.

But later, he was charged with revealing state secrets and sentenced to death. He was waiting in prison for the day of his execution. He had tried to commit suicide, so when I met him, he was being kept in chains.

According to him, a white-haired old man had appeared to him in a dream, calling his name and saying,

“You will not be executed. Be prepared to meet a young man who came to Pyongyang from the South.”

Before long, his death sentence was commuted to imprisonment for four years and eight months based on a guarantee by his former boss, the artillery commander. Then, the old man appeared again in Kim's dream.

He scolded Kim for not having believed him and revealed to him again that he would meet the young teacher from South Korea within a few days.
(018-041, 1967/05/15)

6. I met a person in Pyongyang Prison who had received direct instructions from heaven. He received testimony about me directly from the spirit world. That promise from heaven had prepared him a year before he met me. Heaven sank roots even in Pyongyang Prison so that I could find people who would be true and establish a strong foundation of hope.

Considering all the efforts that heaven was making, I strongly believed that if I turned away from the path, or if I did not fully commit myself to it, I would be a traitor to my father-son relationship with God.

Before I even imagined it myself, heaven had already prepared people to be connected to me so that I would be able to accomplish my great mission. It made me think deeply when I recognized that those people might betray Heaven without even realizing it. (156-112, 1966/01/09)

7. There was an inmate named Kim who shared my prison cell. I was 29 years old, and he was also 29.

When he was sentenced to death, his father was so shocked that he became sick, and a short time later, he died in a car accident. Early in the morning on April 28, 1948, Kim's father appeared to him in a dream.

In the dream, his father brought him to a palace, and they began to climb some stairs. On every step, they heard a new voice, and on every third step, they offered three bows.

At the top of the stairs, they found a dignified young man sitting on a shining jade throne. His father told him, “Look up and see that gentleman,” and so he turned his face upward toward the gentleman but could not see him clearly because of the dazzling brilliance permeating that place.

Mr. Kim was attracted to me from the first moment we met and felt the urge to listen to me as much as possible. Three days later, he earnestly asked me to teach him. I spoke to him for three days about my life course until then, using an assumed name, Lawrence.

I realized that Kim, who was the leader in the cell, was the one whom God had prepared. I said to him, “You are anxious about something that you cannot tell anyone about, aren't you?” I asked what he was anxious about.

He was so surprised by my question that he told me in detail about what had happened to him. He also realized for the first time that I was the young gentleman that he saw in his dream seated on the shining throne. (018-041, 1967/05/15)

8. When I was in Pyongyang Prison, a rumor circulated that I was a male shaman. It spread because before someone would talk to me, I knew in advance what he would say and asked him about it. I do not know if the communist authorities felt afraid of me after they heard such rumors, but every time they interrogated me, at least three guards were posted there.

I knew that I would be transferred from Pyongyang Prison to Hungnam Prison. I considered that this transfer would be like moving from Satan's world to God's world. I determined in front of God that I would never change, either internally or externally, regardless of what happened.

The reason Jesus could become a light in the hearts of people all over the world was that his heart of love could not be extinguished, even by death. Jesus overcame the gate of death. That is why Jesus became the root of history and culture that has brought us to today.

In other words, Jesus' victory became the origin that created today's worldwide Christian culture. You must understand that even the Unification Church began on that foundation. (020-319, 1968/07/14)

Transfer to Hungnam Prison

On May 20, 1948, True Father was transferred from Pyongyang Prison to the Hungnam Special Labor Camp. It was known as the prison of prisons. True Father's prisoner number was 596.

Ordinary people found it difficult to endure Hungnam Prison due to the excessive workload, cold and hunger, and endless exposure to noxious ammonia from the ammonium sulfate fertilizer there.

Forty percent of the prisoners there died within a year due to diseases of the lungs and skin, which were caused by ammonia reacting with their sweat. This caused their skin to peel away and their flesh to become gangrenous.

In that situation, True Father still found a way to take care of his body and his health. Furthermore, he was able to carry a much greater portion of the workload than his coworkers. In that place, always stalked by the shadow of death, True Father overcame those tribulations with wisdom.

9. I will never forget the send-off my followers in Pyongyang gave me, waving to me as I was being led away in shackles to be transferred to Hungnam Prison. I did not shed tears, but they wept as if their son or their husband were being taken from them. How tragic it was!

But seeing them sobbing, I thought, “A man who moves forward to seek heaven is not a man of misfortune.” In my life, I had already suffered hardships behind bars, yet wherever I went, my followers came to see me, even though they were not my blood relations.

They could have felt disgrace and shame in doing so, but their coming to see me with such devotion connected the heavenly realm of heart to the prison, which was hell on earth. That is something amazing. (141-052, 1986/02/16)

10. Hungnam was a place where the wind from the sea was so fierce that when it blew, it sent bits of shell and pebbles through the air. So, in the winter, the inmates wanted to cover their bodies with as much clothing as they could. The wind was an enemy that pummeled us.

Early each morning, about 900 inmates left for work, but before that, the prison officers conducted a roll call in which they had us sit on the ground in the cold wind for two hours, from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. How do you think it was for us inmates, wearing only one layer of clothes? It was so miserable. We shuddered and shivered loudly despite ourselves. We could not control our shivering.

There were about 30 inmates in my cell. In the summer, water leaked down onto the floor. I always chose the hottest and smelliest spot. In that spot, I would think about the cold winter.

I thought that if I could be the owner of winter, I could be the owner of summer, and if I knew how to become the owner of summer, I could be the owner of winter as well. I thought one who can overcome all manner of difficult situations would be able to lead the highest and richest people. Heaven would like to give us such riches.

Therefore, I regarded my suffering in Hungnam as a blessing. To go to the opposite end and get results is maintaining the principle of restoration through indemnity. To be worthy of blessings, we must bring such results.
(172-245, 1988/01/23)

11. In Hungnam, in the winter, the temperature dropped to minus 23 degrees Celsius. Although I wore only thin, unlined clothes, I still did not think it was cold enough.

The way I fought to overcome the cold was to think, “Let it get colder! Let it get colder! Let it get colder!” I had a pair of thick pants and a cotton-lined jacket, but I gave them to others, and I worked wearing only unlined clothes.

I always tried to find the most difficult work. Others tried to find the easiest work, but I went around looking for the most difficult jobs.

I thought that if I could not overcome this, I would die. I had to have that kind of mindset, otherwise, how could I think that I would be able to subjugate the Communist Party or the fallen world? (067-105, 1973/05/25)

12. If you look at my teeth, you will see that some are chipped. They chipped in prison when I used my teeth to make a needle. Needles were scarce in prison. Since we could not buy them, we had to make them.

In the fertilizer plant, we used hooks to bind up the bags filled with fertilizer. We used those hooks to make needles. We had to beat the end of the hook thousands of times, not strongly but rather gently, until it eventually became flat. We used a piece of broken glass to cut off the barb of the flattened hook. Then we sharpened it.

The needle hole should not be round, so we put it strongly with our teeth to make the hole oval-shaped. Finally, we had to cut it, but since we did not have any tools, we used our teeth again. While I was doing that, my teeth chipped. Now, when I look at my teeth, I recall my life in prison.

Once I made my needle, news about it began to circulate. Every Saturday, inmates came to me to borrow my needle. Then, sitting like a king on his throne, I would lend the needle to them, saying, “You, take this and go! You, take this and go!”

Because I helped people like this, they greeted me as I went out to work in the morning. You, too, should be able to make a needle in such circumstances. I thought that my needle worked better than any other needle in the world since I had made it with all my devotion. (204-266, 1990/07/11)

13. There is no way for you to know what life is like in a communist prison. After the Soviet Revolution, many Russians suffered from forced labor. According to communist ideology, there should not be any bourgeoisie or reactionaries.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union wanted to kill all who opposed them, but they could not do so outright due to worldwide public opinion. Therefore, they mobilized people into forced heavy labor and waited until they died.

The place where I was imprisoned in North Korea was a forced labor camp. The communist Workers' Party of North Korea imitated the Soviet Union's practice of subjecting prisoners to forced labor and working them to death.
(052-164, 1971/12/28)

14. The strategy of the communist government was to force people to do heavy labor until they died.

Almost all prisoners in Hungnam Prison died within three years. They were almost certain to die within that period. Without providing adequate food, they forced them to do heavy labor.

Being sent to the camp was like a death sentence. In a normal situation, if people ate three good meals a day, then a group of ten would be able to fill 700 bags of fertilizer per day at best. But in the labor camp, we had to fill and carry almost twice that amount.

The ration of food we were given was so small it amounted to three big spoonfuls. Since we did heavy labor every day, we often staggered on the way to the factory after breakfast. Each morning, I dragged my legs to the factory and started to work. It was unimaginably miserable. (035-185, 1970/10/13)

15. There was a giant square in the ammonium sulfate fertilizer factory in Hungnam, where I worked.

After the white ammonium sulfate fertilizer was made, it was carried on a conveyor belt to the middle of a large open area, where the white fertilizer was dropped to the ground like a waterfall. It piled up to about 20 meters high.

The fertilizer dropping from a high place like that wide conveyor belt was a magnificent sight, just like a waterfall. It had to drop from a high place so it would be cool because if it were too hot, it would not harden properly.

The fertilizer piled up like a pyramid, and our job was to put it into bags. The fresh pile was soft, but once it had been there awhile and the crystals had melted from the heat, it became hard as stone, just like a mountain, and turned deep blue like an iceberg.

We stood around that big pile, digging the fertilizer and putting it into bags. In that big square, about 800 to 900 people were working. It was incredibly hard, like breaking a mountain in two. (165-023, 1987/05/19)

16. I worked as heavy labor in the fertilizer factory at that North Korean communist prison for two years and five months.

The fertilizer was carried in on a conveyor belt from the ammonium sulfate factory to the middle of a large open area, where the powder dropped from the belt to the ground. Our job was to put the fertilizer into sacks, weigh them on scales, and load them onto a freight train.

The ammonium sulfate manufacturing process produced heat, so the fertilizer that dropped from the conveyor belt was quite hot. As it formed a pile, it cooled and hardened. After a couple of years, it became like a rock.

It was such difficult labor. Every day, we worked for eight hours, and each one of us had a responsibility.

Ten people made one group, and each group was responsible for filling and loading 1,300 bags in eight hours. If we did not achieve our quota, our food ration would be cut in half. (035-185, 1970/10/13)

17. The ammonium sulfate fertilizer factory where I worked was filled with sulfuric acid gas. The sulfuric acid ate into our flesh to the extent that if we squeezed our flesh, water would come out.

This meant the cells were half dead. In such an environment, you could not endure without a strong mind. In that camp, even if you ate well, after three years, your lungs would deteriorate, and you would get lung disease. If you say you wouldn't, it would be a lie.

That kind of sulfuric acid gas filled the factory. Therefore, after six months of working there, if you coughed, you would see blood in your phlegm. That was typical.

In such conditions, despite the hard labor, you could survive if you offered devotion and maintained your physical health. However, the young inmates generally did not know this, so I guided them continually based on my experience. (154-143, 1964/06/12)

18. My task at the fertilizer factory was to put the material into bags, weigh them on a scale, tie them shut, and load them onto freight trains. Our team set up a base where we started digging.

We did not make it near the center of the pile because people were constantly scooping out the material there. Rather, we set our work base about 10 to 15 meters from the edge of the pile and started working.

After we loaded the bags onto the train, the train took them to the harbor, where they were loaded onto waiting Soviet ships.

Every day, several tens of thousands of tons were loaded, and the bags needed to be counted correctly. If we did not meet our quota, there would be a big problem.

That is because it involved a diplomatic issue between the Soviet Union and North Korea. Therefore, no matter what, we had to meet our daily quota. If, for some reason, an inmate could not fulfill his portion, he would be demoted to a second rank and sent to a place where the prisoners had to make sacks with straws; they received only half their food ration.

If he failed again, he would be demoted to a third rank and sent to braid ropes out of straw, and with this task, his ration of food would be reduced to only one-third. When that happened, it was like a death sentence.

Ultimately, the reason the prisoners went out to work, mustering all their energy, was to get one whole ration of food.

When they came back in the evening, their greatest hope was to receive the same portion of food as the others. But when they received only one-half or one-third of a portion, their spirits were crushed. Being desperate for food, they had no choice but to work until they died. (163-195, 1987/05/01)

19. Even when I suffered from malaria in prison, I did not pray for help. Rather, I fasted and thought,

“Let's see what will happen.” There was no medicine for malaria, and I was sick for 24 days, but I still managed to do my portion of the work. In the morning, when we came out of our cells, the guards would gather us into the yard for inspection. They would check our bodies thoroughly for any contraband.

This took one to two hours. The work started at 9:00 a.m., and we had to walk four kilometers to the work site, which took about an hour to an hour and 20 minutes, including eating breakfast, which took more than two hours.

So, to get to the job site by 9:00 a.m., we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. When I was sitting in the yard, sick with malaria, my head was spinning round and round, and I could not stand by myself. I had to grab onto the shoulder of the person beside me to stand up. Even at the work site, I did not work by my power.
(154-140, 1964/06/12)

North Korean Labor Camp

The inmates received only a small quantity of boiled grains and salty soup. The grains were not sticky, but even if lumped together, they would amount to only three spoonfuls.

Despite that small ration, even if an inmate was sick, he would force himself to go out to the work site, for if he did not, his ration would be cut in half. Hungnam Prison pushed people beyond all human limitations.

People were so famished that if someone died while eating, others would rush to scrape the grains of food from the dead man's mouth. Even in such a place, during the first two weeks, True Father shared half of his meal ration with his fellow inmates.

20. In prison, I did not talk because I knew how the communist system worked. My most difficult time was listening to propaganda speeches and writing reflections on them. The prison guards were always focused on me, trying to find any condition they could to accuse me.

The communists put a spy in my cell to check on me. That was why I did not say a word. It was effortless for the guards to turn an inmate into an informant by giving him more food. In the communist world, they control people with food.

I guess you may have had experiences where you bit down on a stone in the rice and spit it out. But in Hungnam, when people spit out stones, others picked them up and sucked them. People were starving to that degree. It went on and on like this. (052-169, 1971/12/28)

21. I cannot forget the days from December 17 to 21, 1949. At that time, the people who entered prison were usually given boiled corn, oatmeal mixed with other grains, and leftover ground beans.

Because they could not kill us, they fed us poorly. But during that period, we were given half-ground buckwheat. That was what we got as a meal. When I ate it for the first time, my body became bloated.

You will swell up if you eat only buckwheat. Those prisoners who were obsessed with hunger ate greedily without thinking of their stomachs. They did not care about their stomachs because they were so hungry. Being hungry and the buckwheat being difficult to chew, they just swallowed it and got sick.

I already understood that potential problem, so I ate three times slower than usual. I husked each grain of buckwheat and chewed it well. Others just ate quickly, and since they could not digest the food, their faces became swollen.

I figured out that I needed to salivate more than twice as much as usual and chew the grains very well. I will never forget those days when I husked and ate buckwheat one grain at a time.

All the while, while eating such food, we continued our heavy labor. I realized at that time how precious food is. I realized that even one grain of rice is priceless. Even now, whenever I sit down at the dinner table, I am reminded of that time. (068-080, 1973/07/23)

22. The work at the fertilizer factory in Hungnam was hard labor. In society, people eat pork at least once a week because pork fat is said to dissolve when digested. Beef fat congeals, but pork fat melts, becoming accessible to the body's cells performing a cleansing action on them.

When we were working at the fertilizer factory, they knew we would die quickly if the fertilizer compounds stayed in our bodies. When they provided pork fat once a week, the prisoners would eat it ravenously.

How could we ever expect to eat meat in Hungnam? We thought, “Never mind meat, we would be satisfied even to eating our fill of rice.” Yet breakfast was only three spoonfuls of food.

And then we had to work for eight hours straight, doing hard labor. After we ate breakfast, we walked about four kilometers to the factory. In our undernourished state, we stumbled as we walked. Even under those conditions, we still had to do hard labor for eight hours. (163-194, 1987/05/01)

23. Food is the savior for those who are dying of malnutrition and sickness. Thus, one small bowl of grain in prison was valuable enough for someone to trade for a house he would receive when he was released into the world.

The prisoners were so starved that if someone died while eating, the other inmates opened their mouths, took out the grains of food, and ate them themselves. There can be no insanity worse than that.

Furthermore, when an inmate would bite down on a stone in his rice and spit it out, others would grab it and try to suck on even one grain that might have stuck to that stone. Truly, it was a living hell.

This is how the communist authorities eliminated so-called reactionary elements. Every year, more than a third of the prisoners, 400 out of 1,00,0, died, and their bodies were carried out through the back gate of Hungnam Prison. Everyone in that prison died within three to four years.

The authorities' strategy was to cause people to lose all the fat in their bodies and then work them to death. The plan was not merely merciless. There is a limit to mercilessness. There is a limit even to cruelty. But this was beyond any limits. (163-195, 1987/05/01)

24. When I entered Hungnam Prison, there were nearly 1,000 prisoners there. In a year, approximately 40 percent died. That means that there was a death almost every day. I saw boards carrying dead bodies leaving through the back gate. Inmates in my cell died like that. It means that if there were 30 prisoners in a cell, more than 10 died in one year.

And it was not like they died while being taken care of and eating well. Hunger came first before sickness. When one became sick, if he were unable to work, he would get only half his daily food ration.

In prison, to get a full portion of boiled grain was like being in heaven, and to get only half a portion was like being in hell. No matter how much I try to describe this to you, you will not be able to understand it.

Because only those who went out and did a day's work received full rations, prisoners labored even when they were seriously ill. Even if they collapsed as soon as they left the prison gate, they still crawled to the work site. They had to find a way to at least pretend to work.

They somehow endured to the end of the day, being desperate for their bowl of boiled grain. To get their food when they returned to the prison was their all-consuming purpose in life. So when the food was delivered, there was no “sick” person; everyone ate their portion of food.

It was not uncommon that after a man received his rice and bowl of soup while eating desperately with all his strength, he would drop his spoon, close his eyes, and die. (069-253, 1973/12/30)

25. There are incidents that I cannot forget even now. When I was in Hungnam Prison, my mother came to visit me once a month. She would bring me a bag of powder made of mixed grains. I shared it with all the inmates in my cell. There were about 30 people, so each portion was not big.

I put a spoonful of it on a piece of newspaper and gave it to each of them. In our situation, that powder was more precious than ribs of beef. Even one bean in the prison was more precious than ten cows outside.

Even an inmate who kept up appearances and maintained his dignity would shoot out his arm when he saw a single bean dropping to the ground. More than 30 people shot out their arms to grab that one dropped bean. This situation is probably beyond your ability to imagine. (033-110, 1970/08/09)

26. When I was in prison, the days I shared the mixed grain powder were feast days. I did not try to keep it for myself but freely shared it with others. I mixed the powder with water and kneaded it into cakes, which I wrapped in newspaper and brought to the work site.

I waited until lunchtime for us to eat them. I cannot describe how desperate I was, suppressing my hunger until lunchtime, waiting to eat those cakes of grain. But I endured so that I could share them with others. All morning long, while working and sweating, that was the only thing I had in my mind.

When it was lunchtime, I shared the cakes, and we ate. That factory was huge, so the work area was divided into the first and second work sites, and there were several large piles of fertilizer.

We slaved there during work time, but during our 15-minute break, when I shared those mixed-grain cakes, it was indeed the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who has not experienced this will not understand.

You cannot buy that experience with a million dollars because those moments are stained with blood and tears. That is the world where you must invest absolutely everything you have. (033-111, 1970/08/09)

27. In prison, we were always hungry to the point of dying. Cod liver oil smells fishy, but in the prison, if you could mix your food with cod liver oil, you would not detect any fishy smell. Even if you drank a cup of cod liver oil, you would not smell anything fishy.

Rather, you would find it a pleasant aroma. To that extent, our bodies were lacking in fat. We were starving that much. That is why, no matter how difficult our work was, we longed to eat.

That is why, not knowing how soon we would die, we pushed ourselves to do heavy labor simply for the food. If we did not work, our food was reduced by half, which was a death sentence for us.

In those circumstances, I had to reassure the other prisoners and educate them. I saved many people there. “In your life at this factory,” I would tell them, “you will have such and such symptoms.

You will experience this and that. Unless you go over these challenges, you will surely die and be carried out the north gate. So listen to me.” Many people were able to survive situations of certain death because they followed my advice. They became my disciples. Thus, I educated people, even in prison.
(222-295, 1991/11/03)

28. In Hungnam Prison, we longed to eat so badly that we would go out to work even if we were ill.

Afterward, we returned and received our food. Often, someone would die while chewing on a mouthful of food, unable to finish his ration of three spoonfuls. Then, a fight would break out among the inmates near the dead as they tried to claw the rice from his mouth and eat it themselves.

To survive in that environment, for 15 days, I shared half of my portion with others and ate only half. With that condition, I resolved that I would survive not just three years but five years and even ten years.

In nature, there are invisible vibrations. Because I loved nature, nature wanted to save me by giving me some of that vibrational energy. Imagine an apple orchard and smell that orchard's fragrance filling the air.

Pretend that the fragrance is an apple and swallow that fragrance in a gulp. For me, this was like eating a real apple. (480-303, 2004/12/31)

29. I had the experience of being truly grateful for one apple in my hand. It happened when I was in the communist prison. They gave us a piece of fruit twice a year, on May 1 and January 1.

They distributed an apple to each of us. We were not allowed to make a choice but were given one according to our order in line. No matter what kind of apple we were handed, whether worm-eaten or in any condition, we had to accept it.

When the apples were distributed, people generally began chewing them immediately and finished them in less than a minute. But I thought, “What a beautiful color this apple is! Let me eat the color first.”

Then, “Now that I have eaten its color, let me enjoy its taste.” That's how I thought. So I opened my mouth to eat, but I did not feel like eating it. I just feasted my eyes on the apple and enjoyed its fragrance.

I felt that I did not need to eat the apple. Even so, I was not supposed to carry it around with me, so I had to eat it. When I ate it, I prayed to God. In my prayer, I said, “I am the first person in the world who thinks this way when eating an apple.” With the pride that I experienced in my prayer, I ate. (067-155, 1973/06/01)

30. In prison, I did not complain that there were not any side dishes. While drinking only water and eating only plain grains, I would give thanks to Heavenly Father. Then I would say to myself, “Aren't you the one who represents the hope for tomorrow?” With that, I would eat.

In the prison, even if a side dish was served, we could not eat the grains and the side dish together. Since there were about 1,000 inmates, the guards could not distribute the soup and grains together.

We had to finish our meal within one hour. Soup was served on one side, and the grains were served on the other side, so we had to move about and line up for each dish. It took about 30 minutes to get our grain and another 30 minutes to get our soup.

So by the time we got both, mealtime was already finished. Within three minutes of finishing our meal, we had to leave for the job site.

That was why we could not have the grains and soup together. We had to eat whatever came first, whether soup or grains.

Whatever was given first, we had to eat it while standing in line. If we were given grain first, we ate that first; we just ate the plain grains. That is where I learned to eat food without side dishes.

Even plain grains are delicious. From my childhood, I used to enjoy the crust of burnt rice, and I think God trained me well from my early days.

That crusty burnt rice I remembered from the past had the same taste as the plain grains that I ate in prison. If the grains I was given had a little of that burnt taste, it was delicious, to the extent that I forgot it was just plain grains. In this way, I always ate the grains and the soup separately.

Even in such circumstances, I was resolved to offer my life for the Will and lived with a determination that I would fulfill the dutiful ways of filial piety and loyalty to God. (046-085, 1971/07/25)