The morning sun rises, and it shines through rows of high-rise apartment blocks. The streets of the downtown are crowded with people on the way to work. Among them is Choe Chung Hyok, a doctor of the Koryo acupuncture and moxibustion department of Sinuiju Municipal People’s Hospital No. 2. Always early at office before anyone else every day, he cleans the room and makes preparations for treatment. Then he takes out from a drawer of his desk letters from his patients. He reads each of the letters with a happy smile.

Dear Mr. Choe,
I cannot forget you visiting my house three months ago with a first-aid bag on your shoulder. When I refused to get treatment, you said, “There is a phrase ‘Combination of spirit and medicine treats diseases.’ What is important is to have confidence.” And you took pulse of my paralysed hand and foot, and applied acupuncture to several acupoints. It was really marvellous. For the previous seven years I had taken different kinds of medicines and treatment to cure my disease but in vain. But a week after I had begun to get the treatment from you, I began to feel strength and pains in the hand and foot. A month later I began to be gradually relieved of paralysis. Then I was free from indigestion, and my blood pressure became normal.
Now I have completely recovered from the aftereffect of cerebral hemorrhage, and regained my health. I sincerely thank you for helping me lead a new life.
O Jong Gun, workshop manager of the Sinuiju Footwear Factory


There is a saying that grandchildren are more lovely. As anybody does, I care for my grandson very much. And it was my wish to walk with him taking him by the hand as others do. But it was only a dream to me until half a year ago as I had not been able to move about for the previous several years owing to thoracic slipped disk. I suffered from a serious lumbar pain caused by the deformation of the waist, and from intercostal neuralgia, neuromuscular pressure, and urination and defecation disorders. But today I walked around the children’s park five times with the grandson on my shoulder. I can find nothing pleasanter than holding in my arms as much as I wish the child who follows me, calling out, “Grandpa, grandpa.”
Ri Jin Hyok, worker of the Sinuiju Epidemic Control Centre


Dear Mr. Choe,
Today I bought a new hand mirror at a shop. I went shopping for the first time since I had been stricken with facial paralysis at the young age of 16. To be frank with you, I broke all mirrors in my home as I hated to see my crooked lips and imperfectly closed ugly eyes. Anything else that mirrored my face disappeared. Others probably won’t imagine my sorrow. I could not help but wrap my dream, hope and smile in a thick kerchief for a dozen years. But today I shed tears again and again looking at the mirror I bought, tears of happiness, not sorrow.
Mr. Choe, I’ll keep this mirror with much care all my life. And whenever I look at it, I’ll always think of you as you have made my life full of hope again.
Kim Un Jong, worker of the Sinuiju Disabled Soldiers’ School

 
Reading such letters is an unusual happiness to Chung Hyok. He still receives letters from those people who have become able to go to work again after getting treatment from him.
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《Korea Ryugilo Editorial Bureau》