On December 9, 2009 Kim Jong Il visited the Kanggye Knitwear Factory in Jagang Province.
He made the rounds of the factory and went into the dormitory.
An official of the province said to him, “This is a room where forty-four orphans live, all looked after by the management of this factory.”
“Forty-four orphans?” exclaimed the General.
The manageress guided him to the daily-necessities store, where rigid plastic bowls and plates, staple and subsidiary foodstuffs were heaped up.
Kim Jong Il, as well as the officials accompanying him, were pleased to see them. Then they followed him into the kitchen of the canteen, where they saw rice boiled with kidney beans for lunch.
He said that it looked palatable, joking that he was feeling like eating it up for his lunch. He recalled with deep emotion that during his on-site guidance trip to the province President Kim Il Sung had instructed that kidney beans should be cultivated on an extensive scale as they were highly nutritious and tasty.
Seeing a board bearing a list of birthdays hanging on the wall of the canteen, he said that the workers would be pleased when they were given a feast on their birthdays.
He also read the menu for the week and observed that it was Wednesday and the rice boiled with kidney beans was prepared according to the menu.
The manageress said to him, “Today it is the birthday of a worker who lives at the dormitory. She is a blessed worker as you have visited our factory on her birthday.”
“Is that so? I am happy, too,” said the General.
He went on towards a room in which there were the racks of chima and jogori. He said that they looked fine and the girls must be ironing the clothes there. The quilts and blankets piled up against the wall delighted his eyes. He said that the quilts and blankets in PVC package and with tags indicating the owners’ workteam numbers and names must have been prepared for the girls’ marriage, like those he had seen at the Manpho Spinning Mill.
An official explained, “You are right. The parentless workers would feel sorrow on their wedding days, and the management of the factory has prepared them so that they can be fully aware of the advantages of our socialist system.”
Kim Jong Il commented:
“The manageress of this factory is commendable. You say that at a difficult time when everything was in short supply, the officials of the factory took parental care of many orphans and trained them into meritorious workers. They have done a laudable thing.”
Pointing at her, he went on to say: This manageress is a revolutionary. She is an excellent patriot. I am glad to find another patriot in Kanggye like Ju Pok Sun in Manpho. Compared to a film, the manageress Ju Pok Sun of the Manpho Spinning Mill is the heroine of Part 1 and Kang Song Hwa of the Kanggye Knitwear Factory, the heroine of Part 2.
She said with deep gratitude that she had worked to relieve him of his burdens.
He was told that the manageress had been born in Jagang Province, and said that the women in the province were tender-hearted and assiduous, so they had worked hard to achieve many laudable things.
