It was one winter day decades ago.
On a visit to a cooperative farm, President Kim Il Sung suddenly stopped by a valley and asked a workteam leader if the sound they heard was that of running water.
Everyone strained their ears. It was the sound of the water of a small spring in the valley flowing along beneath the ice.
The workteam leader answered he was right and the President suggested digging a spot.
After a while, a narrow ditch came into view.
The President bent forward to look at the ditch for a moment as if to guess the waterflow. He said that the water volume was not that small and that when the water course was directed to paddy fields all through the winter, there would be enough water for rice-transplanting.
They had heard the sound of flowing water in their home village every day, but nobody thought of storing the water in the fields for rice-transplantation. But the President looked on the sound of water of the narrow ditch beneath the ice as the one of surging life-giving water that would bring a fruitful autumn.
Since then, the water in the narrow ditch that had flowed futilely has streamed into fields.
