On May Day in Juche 90 (2001), Chairman Kim Jong Il called a senior official in Jagang Province.
He told him that he often thought of Kanggye and he could not forget his visit to the Kanggye area during the intense cold in January 1998. It was really a hard time, but the people in Jagang Province didn’t hesitate, he said. Seeing the working class of Jagang Province always work in high spirits full of optimism though they were on the Arduous March that was hard to endure, he thought that we were becoming stronger and more powerful, not weaker, he noted. At the time, the people of Jagang Province gave me great strength and courage, he added.
And then he tenderly said that he had not visited Jagang Province even once that year and as he felt that the people in the province would wait for him, he would send the photographs taken with them.
The Chairman had called the senior official of the province on the first May Day of the new century as he missed the working class of Jagang Province.
