Brilliant Leadership

It was the tenth day from the day when our people suffered the greatest national mourning. That day Chairman Kim Jong Il called an official on the phone and asked him quietly whether Okryu Restaurant was running as usual.

The official was hung in doubt for an instant. He could not make an answer to such an unexpected question. He had never foreseen that the Chairman could ever ask him about the operation of the restaurant at the time when the whole country was overwhelmed by a sorrow over the loss of the father of the nation.

Reading what he was thinking, the Chairman asked him again to find out if the restaurant was in normal operation. The voice of the Chairman heard over the line was hoarse. When the official equivocated how it was possible to run the restaurant at the time when the whole country was shedding bitter tears, the Chairman disagreed with him, earnestly saying that the greater grief our people were in, the more care the officials should take of them.

That day the Chairman said that we should not be against the will of President Kim Il Sung as he passed away in his office while working for the people all his life. He went on to say that looking round the city in his car, he looked at the bronze statue of President Kim Il Sung on Mansu Hill, where he could still see many people mourning before the statue. Then, he sincerely requested that meals should be arranged for the people weeping in front of the statue at Okryu Restaurant.

The next day, Okryu Restaurant was reopened for the people coming up to the bronze statue of President Kim Il Sung.