"We'll meet underground."

The husband said goodbye to his wife. Instead of making some vague promise that they would meet again, he chose to say that they would meet in their afterlives. The eighty-something husband then stepped onto the bus that would bring him back to his home in the North. His South Korean wife held her husband's hand tightly as he stretched out from a bus window.

The three-day family reunions finished on Oct. 22. The two hours from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday morning were the last few hours granted to the families. During the three days of reunions, the South and North family members who have been separated for some six decades were only allowed to meet six times, for two hours each, for a total of 12 hours.





A loudspeaker announced that the meetings would be over in ten minutes, and the lyrics of a song playing over the families went, "We'll meet again." The North Korean family members got on the bus that would bring them back to their homes in the North. The South Korean family members, saying their final goodbyes, did not or could not let their families go and held tightly to their hands through the bus windows. The bus then returned to the North. Many of the South Korean family members fell to the ground, weeping.

About 530 separated Koreans met during the reunions between Oct. 20 and 22. The second half of the reunions will be hosted by the North starting Oct. 24.

By Chang Iou-chung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Yonhap News
icchang@korea.kr