Rodong Sinmun, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, carried an article in September more than 30 years ago about Choe Hak Mun and Choe Hye Jong, orphaned brother and sister who were leading a happy life under the warm care of kind-hearted people.

The article left a deep impression on many at that time.

Later, feature film My Father was produced based on their life and screened.

The siblings lost their parents and younger brother in an accident 34 years ago and their relatives and acquaintances felt pity for them.

Their relatives were going to adopt them, but officials of the Pyongyang Railway Bureau where their father had worked volunteered to look after the bereaved children with parental affection.

A room was allocated to them as their “flat” at the Pyongyang Railway Hostel and they were constantly visited by people who came with kindred feelings toward them.

Officials of the Pyongyang Railway Bureau would attend the parents’ meetings at their school in place of their father and the employees of the railway hostel would accompany them to their parents' graves for memorial service on every chusok, or Harvest Moon Day, lest they should feel lonely even for a moment. Those tender-hearted people took meticulous care of them as their own father and mother would do.

Under their loving care, Choe Hak Mun could focus all his mind on his study at Korea University of Physical Education and Choe Hye Jong was awarded Kim Il Sung Youth Honour Prize, the highest honour of Korean youth, in her middle school days and was later enrolled at the same university as her brother's as she had wished.

Though they had been bereaved of their parents, they grew up happily while fulfilling their wishes as they received the loving care greater, warmer and more scrupulous than other children who had parents. So they wrote a letter to Chairman Kim Jong Il to tell him about their life story.

After receiving their letter, the Chairman wished them a happy future and saw to it that they were provided with a spacious flat on Kwangbok Street which had just been built in Pyongyang.

“Once, foreign journalists visited us,” Choe Hak Mun said, recalling those days. "They repeatedly asked us if it was true that we had no parents and said that, if true, we might have inherited enormous wealth. Because they could hardly believe that the leader of a country provided us ordinary students with a modern flat.

"That day, my younger sister and I answered their questions by singing the song We Are the Happiest in the World loved by all the people in our country."

A civil servant at a state organ, Choe now leads a happy married life in the house of love, and his sister also enjoys a happy, fulfilling life as the wife of an officer of the Korean People's Army in a flat provided by the state.

The siblings have so far done a lot of good things for the country.

Most recently alone, they, together with their family members, visited the workers of the Pyongyang Trackmen's Team, who had just finished Pyongyang Middle School for Orphans, with aid materials they prepared with sincerity.

"The socialist system has raised us brother and sister to be honourable citizens as we are now. It is our bounden duty to repay the love shown by the state," Choe Hak Mun observed.