Winter camping is now in full swing at the Songdowon International Children’s Camp.

During the camping, schoolchildren spend pleasant days as they conduct various activities including skiing helpful to cultivating bravery, cooking practice, sports and amusement games and artistic activities. The ten days of camping are a period they will never forget in their whole life.

Unforgettable days

Every member of the Korean Children’s Union wants to go camping.

As they leave their homes for the first time and climb mountains and cook meals with their classmates during camping, they never forget those joyful camping days even after they become adults.

The winter camping at the Songdowon International Children’s Camp is what every KCU member wants to go.

The camp is located in Songdowon which is famous as a scenic spot in the port city of Wonsan by the East Sea of Korea and equipped with all necessary conditions for camping at the best possible level.

According to the daily schedule, the campers sing and dance together, learn swimming and do rock climbing. Video games are interesting, but a visit to the aquarium which reminds them of the world of the sea and the tasting of foods they cook in the cooking practice room are so delightful that they cannot but write such experience in their diary.

However, every camper says that skiing is the most impressive in winter camping.

Since the camp was inaugurated in 1960, people have associated it with the clean blue sea, sand beaches warmed by the sun and mountaineering in thickly-wooded forests. But winter camping and skiing in the Masikryong Ski Resort came into being after the ski resort was built and the camp renovated once more under the loving care of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.

Skiing helps develop courage

Skiing at the Masikryong Ski Resort is the most popular in winter camping at the Songdowon International Children’s Camp.

On the day of going to the ski resort, every camper wears a ski suit before departure in a flurry of excitement.

They get noisy and boisterous at the mere sight of the snow-covered mountains seen through the bus windows, but they become tongue-tied once they stand on the ski run.

They gaze with admiration at those skiing down the slope from the dizzily high peak, but they can hardly move on skis. However, the campers become able to ski to some extent after a few hours despite some differences among them.

It is attributed to instructors of the camp.

They teach the schoolchildren such basics as how to put on skis, walk, stop, slide and change direction and various skiing skills.

Schoolboys with a remarkably good kinaesthetic sense learn skiing easily and slide down the beginner’s slope.

It takes some more time for schoolgirls to ski and they are so happy as they glide down the gentle slope that photographers do not miss the chance to snap them. At the bottom of the slope the girls shout for joy, but boys rush to the ski lift for more tries.

Such joy is not confined to the ski run.

In the skating area the campers have a skating match or spin tops.

According to instructor Choe Yong Rim, the children are exhausted when returning to the camp after such activities, but they are eager to ski after a night’s sleep.

After a day’s fun full of laughter, they write in diary the day’s pleasant experience, their gratitude to fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un who provided them with every good facility and their resolution to become excellent pillars of the country, he added.

Meeting to boast of matters for pride

In the ten days of camping, the children give various forms of artistic performances and hold a meeting to boast of the matters for pride they have in the course of preparing themselves as young revolutionaries who are knowledgeable, morally impeccable and physically strong at the international friendship children’s hall. The shows make the audience both laugh and cry.

According to an instructor, schoolchildren from a northern area in North Hamgyong Province, who had lost their homes, parents, classmates and schools in an unexpected natural disaster in 2016, sang of their happiness on the stage.

The state took a step to bring those children to the camp for camping when the whole country turned out in the reconstruction campaign in the disaster-stricken area. The campers who took the stage spoke with deep emotion of the love they were given and the gratitude they felt, moving the audience to tears.

Schoolchildren come to the camp from all across the country, including army posts on remote islands and mountain villages far away from the capital city of Pyongyang. They are sons and daughters of service personnel, workers and farmers.

All of them have their sources of pride and sing of them.

In particular, they sing songs reflecting their yearning for the fatherly Marshal who loves children the most and speak of their pride in having received new uniforms and other school things and the love the Marshal showed to their native places and schools.

Their stories and songs are so artless and impressive that they give the audience the feeling that they have become adults suddenly and everyone watches and hears them with admiration.