Restaurateur prepares for reunification

Jung Sung-san, a film and musical director from the North, is now a restaurateur in South Korea.

Now 48, he has lived almost half of his life in the South, after defecting in 1995.

He made his name with the globally staged musical “Yodok Story” released in 2006, which depicts Yodok concentration camp in the North.

Now, Jung has moved onto a bigger project involving the northwestern port city of Incheon. The restaurant, based in the city, is part of the plan.

“Incheon is one of the cities with the largest number of defectors from the North,” Jung said. There are over 30,000 North Korean defectors in the South, around 10 percent who have settled in Incheon.

“I am preparing to lay the ground for the city to play a central role when the Koreas are reunified,” he said.

Incheon, located just South of the city of Gaeseong in the North, is viewed as able to play a bridging role on the Korean Peninsula.

Jung developed an interest in city planning when he took part in a global real estate expo in Incheon in 2016. He is planning a design contest for university students majoring in architecture for cities in the North.

In addition, based on his experience as a film and musical director, Jung is preparing to host an international film festival in Incheon next year, with the aim of making the city a cultural hub on the Korean Peninsula.

In the meantime, Jung will focus on his restaurant, which offers dishes of his hometown, Pyongyang — notably naengmyeon. The restaurant is one of the few offering Pyongyang “naengmyeon” in Incheon, while there are plenty such establishments in Seoul.

Jung earned a Korean cuisine certificate and worked in the food manufacturing business after he came to the South.

He hires North Korean defectors and teaches them the recipes so they can make the dishes.

“The idea is to franchise the restaurant, making the defector employees managers,” Jung said.

He positively evaluated the ongoing inter-Korean exchanges, such as the South Korean singers’ performance in Pyongyang earlier this week.

“Exchanges need to take place for people of the North and South to be reminded of their similarities,” Jung said.

“The exchanges can serve as a foundation for reunification.”

Courtesy of Jung Sung-san Jung Sung-san, a film and musical director from North Korea, poses in the kitchen of his restaurant in Incheon. Now as a restaurateur, Jung offers dishes of his hometown Pyongyang such as cold noodles.