Villagers on China-DPRK border pray for peace on Peninsula

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Almost every other day, 59-year-old Jin Zhaohua comes to wash clothes in the water of the Yalu River, across from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), a country that is mysterious to the outside world.

She and her family live right beside the river in Hekou Village, which is about an hour’s car ride from the border city of Dandong, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

She said when she first arrived here thirty years ago, villagers were more than curious about the other side of the river.

Jin Zhaohua, villager living on‍ China-DPRK border. /CGTN Photo

"Especially in the winter time when the river water is frozen, some would go across the border to see the DPRK. And they immediately got arrested and even detained for half a month before being sent back to Dandong. Their relatives had to pay a fine of a couple hundred yuan to get them back," says Jin.

Jin has never once taken the risk to cross the boundary, as in her words, she and her husband “don’t want any trouble.” Her son-in-law, however, who shies away from the camera, has actually gone there to smuggle in rice and oil, things that the DPRK residents wanted, so that he could make around 3,000 yuan a month from the illegal deals.

Now the entire family runs a peach business, a much safer choice for them. Like every other neighbor in the village, planting, picking and packaging peach is the theme of the day.

Peach in harvest. /CGTN Photo

”We’ve been doing it for thirty years. From late August to mid-September, it’s peach season. My sons-in-law get up at 5:20 in the morning, going up in the mountains to pick the peaches we planted,” says Wu Guangjiang, Jin’s husband.

But that simple and peaceful lifestyle could at any moment be disrupted by the ongoing tensions, which involve the family's "biggest" and potentially dangerous neighbor, the DPRK.

Jin's family lives near China's border with DPRK. /CGTN Photo

"I literally saw the nuclear reactors when the DPRK detonated its first hydrogen bomb. They were right in Shimizu county, which is not far from here. To be honest with you, our family is ready to move any second if a war breaks out. And that would not be good."

Having put down their roots deep by the Yalu River, any change for the worse on the Korean Peninsula is of big concern to this family. They said they don’t want any war to break out, and they just want to live out their lives in peace.

703km