英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

Among the many people who make North Korea run are hordes of roving merchants from China. They travel to and from the socialist state practicing their own brand of capitalism: snapping up everything from cigarettes to mines. If they notice a price discrepancy between places or a resource to be exploited they seize the opportunity, providing a needed boost to the economy along the way. 

There are at least seven trading posts by land between North Korea and China, along the northern provinces of Hamgyong-pukto, Ryanggang-do, Chagang-do and P'yongan-pukto. The largest is Sinuiju, which is opposite the Chinese city of Dandong. Linking the border towns is a customs outpost, highway and railroad.

After six days in North Korea, instead of boarding a plane we decided to leave from Pyongyang Station on an international train. It would take us to Dandong via Sinuiju.

Anne Hu
FTV News Chief
It’s 230 kilometers from Pyongyang to Sinuiju. We are boarding the train to begin our five-and-a-half-hour journey.

Why would three nations tussle over specks of rock in the East China Sea? Fishing rights and potential gas reserves are one reason Taiwan, China and Japan have staked claim to islands known as both the Tiaoyutais and the Senkakus. Another more important reason is national pride and political calculations, on display today in comments made by President Ma Ying-jeou and a Chinese official. 

When reporting on the escapades of Taiwanese fishermen near the Tiaoyutai Islands, Japan’s NHK played down sovereignty. Instead, it said the fishermen were defending their rights to fish. President Ma Ying-jeou disagrees.

President Ma Ying-jeou
The most important issue was to announce to the world that the Tiaoyutai Islands are the territory of the Republic of China. They are islands inherently attached to Taiwan and are not the territory of Japan. It is land seized by Japan and occupied for 117 years, without yet having been returned to us.

Each of the trio of claimants to the islands is showing its motives.

Fan Liqing

Premier Sean Chen announced the minimum wage will increase to NT$109 an hour beginning on New Year's Day. But a delay in raising the monthly minimum wage led to a strong reaction from Labor Minister Jennifer Wang, who offered her resignation. 

The cabinet has finally approved a measure to lift the minimum hourly wage, though it postponed an increase in the minimum monthly wage until the economy improves.

Sean Chen
Premier 
For the hourly wage rate, we agree with the Council of Labor Affairs’ recommendations. Starting on Jan. 1, 2012, the minimum hourly rate will increase to NT$109. As for the monthly salary, we can also accept the CLA’s recommended adjustment to NT$19,047 a month, though we believe that we should wait to implement this higher rate until we have two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of more than 3 percent, or two consecutive months of unemployment below 4 percent. 

Labor organizations questioned the government’s unwillingness to raise monthly wages. Many complained the government’s actions amount to not even giving them enough raise in monthly salary to purchase a daily tea egg. Premier Chen appeared interested in learning more about this charge.

Five years ago, a group of dreamers averaging 85 years old ignored cancer, high blood pressure and other ailments to tour Taiwan on their motorbikes. Their exploits are now gaining global fame because of a documentary on their journey, called “Go Grand-riders.” 

The group of Harleys made a loud entrance, but it was the nine riders following close behind, averaging 85 years of age, who drew the greatest admiration. 

The nine were among a group of “Grand Riders” who overcame physical and age limitations to complete a 13-day, 1,178-kilometer tour of Taiwan on their motorbikes in 2007. In making the impossible possible, these riders moved many people, and their poignant story was hit the big screen.

A documentary about their exploits appeared in Edinburgh in April earlier this year and will be shown at the Busan International Film Festival in early October, turning the old bikers into international stars.

This group of octogenarians lived a dream in 2007 despite their age and their families’ worries, and that dream is now inspiring people around the world. The documentary will be shown in Taiwan beginning on Oct. 12.

In the final installment of our series on North Korea, we take you to the northern part of the country to give you a rare glimpse of the area’s pristine natural beauty. 

On the face of Ongnyon Mountain is a felsenmeer, or sea of rock, that extends several kilometers. Underneath, a river flows. This incredible bed of granite is dubbed Rock River. To reach it we follow a river out of North Korea’s second-largest city, Hamhung. After three hours spent on bumpy mountain roads we finally cross the Pujon Plateau and arrive at the Ongnyon trailhead.

Ongnyon Mountain is on the border of Hamgyong-namdo. Sunny weather and clear views from the peak reveal the nearby provinces of Ryanggang-do and Chagang-do. Usually the 2,164-meter-high Ongnyon Mountain is covered in a cloud of mist.

On top of the mountain are five towering, nameless rock towers. When Kim Il-sung’s first wife, Kim Jong-suk, was 20 years old, she stayed on Pujon Plateau for a month to help her husband band together guerrillas fighting the Japanese. Legend has it she slept in a room built under one of the towers. 

Ongnyon Mountain Guide
The mother of the honorable general Kim Jong-il, the Japanese resistance fighter Kim Jong-suk, slept one night in the room under this rock when she came to Ongnyon Mountain in August 1937.