Story about Jewel-encrusted Floor

One day in Juche 68 (1979), Chairman Kim Jong Il visited the construction site of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital.

Looking round the interior of the building, he instructed the accompanying officials to see that the walls were tiled in such a way as to suite the tastes of women, the curved lines of the walls plastered smoothly and the ceilings painted in clear and soft colours that could give visual stability to the patients.

On the way back from the construction site he was still engrossed in thought as if he had missed something. And he suddenly told an official that it would be good if the floors of the central hall and rooms for receiving babies were encrusted with jewels. Later, the builders encrusted the floors with jewels.

One day, after the completion of the flooring work, he visited the hospital again and said that the floors should be ground well so that they could shine splendidly.

This is how the floors were decorated with jewels in the patterns of camellia blossoms the Korean women love, ginkgo trees reflecting mothers’ affection for their children and broad bellflowers.

After a visit to the hospital, foreigners say: “The jewel-encrusted floors of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital are rare in the world. It is something that can be seen only in the DPRK, a country which pursues man-centered politics.”