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[Dave Chance]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2012/02/182_105472.html

The love story between a North Korean woman and a Vietnamese man was aired on Feb. 14, Valentine�s Day, on BBC, attracting sympathy from across the world. They became united beyond the border in 30 years of love and now are living their old age life in Hanoi.

Their story dates back to 1971, when Vietnamese man Pham Ngoc Canh met Ri Yong-hui. Canh, then young chemistry student, traveled to North Korea to study and fell instantly in love with the woman he glimpsed through the door of a laboratory in Hamheung, South Hamggyeong Province, BBC reported.

�My first thought was that I wished she would become my wife,� he recalled, according to the British TV.

He left North Korea in 1973 and wrote to her in Korean for the next 30 years. With the North Korean regime opposed to contact with foreigners, it was left with Canh to lobby for unification. At one stage, he took 40 love letters spanning 20 years to the North Korean Embassy to appeal for help.

As a translator for sports teams, he visited the North several times. He was told that Ri, who worked at a fertilizer factory, had married or died. Bu the refused to believe that he lost his sweetheart. Her last letter came in 1992, when she reminded him that although they had aged, their love was forever young.

In 2001, Canh made a final effort when he heard that a Vietnamese political delegation was to visit Pyongyang. He wrote to Vietnamese president and foreign minister. Within months, he received the reply he had been waiting for for 30 years―permission from the North Korean authorities to marry Ri.

Their wedding in Hanoi in 2002 was attended by some 700 guests. Many wept when they heard how the long-distance love affairs finally reached this happy ending.

Now in their 60s, Canh and his wife live in a modest flat in Hanoi and they can be seen riding his motorcycle around the city� or walking hand in hand, BBC reported.

�My feelings have remained the same, unchanged,� Canh was quoted as saying.