Flower sales boom as scores mourn North Korea’s Kim

DANDONG, China (AFP) ― Business was booming for flower sellers in the Chinese border city of Dandong on Wednesday as mourners gathered at the North Korean consulate to pay their respects to late leader Kim Jong-il.

Scores of stoney-faced mourners clutched bunches of yellow and white flowers as they entered the consulate, where large flat-screen televisions had been put up to show Wednesday’s funeral.

Another 100 people crammed into a North Korean restaurant across the street

― which along with scores of others had been closed since Kim’s death on Dec. 17 ― that reopened its doors for people to watch the ceremony.

Dandong, a city of 2.5 million people in northeast China, is the main portal for trade with impoverished North Korea, which depends heavily on its wealthier neighbor for oil and food.

The city usually has a large temporary population of North Koreans, most of them traders, but Pyongyang has reportedly ordered its nationals to return home for Kim’s funeral.

One Chinese national surnamed Xu, who was born in North Korea but moved to Dandong with his family as a teenager, said he had a “heavy heart” after Kim’s death from a heart attack at age 69.

“I am very sad because the great leader who showed kindness and mercy to my whole family has died,” Xu, 25, told AFP as he left the consulate. “If I have the opportunity I will go back to North Korea.”

As preparations for the funeral were under way on Wednesday, an AFP reporter briefly gained access to the consulate, but was later ordered to leave, and security guards were stationed outside the building.

On Tuesday, dozens of mourners entered the consulate where they were allowed to linger long enough to leave their flowers and bow deeply before a portrait of a youthful-looking Kim and record their names in a book of condolences.

Flowers were still arriving at the consulate on Wednesday morning, shortly before the funeral ceremony began. A man riding a bicycle with a cart delivered a large wreath of yellow and white flowers.

A florist surnamed Sun said he had been doing a roaring trade in the past nine days, selling “tens of thousands” of flowers to North Korean and Chinese mourners.

“Business is really good,” Sun told AFP as he sat in a chair outside the consulate waiting to deliver another flower arrangement worth 800 yuan ($125). “I have delivered flowers here many times.“

South Korean media reports said flowers had been airlifted from Shanghai to the border city, where stocks had run out due to heavy demand for chrysanthemums ― the traditional flower of mourning ― across the border.

A consular official said many people had visited to offer their condolences since Kim’s death.

Yang Minshi, a North Korean living in Dandong with her Chinese husband, cried after paying her respects.

”I’m very sad,“ Yang, 39, told AFP, her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembling. ”I’m North Korean. He was our president.“

Her husband Gao Zhigang, 35, said he would never forget the late North Korean leader whom he described as the ”son of a socialist country.“

”I am very sad but my heart will never forget him. Kim Jong-Il will live in our hearts forever,“ Gao, who owns a processing business, told AFP.