The following happened one summer day in 1975 when Chairman Kim Jong Il, together with officials, inspected the construction site of apartment houses in the capital city of Pyongyang.

   When he came out of a flat, he turned his eyes to the railings in the corridor.

   The accompanying officials looked at them carefully to see what was wrong with them. But they found nothing wrong.

   After a while, the Chairman said:  Where will a kimchi jar be put in winter, do you think?  If the railings were set up not in the kitchen but in the corridor, there would be no place for putting the kimchi jar.

   In the country there is a saying that kimchi is half the provisions in winter. Therefore, the place for putting the kimchi jar was raised as an urgent issue of vital importance in high-rise apartment buildings with hundreds of flats.

   But none of the officials had thought of the pressing issue while promoting the construction project.

   The Chairman said that it would be advisable to make the railings in the kitchen as the Koreans enjoy kimchi.

   Thanks to his benevolent measure, the issue of fixing the place for the kimchi jar could be solved in the construction of apartment houses.