N.Y. Times reporter moved to tears

¡°So touching, touching...``

Tears from the blue eyes of a foreign woman attracted public gaze at a corner of the huge COEX hall, where inter-Korean reunions were taking place in a sea of tears between separated families of South and North Korea on Monday afternoon. Steffany Strom, a reporter from the New York Times, came to Seoul from the United States to cover the reunions. When the long-lost families hugged each other one after another and burst into tears, she was also moved to tears.

Strom, 36, said she could feel in her heart the sorrow of the separated families, even if she did not understand their words and stories. She said that each gesture of the reuniting relatives was a living human drama, expressing that the scenes sent a thrill through her.

Before the reunion took place, she did not seem excited. Asked how she would feel at the scene of the family reunion, the reporter only said it was beyond her imagination because she had not even had an indirect experience. But the scenes of the long-awaited family reunions appealed to her tender emotion, and she was busy wiping tears with her handkerchief. She said that they would be happy for the reunion, but the short time of three nights and four days would become another sorrow of the families.