Me and my crutches - a North Korean defector's story
Ji Seong-ho, 35, a North Korean defector who appeared at President Trump's State of the Union address this week, is from Hoeryong, near the border with China. He told Reuters last year about the wooden crutches that he left North Korea with in 2006.
This is an edited translation of his story:
Story
When I first arrived in South Korea I thought about throwing them out.
South Korea's intelligence agency gave me a prosthetic leg. My friends said I should throw the crutches out and not think about North Korea. They said I should show Kim Jong Il I was living a new life in South Korea and throw out everything I had from the North. Some asked if I got upset when I saw my crutches.
But I couldn't just throw them out. To make my crutches, my friends had given me some wood that they had bought, and someone I knew in North Korea who had carpentry skills had made them. It was my father who added the final touches.
There is a lot of love from my North Korean friends and family in these crutches. So I didn't throw them out. The South Korean government gave me some new crutches because the wood from my North Korean ones is hard and painful. But I still keep them, so as not to forget those memories."