Young North Korean defectors and South Korean students unveiled a music video this week voicing their calls to overcome ideological division and work together toward genuine reunification.

Highlighting their shared challenges including cutthroat competition for jobs, “That Day (of Reunification)” has been released through the YouTube site (http://youtu.be/t090rTnrZGY).

It starts with a scene where a North Korean defector struggles to live in the competitive capitalist society just like his peers here and ends with one underscoring students’ wish to end the dark, tragic history of national division.

“That day when I’ll see them, our bruised hearts will feel the healing as a family together after many years apart. … The dry, thirsty land will be stirred to life again by dancing feet,” the lyrics say.

“We’ll be a people united as we warmly join hands to watch as the darkness’ end turns into sunrise songs.”

Some 30 students including members of a student group, called “Wish to be the One,” spent about a year producing the video with donations worth around 5 million won ($4,592) from a local scholarship foundation and several other individual supporters.

Joseph Park, who led the production, said that through the video, participating students wanted to show that reunification should first begin “among ourselves.”

“The video shows that regardless of where we are from, we mingle with each other and rejoice together with the shared wish for reunification. We want to show that reunification should start first right here in the South,” he told The Korea Herald.

“As we made the video together, we slowly realized that we began to understand each other. Before this work, we just understood one another on a surface level. But now, we feel we are as one. There should be some ground for others to be reunited like us.”

The South has been divided across ideological lines over North Korean issues, particularly ahead of political events such as elections.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)