A woman in her eighties brought five million won to Yeongdeungpo Station in Seoul, to repay a 500-won train fare a stationmaster let her son off in 1978.

A woman in her eighties walked into Yeongdeungpo Station in Seoul on 26 August with an envelope holding five million won in cash and a handwritten letter, and told the staff she had come to repay a 500-won train fare from 1978, which is ten thousand times what she owed, Korea Railroad Corporation said.

She would not give a name, and in the letter she signed herself Grandma from Nangok-dong, after the district in the south of the city where she lives, which is the only name the station has for her.

October 1978

She had boarded a local train at Jeongeup, in North Jeolla, with her son, who was at primary school at the time, and she could afford one ticket rather than two, so the boy rode without one, and at Yeongdeungpo she went and explained herself to the stationmaster.

My child was an elementary school student then, and I had no money, so I bought only my own ticket. My child had no ticket, so I pleaded with the stationmaster, and he kindly told us to just go on our way. As I bowed and turned away, I promised myself that I would repay this money before I died.From her letter, as released by KORAIL

Why she came now

What brought her to the station after forty-eight years was the death of her son, KORAIL said, and after losing him to illness she decided she could not leave the debt any longer.

The letter is written on lined paper in blue ballpoint, the characters careful and slightly uneven, and it runs to about twenty lines before she signs off.

It is very late now, and it is not much, but please accept at least this. I have been so grateful all these years.From her letter

An official at KORAIL’s Metropolitan Western Regional Headquarters said the station firmly refused the cash when she offered it, and took it only because she insisted she wanted it to go to Yeongdeungpo Station and nowhere else.

The reply on the noticeboard

The station had no name and no address to write back to, so on 13 September the staff printed a reply, addressed it to Grandma from Nangok-dong, and pinned it inside the information board on the concourse.

That day we learned what true courage is, and how beautiful it is to be grateful for a small kindness. Thanks to the warmth and the deep emotion you gave us, we spend each day as though it were a gift. We will not forget what we learned from you, and we will become people who pass warm memories on to others. Please come to Yeongdeungpo Station anytime.Yeongdeungpo Station staff, on the noticeboard

Song Mun-gwan, who runs the Yeongdeungpo station management office, said the staff would keep working to make the service more attentive, and the regional headquarters said it will record the five million won as miscellaneous revenue while it decides what to do with it.

The notice is signed by the staff together rather than by a named person, and its last two lines read thank you, and we love you.