Korean+War+Interview+Project+Chris+Nam+A+Block

**Movie**
Part 1 media type="file" key="CN Asian Studies Korean War Interview Part 1.mov" Part 2 media type="file" key="CN Asian Studies Korean War Interview Part 2.mov" Please pardon the resolutions of the files, which are due to the very small size of the video files. This was necessary for these videos to be uploaded.

Summary Podcast
 media type="file" key="Asian Studies Korean War Podcast.m4a"

//Release Form //
===//In view of the historical value of this oral history interview, we, Lee Keun Seol and Kang Kil Soo, voluntarily and knowingly permit Chris Nam, Korea International School (Grade 10), the full use of this information for educational purposes. // ===

// Signature of interviewee: _ __Lee Keun Seol; 이근설 Kang Kil Soo; 강길수__////_//


// Signature of interviewer: __Chris Nam;_남기명__ //


// Date __5/16/09___ //



<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">//**Analysis Questions**//
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">//How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians?// As both of my interviewees were civilians, they provided what was almost exclusively a civilian perspective upon the proceedings of the Korean War. Both of my grandparents were high school students by 1950, and as the North Koreans captured Seoul, they were both evacuated to their hometowns, where they reportedly lived in constant fear and a permanent sense of unease. While they did not experience any sort of excessive hardship, they do maintain that the three years throughout which the war took place were tense to the absolute extreme. The goal of each day, according to my grandmother, was to see the day transcend into night and then spill into the next day, when this cycle would repeat.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">//Using your background knowledge try to contextualize their testimony. How do you think major events of the war affected their life at the time?// I do not believe the war and its major events affected my grandparents to a significant extent. The only historical knowledge that I could draw from their (admittedly failing) memories was that the 25th of June, 1950 was a Sunday, and many civilians and soldiers alike were in a measure of respite when news of the invasion had spread across South Korea. Soldiers were hurriedly recruited, while civilians gradually evacuated from the northern parts of South Korea – particularly when Seoul is captured by the North Korean soldiers. However, other than such rudimentary information, I do not believe that the war had profound ramifications on my grandparents. They were able to relatively stay out of danger in their respective villages, unharmed by advancing Communist armies, and therefore I do not think I would be able to properly appropriate the war's major events to characterise my grandparents' life during the war.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">//Hypothesize or explain how you interviewee was able to stay out of danger.// The only realistic reason as to how my grandparents were able to largely avoid danger and live with only a chronic sense of fear is probably luck. The only way **both** of my grandparents were able to avoid any threat to their existence throughout a three-year period of widespread destruction can only be attributed to a sure measure of serendipity. The fact that there were no Communists who happened to infiltrate their villages, while numerous other villages and hamlets were run ablaze by Communist soldiers; the fact that they were able to keep themselves as authentic South Koreans in a potentially hostile environment; the fact that my grandfather was not recruited to the army until after the Korean War – all of these point to a certain extent of luck that thankfully blessed my grandparents and allowed them to both live to tell the tale, and conceive my mother.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Interview Questions
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Introduce yourself: what’s your name, your date of birth, and your occupation?
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What events before the Korean War do you recall that you could suspect to have caused the war itself?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What do you recall the day of the 25th of June 1950 to be like?
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Where did you live throughout the Korean War? How do you think this affected what happened to you throughout the war?
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How do you recall life to be generally like during the Korean War? What was your everyday routine throughout the days of the Korean War?
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What was the Korean population’s perspective on Americans throughout the war? How do you think such a perspective changed?
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How about the South Korean population’s perspective on the Chinese or the North Koreans? Do you feel any sort of habitual disgust or disapproval towards the Chinese and North Koreans as a result of the war?
 * 8) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How can you compare the happenings in the Korean War with the Japanese occupation of Korea in the buildup of WWII?
 * 9) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How do you think the Korean War ended? Who do you believe to be the winners or losers of the war?
 * 10) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Do you think the Korean War has been adequately ended? Why or why not? If not, is it a matter worth opening up again, regardless of the potential consequences?
 * 11) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What effects do you think the Korean War had on the globe’s perception of Koreans?
 * 12) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How can you compare the happenings in the Korean War with the drama within the Korean Peninsula regarding the Vietnam War – another Communist-capitalist military conflict in Asia?
 * 13) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What modern-day legacies do you think remain from the Korean War?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Essay
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> As I interviewed my grandparents – individually – with various questions on the Korean War, it enlightened me with a new, primary-source perspective upon simply what life was like during the Korean War for the individual civilian. It is indeed important to note that, because my grandparents were both civilians – high school students, in fact – at the time of the war, and thus their input throughout the interview is only indicative of a civilian’s perspective on the war. However, the historical significance of this interview is that, no matter how exclusive my grandparents’ perspectives may be, it is without a doubt a highly reliable primary source that gives us access to a higher state of understanding about the Korean War and life during the Korean War.

Before the interview, it was impressed upon me that the Korean War was nothing more than one move by a solitary chess piece in the massive chess match that was the Cold War. As Soviets moved to diffuse communism throughout the world, and their American counterparts moved accordingly to prevent this dispersion, tensions gradually grew on a global basis after World War II. The Korean War, historically speaking, was only one, relatively insignificant chunk of the entire affair, and there were other conflicts throughout the world during this time period that deserved as much, if not more, mention in terms of pure importance.

After the interview, my attitude towards the Korean War has changed rather significantly, for much of what my grandparents said indicated to me that the Korean War was a phenomenon much larger and more atrocious than I had previously thought. Much of what my grandparents divulged recounted of chaos and constant fear. Even as civilians in relatively safe settings, they encountered a continuous source of terror through the form of gunshots, of urban destruction, and of the pandemonium usually associated with war.

One interesting response I managed to elicit particularly from my grandmother was a comparison between life during the Korean War and life during the Japanese occupation of Korea before World War II. While my grandmother acknowledged the Japanese’s culturally oppressive rule over her elementary schooldays, she asserted that the chronic fear of death and destruction that became habitual throughout the Korean War was still absent throughout the Japanese occupation of Korea. Indeed, the Korean War, while admittedly being only that solitary chess tactic in a much more gargantuan chess game, was so bloody and fear-inducing that even a civilian from a remote, comparatively safe setting trembled in constant fear at the prospect of warfare.

The main point that this interview instilled in me was, again, the exceedingly valuable civilian perspective of life within the Korean War. While historians can term conflicts as mere shifts in power, the execution of famous individuals, and political changes, wars are wars because of the massive number of people who perish in them. This is an undying principle in world history, and the Korean War seems to be no exception.