KL+KWI

Korean War Interview--Kathy Lee

 Interview Questions

(1) (//Background information question//) What is your name and age? Are you married? Do you have a job? How old were you during the Korean war? Were you living in the North or South during the war? Where specifically? (2) What were your opinions of North Korea during the war? (3) Who do you think started the war, and why? What must have triggered them to start a war? (4) Do you think that the war was like “a brother... fight[ing] his brother” (Hongyong, 187)? What were your opinions/reactions of the war: was it right/acceptable? How did the people around you react to it? (5) What do you remember of when the North Koreans first launched a surprise attack on South Korea? (6) What were your opinions of the UN during the war? Did you like/dislike them? Why or why not? (7) Where were you when North Korea made their first move? How did you receive the news? (8) Where any of your family members divided? If so, why? If not, how did your family keep together? Do you recall any memories of how it was? (9) Were you religious? If so, how was it to have faith during the war? If not, did you know anyone close who was religious and how they were during the war? (10) Food was scarce during the war; how did you and your family survive through the war? Where did you hide? Share some of your memories. (11) What do you recall of your experiences towards the end of the war? Were conditions becoming better? (12) Do you think the UN made a good decision of bringing up peace talks with North Korea? Do you think they contributed much to the South? What were the opinion of the people around you? Do you agree with them? (13) In your opinion based on experience, what are some of the unchangeable damages that were made as a consequence of the war? What are your opinions of North Korea now?

 Interview Video (with subtitles) //Both versions are the same.//

(Version One) Click the image below to play. media type="custom" key="3809793"

(Version Two) media type="custom" key="3809765" http://www.eatlime.com/play_0FE51D7F-3905-28F4-D0EE-20F30C27CE02

Release Form (also included in the video)



 Analysis Questions

//1) How does your interviewee's testimony(statement) fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians? // In class, we have learned that the North Koreans were the first to launch a surprise attack on the South, that the casualties of the war was severe, and that the North was fighting for communism and the South was fighting to prevent it. This is all true according to my interviewee and what he learned during the war. However, we have never gone into much of all the deep details and real-life experiences about these factual information. With my interviewee's testimony, I was able to gain more descriptive and realistic details of all the happenings during the war. Also, I was able to approach these facts in a 18-year old's perspective which was quite interesting to learn. According to my interviewee, most of the facts we learned in school about the experience of civilians is true. However, some of my interview subject's experiences are not labeled in our textbooks. For example, he still went to school during war and even had a time when he learned about communism and sang communist songs at school. Another example is about food shortages. Even if majority of the civilians starved through the war, my interviewee did not because he was a farmer's son. They had plenty of food from their harvested crops to eat during the war. I was able to gain new facts about the war that I would have never learned just by reading textbooks.

//2) Using your background knowledge try to contextualize(place or study in context) their testimony. How do you think major events of the war affected their life at the time?// We have learned in class that at first, the North Koreans pushed down all the way to Busan. When they were marching down, they chose my grandfather's town as one of the routes to reach Busan. As a result, he had to hide away in the mountains to not get caught and killed by the communists. He could not attend school during the three years of war and hid deep in the mountains, eating food from the crops his family harvested and hid underground. Every day was full of fear, and he always had to be ready to hide from North Korean airplanes and troops. Due to war, he was not able to receive the proper education at the most important years of his school life.

<span style="color: rgb(109, 55, 55);">//3) Hypothesize or explain how you interviewee was able to stay out of danger.// He shared his experience of hiding in the mountains with his friends. When his family members were escaping, children of his age and women had to stay at home. However, even at a young age, he was afraid of the North Korean troops so he and three of his other friends went deep into the mountains. They dug holes in the land to hide in, and saved crops in big pots underground for emergency. Although he was not aware of much that was going on around him because he was young and his family lived in the countryside, he managed to stay safe by making keen decisions.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"><span style="font-size: 110%; color: rgb(140, 222, 186);">Essay

<span style="font-size: 90%; color: rgb(109, 55, 55); font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; background-color: rgb(140, 222, 186);">Analyze the historical significance of your interview: How has the interview added to your understanding of the war? How do you think it well help us better understand the Korean War? <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"> //(Double-spaced, 1.5 page long, indented)// On the 25th of June, 1950, North Korea launched a surprise attack on South Korea. Three days later, the North pushed all the way down to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. We all know this very well; however, what we don’t know much about is how some of the civilians reacted towards this event. Through my interview with Jin Soo-chul, I was able to learn his real experiences, thoughts, and emotions during the war. With real-life experiences told by the people who survived the war, we can acquire the specific details that are not mentioned in textbooks, take the survivor’s perspective, and thus, better understand the Korean War.

Through media, books, and various secondary sources about the Korean War, we come across information that may be biased, vague, or differently told depending on whom the author is. Thus, the best way to learn and better understand a war is to talk with the survivors. When I interviewed my grandfather, I learned a lot of behind stories that were never told in the books I have read. For instance, I never knew that people hid in mountains during the war and were able to survive. Foreign reporters probably weren’t aware of the fact that some civilians were hiding out deep in the mountains and forests. I also learned that some people did not starve through the war after all. From all the sources I encountered, most of them mentioned the starvation and famine problems; nonetheless, farmers had no problems with starvation according to my grandfather. They would collect their harvested crops and keep them in big jars underground. Likewise, I was able to learn information of the war that was not told in the secondary sources. The details of the war, whether they are biased or not, helped me gain a better understanding of the Korean War.

Another benefit of interviewing my grandfather was that I could take the perspective of a 18-year old South Korean struggling to survive through the war. Most of the time, the historical information we read is told in a third-person point of view. The advantages of hearing a first-person’s point of view is that we feel very close to the narrator. We do not gain plain factual information like most of the books and medias share, but actually receive the feelings and emotions of the people who experienced the event. My grandfather, Jin Soo-chul, shared his emotions of how it was being a teenager during the war and, as a teenager myself, I felt great connections and sympathy towards him. This certainly contributed to my understanding of the war.

We have many ways to learn about our history. However, after the interview of the Korean War, I learned that talking to a survivor is the best way to understand historical events. By interviewing, we can learn more about unknown information, specific details, and the inner feelings of the civilians who lived through the time period.