Korean+War+Interview+Project+JANEEEEE+WOOOOOO+Block+A

=__KOREA WAR INTERVIEW__ =

By Jane Woo

=PODCAST =  Note: my mom's voice is in the background because she's helping me translate due to my lack of Korean skills.

PART ONE media type="custom" key="3808351"

PART TWO media type="custom" key="3808355"

PART THREE media type="custom" key="3808359"

SUMMARY media type="custom" key="3808869"

 =QUESTIONS = 

What do you remember about life after the Japanese occupation?

Did any of your family members participate in either the Nationalist party or the Communist party? What did they do?

What happened your family after the war broke out?

How did your parents feel? Your grandparents?

What were you doing the day the Korean War broke out?

Was there anyone in your family or from your friends or from your school that decided to join the Communists? How did you feel? What happened?

Was there anyone you personally knew who went to the army to fight the war? What happened to them?

What did you feel towards the North Korean military and people? What did they teach you at school?

What was hardest about the Korean War for you?

Would you prefer to unify or to continue as divided? Why?

Looking back on the war now, how do you feel about the war?

(My grandfather threw in some bonus stories at the end of the interview.)

 =ANALYSIS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS =  I was actually quite surprised when I heard my grandfather’s story. I felt as if I was reading Hongyong’s story all over again. My grandfather was exactly the civilian we learned about in class – thought at first he didn’t expect war at all, he was later forced to walk all the way from Seoul to Daejon for ten days in the middle of winter. My grandfather said that life was a day to day struggle, and that there were more times he starved than eat. He even took the shoes from dead bodies and put them on his own feet. His struggle sounds like the struggle of countless other civilians we learned about – the civilians that had to learn how to survive through times of war. They and my grandfather had to learn how to deal with the lack of food and the cold and the constant danger that loomed over their backs. They were always unsure about the war because the front lines kept moving; even my grandfather was forced to walk back from Daejon to Seoul when the UN troops pushed up the North Korean army.
 * 1) How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians?**

The major events of the war affected the lives of civilians such as my grandfather hugely. The war forced him to forget about the future and the past, and made him focus on what was happening day by day. One day he might have food and one day he might not; one day Communist army recruiters might come for him and one day the might not.
 * 2) Using your background knowledge try to contextualize their testimony. How do you think major events of the war affected their life at the time?**

He also learned to push through any situation he had during the war. That was the key to his survival, because he didn’t panic or stay at home doing nothing. There must have been days where he felt hopeless but he still pushed on. He managed to walk to Daejon from Seoul in ten days in the freezing snow and was lucky enough to find shelter and food. My grandfather learned to adapt to the harsh conditions the war presented by using every resource to the last molecule; he even overcame his feelings of disgust and took shoes from dead bodies, then wore them until they couldn’t hold together. Even now, my grandfather never wastes anything and makes sure he doesn’t throw something out if it can still be used (he’s master at squeezing toothpaste out of seemingly nowhere).

Again, the whole reason why my grandfather was able to stay out of danger was probably because his ability to adapt to the conditions of the war and never lost focus on maintaining his survival. If he hadn’t been able to overcome his feelings of disgust, he probably would have lost his feet to frostbite. If he hadn’t kept pushing himself to walk on when going to Daejon and gave up in despair, he would have probably died or been recruited by the North Korean army. As my grandfather put it, there was “no such thing as feelings, just survival.”
 * 3) Hypothesize or explain how you interviewee was able to stay out of danger.**

But in my grandfather’s case, I think good fortune collaborated with his unfazed focus and flexibility in his ability to stay out of danger. My grandfather did not have the luxury of having a reserved seat for him on a train to the south; he was just another poor civilian struggling for life on his own. He was lucky that he didn’t ride the boat that blew up in front of his eyes minutes later, he was lucky that he was able to reach Daejon without being killed along the way, he was lucky that he had happened to pack his student ID card when the South Korean army interrogated him (and he was also lucky to have attended a prestigious school known all over Korea), and he was lucky that he was able to find his family again.

 =ESSAY = 
 * Analyze the historical significance of your interview, how has the interview added to your understanding of the war, and how you think it will help us better understand the Korean War in a 1.5 page essay.**

The Korean War had directly affected my grandfather in a harsh and unforgiving way. I was shocked when he told me his story because I always assumed that somehow he had managed to stay out of the atrocities of war. Instead, I came to learn that he was a first-hand witness to these atrocities and that he was another victim of the war who needed to fight everyday for his life. This first hand account greatly increased my understanding of the Korean War. Though Hongyong’s story did make me cringe and wince, when I heard it from my grandfather it felt so much more real.

My grandfather was 15 or 16 at the start of the war, so he didn’t have to go into the army right away. He never participated the war directly, yet he was directly affected by it. He told me how he was terrified when he witnessed the bombing of the bridge at Han River. After seeing that, it came to him just how dangerous Seoul was and tried to leave. He even told me how he was so naïve that when he tried to pack to leave, he couldn’t even stand up due to the weight of his belongings. His attempt to leave failed because it was too late and thus had to endure a year of constant danger in Seoul. When he told me about his life in Seoul, I finally realized the tangibility of the ever-present threat of the war looming over my grandfather’s life. He had to walk to Incheon from his house to get food because all the markets in Seoul were decimated, and he usually ate no more than one meal a day. He had to hide from his own classmates because the ones who were Communists would rat out on every single boy in their grade to the North Korean army for recruitment. My grandfather said that the fear he felt when he heard the Communists walk by his hiding place was incomprehensibly terrifying by today’s standards.

Eventually, my grandfather made the decision to walk to Daejon by himself in the freezing January weather for ten days until he reached a South Korean refugee camp in Busan, and even there he was beaten and interrogated out of suspicion. But the thing he told me in his interview that impacted me most was when he said that he took the shoes off of dead bodies and wore them himself. That’s when I truly thought to myself, “Wow, he had really become a victim of war.” To overcome ones repulsion and respect towards the dead in order to maintain ones survival is the final sign of adapting to the conditions of brutal war. As I listened to my grandfather’s narrative more and more, I began to really grasp the fact that life during the Korean War for the average civilian was a day-to-day struggle for life

My grandfather’s experience could definitely help us understand the war. We need to realize that the principle thought on everyone’s mind was surviving to the next day. More importantly, we need to realize that people will do anything and abandon their long-held beliefs in times of war. Knowing my grandfather, he would never take anything from a dead person, yet with the prospect of losing his feet to frostbite in his face he was forced to for his own well-being. And his drive for survival also pushed him into making a ten day journey to Daejon alone, on foot, and in the dead of winter. No human would ever make a choice like that unless he was under truly desperate conditions. My grandfather’s struggle seems to have many similarities with Hongyong ordeals in Still Life with Rice. Reflecting on both stories, I view them both as true testaments to the utter brutality and enormity of the Korean War.

=Permission of Release Form =

In view of the historical value of this oral history interview, I _(Song Dae Jung) __knowingly and voluntarily permit__ _(Jane Woo, Korea International School Grade 11 the full use of this information for educational purposes.

Signature of interviewee ___//Song Dae Jung//___ Signature of interviewer __//Jane Woo//___ Date __5/12/09___