Korean+War+Interview+Project+Sam+Lee+Block+A

Interview Questions

Part A. Background Information Questions - What is your name? - Where are you from? - How old were you during the Korean War? - Do you have any family members that are currntly in North Korea?

Part B. Interview Questions 1. What do you think had started the Korean War? Why? 2. What was your feeling towards North Korea before the war? 3. What was your feeling towards North Korea during the war? 4. What was your feeling towards North Korea after the war? 5. What was your role in the Korean War? 6. How did the war affect you in a good way? 7. How did the war affect you in a bad way? 8. What were some difficulties that you faced? 9. How did the people around you (family, friends, or neighbors) react to the war? 10. How would Korea be like nowadays, if the war did not occur? 11. Who do you think is the winner of the war? 12. Who do you think had suffered the most from the war? 13. What is your opinion toward the way that war ended? Why?

PODCAST

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Release Form

Analysis Questions

**1) How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians?** The way that my interviewee went through was very close to the life that the, main character had in our class reading material “Two Ways to Be Korean”. The story that my interviewee gave was that she originally born and brought up in Seoul had to flee to the Southern part of the Korea which is Busan. As her family travels south, they run in to some difficulties and tragedies. Her grandfather died while they were traveling and many people they knew were killed. Also they suffered from hunger, exhaustion. The lives of the average civilians were often very poor and had to live under all sorts of bad conditions. They had to struggle everyday to survive during that time.

As my interviewee (Mrs. Kim)’s family was fleeing down to Busan, her parents became very busy. Her parents carried lots of heavy belongings, but it would be wrong to not to take care of children. As a result her parents put her in charge of taking care of her brother and sisters. On the other hand, she seems to have too many bad memories about the war. Death of a family member and of her friends. A war can be a big factor in one’s life that changes their life.
 * 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?**

My interviewee and her family stayed out of the war's danger by fleeing down to Busan. Busan is one of the most southern city of South Korea. Even though her family lived in Seoul, which was one of the northern cities of South Korea, they managed to flee all the way down to Busan for safety. They had ran into lots of problems, in the end they reached Busan and were safe from the war.
 * 3) Hypothesize or explain how you interviewee was able to stay out of danger.**

Essay    

   
The Korean War is one of the most recent wars in the world’s history. There are still many people from the generations that were alive during the time. My interviewee, Mrs. Kim Gyungbin was one of the people who lived during the time of the Korean War. The experiences that Mrs. Kim went through had a lot of things in common with the experiences of the main character of the “Two Ways to Be Korean” went through. Mrs. Kim’s family had to abandon their house to go to Busan in order to stay out of the threat of the war. Also the difficulties that Mrs. Kim face was very similar to the problems that the main character overcame in the “Two Ways to Be Korea”. Loss of a family member is a very tough problem to overcome. As I was interviewing Mrs. Kim, I have realized that the none of the reading materials or the books about the Korean War was exaggerated. Even though I felt shocked, but at the same time I was glad that I was not living during the time when the Korean War took place. It seemed horrible; people were killing and dying every day, losing their homes. The lives that our ancestors had to live in were very bad compared to how we live nowadays. The lives that we are living can provide us with comfortness but on the other hand our ancestors had to live in a battle period with fear every day. The life in the past was not what I had expected to be, it was much more crueler, hungrier and more painful. While I was interviewing Mrs. Kim, I realized how much more interesting it is to interview someone than just flat reading and understanding it. Some facts and stories in the interviewee’s story are very interesting and remember able. There is a certain limit on fully understanding the situation that author was in, but if you communicate the interviewee with body languages, eye contact, and especially with first person point of view, it leaves much better impression to the students. It is natural for humans to memorize interesting facts better. The interview overall was satisfactory. I now understand the full situation of what happened during the Korean War. Despising the fact that it was my first interview, I have gained a lot of information and knowledge about the Korean War. Through the interview I learned the background information and the people’s reactions towards the war. The information that I gained through the interview will contribute a lot to my knowledge about the 6.25 Korean War.