Beatrice+Park+KRW+Interview

= KOREAN WAR INTERVIEW = = Beatrice Park = = = ==

**QUESTIONS**

1) Would you please introduce yourself? 자기소개를 해주세요.

2) What do you know about the facts of the Korean War? 한국전쟁에 관해 알고있는 사실을 말해주세요.

3) What was your first thought when the war broke out? 전쟁이 발발했을때 가장 먼저 어떤 생각이 드셨나요?

4) How did living conditions change? 당시 생활에는 어떤 변화가 생겼나요?

5) How did going through such an experience during your childhood influence your life? 어린시절에 겪은 전쟁의 경헙이 삶에 어떤 영향을 끼쳤나요?

6) What was your occupation during the war, and how was it (school, career) affected by the war? 전쟁 당시 직업이 무엇이었고, 그 직업이 전쟁으로부터 어떤 영향을 받았나요?

7) What was the most memorable event that you remember? 가장 기억에 남는 사건이 무엇인가요?

8) What were your thoughts about the South Korean government and the North Korean government before the war? How did your thoughts change during the war and after the war? 남한과 북한의 정부에 대해 어떻게 생각하셨나요? 전쟁 중과 전쟁 후에는 어떻게 변했나요?

9) What were your predictions about the result of the war back then? 전쟁이 어떻게 끝날것이라고 예상하고 계셨나요?

10) What was your first thought when the war ended? 전쟁이 끝났을 때 가장 먼저 든 생각이 무엇이었나요?

11) What do you think you have lost because of the war and gained because of the war? 전쟁으로 잃은 것과 얻은 것이 있으신가요?

12) Do you think that it is ideal for South Korea and North Korea to unite? 남북한 통일이 이루어져야한다고 생각하시나요?


 * RELEASE FORM**



Link to the podcast: http://bpbp0709.podomatic.com/player/web/2008-12-07T04_23_43-08_00
 * PODCAST**


 * SUMMARY PODCAST**media type="file" key="summary beatrice d.mp3"


 * TRANSLATION (SUMMARY)**

My name is Jeong-Sook Kang and I am Beatrice's grandmother. I lived in Choong-Cheong-Book-Do, Young-Dong-Gun, Sang-Chon-Myeon, Don-Dae-Li, 551 during the Korean War. I was born in 1941 and I was ten-years-old back then.

The Korean War occurred in June, during the busy farming season. After the North Korean soldiers invaded, refugees left their houses and people dug small caves at the foot of the mountains in the nighttime. Refugees took their clothes, food, and blankets to safer places. During the nighttime people had to hide while the North Korean soldiers occupied their houses. I lived in a small village and where major battles did not occur. Yet North Korean soldiers who were injured and left behind came to my village for food and shelter.

Sometimes the North Korean soldiers came to my house and dug out the buried pots of rice and Jangachi(Korean pickle). The soldiers also took the cotton in the blankets to clean their guns and to protect their feet from frostbite. When the bombers hovered over the farms, and people had to pretend to be corpses or rocks. The North Korean soldiers stole cows from the village, so people had to take off the cowbell and hide the cows in bushes.

Our village was between two mountains, and the two mountains were each occupied by North Korean soldiers and South Korean soldiers. Young North Korean students were drafted for the military service, so the mothers who had children their age pitied the young soldiers. The mothers gave rice and food for the young soldiers, but most of those soldiers probably died during the retreat. Even people who weren't trained had to be drafted for military service back then.

My father had to hide from the North Koreans, and he often left the house through the back door whenever he heard footsteps. He had to hide between the pots of kimchi and soybean sauce. There weren't flashlights back then, so all the soldiers could do was poking bushes and shrubs with their long sticks to look for hiding people. Fortunately they never found my father.

The most memorable event to me was when the North Korean soldiers came to my house for food. One was keeping an eye on my mother with a gun. I woke up because of a strange odor. It came from the feet of a soldier who was bleeding because of the frostbite. The North Korean soldiers took the food to the mountain so the South Korean soldiers won't attack them while they are eating.

My three uncles lived in a neighboring village. One of my uncles was the head of the village, and he was forced to run errands for the North Korean soldiers and the South Korean soldiers. One day the North Korean soldiers shot my uncles for running errands for the South Korean soldiers. One got his leg injured and another got his side injured. They came to my house and my mother hid them from the soldiers during the day and cured their wounds, since there wasn't a big hospital.

During the January 4th Retreat, the North Korean soldiers took a lot of young men and women in my village to make them run errands. The area all the way down to the Nakdong River was invaded.The North Korean soldiers and the South Korean soldiers who occupied the mountains surrounding our village had gunfights, and we had to hide in the caves. I was a ten-year-old girl and I thought that it was fun because my friends were there. The adults were depressed because their sons and husbands were drafted for military service.

Once my family left our house to go to an elementary school building. We had to walk for thirty to forty kilometers. We took bags of food and clothes. Four families each took a corner of a classroom. Once in a while my father went back to our house to get more food. We returned home after a week when the soldiers left. Living in the school building with my friends was fun.

The U.S. soldiers had boxes of cans, snacks, and even needles to mend their clothes. My older brother was a middle school student, and on his way home after school, a soldier gave him a box full of sausages, biscuits, and chocolate in khaki color cans. My brother bragged that he got the box because of his fluent English. I think that the U.S. soldier gave him the box because he looked so hungry.

I was in third grade back then, and I had to skip a whole semester because of the war. Some of my friends didn't come back to school after the war because the adults thought that it wasn't necessary for the young girls to be educated. After the war, young boys went to the mountains to look for bullet shells from the guns. They played with the bullet shells or sold them.

Korea is the only divided nation in the world, and I think that North Korea and South Korea should unite. I went to KeumGang Mountain as a tourist, and I didn't see a single foreigner. If the South and the North unites, such tourist spots would be open to many people. The North Korean citizens do not have a very wealthy life, and we should help them. South Korea would have economic losses immediately after the reunification, but in the long run reunification will help Korea. I do not think that I will ever see the reunification, but your generation might be able to see it.


 * ANALYSIS QUESTIONS**
 * 1) How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians?**

My interviewee, my grandmother, went through experiences that I was able to connect to //Still Life With Rice//, which we used in school. My grandmother experienced the life as a refugee for a week at a school building, as HongYong's family left their house to be refugees. My grandmother's father had to hide from the Reds, similar to what Hongyong's husband did in //Still Life with Rice//. My grandmother's uncles were wounded by gunshots, like many other civilians who got injured during the Korean War. My grandmother's brother brought a box of cans and snacks from the U.S. soldiers, just like HongYong's children did.


 * 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?**

The Korean War changed people's lives in man aspects. Schools had to close down and children had to stay at home for safety. After the Incheon Landing, North Korean soldiers had to retreat and those who were left behind remained in my grandmother's village. People, especially young men and unmarried young women, had to hide from the Reds during the January 4th Retreat. Even people who lived in the countryside had to live in fear, and children grew up hearing the sounds of the gunshots.


 * 3) Hypothesize or explain how your interviewee was able to stay out of danger.**

My interviewee's family lived in the countryside where major battles did not occur. My grandmother stayed away from the mountains where left-behind North Korean soldiers were hiding. Her family hid in small caves at the foot of the mountains and also went to an elementary school building to stay safe. Her mother and sister protected the family by making food for the North Korean soldiers who came to their house with guns.

I had an interview with my grandmother, Jeong Suk Kang, who was a ten-years-old during the Korean War. She told me about her memories as a young girl living in the countryside of Choong-Cheong-Book-Do during the tragic Korean War.
 * ESSAY**

My grandmother did not experience the cruelty of the battlefield and she did not witness the piles of corpses, but she told me a great story about the living conditions of civilians at the countryside during the Korean War.

Through this interview, I got to know more about both my grandmother and the Korean War. My grandmother is a great storyteller, and her firsthand experiences drew my attention and interest. The tragic life of Hongyong and her family in Still Life With Rice gave me an impression that Korea during the Korean War was a place of hatred, blood, and cruelty. Yet my grandmother’s different point of view as a genuine girl in a relatively peaceful village taught me that life wasn’t always awful back then. Some of my grandmother’s stories, such as the story about her brother and the box of snacks, were even humorous. Yet this doesn’t mean that this interview was only focused on funny and happy childhood memories.

My grandmother’s story about the young North Korean soldiers will tell the audience how the tragic battle made young boys to throw away their pens and leave their home to hold their guns and jump into the battlefields. Those soldiers were only middle school students and high school students; I am sure that hearing the story of those soldiers will make my classmates feel the sadness that I felt. The story of the wounds of my grandmother’s uncles also tells the tragedy of civilians getting attacked and hiding from the North Korean soldiers.

This interview provides information about many aspects of life during the Korean War. My grandmother talks about the life of children, the life of North Korean soldiers who were left behind, the life of mothers, and the life of young men in this interview. After listening to this podcast, the audience would be able to know about what children played with, how North Korean soldiers managed to live after they were left behind, and how young men kept themselves away from danger.

I would like to thank my grandmother for sharing such an interesting story, and I hope that my classmates and future Asian History students would enjoy my podcast as a primary source about the Korean War.