Edward+Cho+KRW+Interview

Questions (Edited version after the interview)

1. Please Identify your age, name, and your current occupation. 당신의 현재 나이, 이름, 그리고 직업을 말씀해 주십시오. 2. When the war broke, how old were you? what occupation did you have then? 남북전쟁이 일어났을 당시, 나이는 몇살이셨습니까? 그때 당시 직업은 있었습니까? 3. Did you go to school at that time? 그때 학교는 다니셨습니까? 4. At that time, how were you informed that the war broke? 그때 당시, 전쟁이 터졌다는것은 어떤 방법을 통해 알게 되었습니까? 5. Do you remember what you were doing when the war actually broke? 전쟁이 터졌을 당시, 무엇을 하고 계셨는지 기억 나십니까? 6. During the war, I am assuming you had chance to talk to many others and discuss about the war. Please tell me how people thought about Kim Il Sung and North Korea at that time. 남북전쟁시, 많은 사람들과 이야기를 나눴을거라고 예상됩니다만, 김일성과 북한 사람들에 대한 사람들의 생각은 어땠습니까? 7. Does that mean North Korean soldiers beat up anyone they saw? 그 말은, 북한 사람들이 아무나 개패듯이 팼다는 뜻이 됩니까? 8. During the war, I believe the U.S. came to help South, and China came to help North. What do you think would have happened if they didn't come to help each side? 전쟁시, 미군은 남한을, 그리고 중국은 북한을 각자 도와줬습니다. 그들이 양쪽을 돕지 않았다면, 어떻게 되었을거라고 생각하십니까? 9. According to the fact that South Korean capital was conquered within 3 days, I can't believe it. What do you think about it. 3일만에 수도권을 빼앗겼다는 정보에 의하면, 전혀 믿겨지지 않습니다만, 다시한번 설명해주시겠습니까? 설명 해 주십시오. 10. How was your life during the war? 전쟁시에는 삶이 어땠습니까? 구체적이게 설명 해주십시오. 11. Even though the society was in chaos, were there rich people? Who got to eat better stuff and got to wear better stuff? 상황이 악화 되었지만, 그때 당시 부자들은 있었습니까? 부자라고 함은 그 당시 좋은 음식과 편한 옷을 입고 다니던 사람을 뜻하는 바입니다. 12. During the war, as you have went through a lot of hard times, I assume you have had many thoughts about how unfair it is for you to be born at that time. Have you ever thought, how it is unfair? 전쟁시 당신은 많은 힘든일들을 겪었습니다. 전 당신이 언젠가 한번이라도 내 인생은 불공평하다 라는 생각을 하셨을거라고 예상합니다. 그런 생각 해보신적 있으십니까? 13. Most of the people who have went through the Korean War has negative thoughts towards the North Korean people. Do you have any negative feelings against North Koreans? 남북전쟁시에 살아계셨던 분들 대부분이 북한에 대한 나쁜 선입견을 가지고 계십니다. 당신은 북한 사람들과 김일성에 대하여 나쁜 감정이 있습니까? 14. What do you think will happen if Kim Jung Il dies? How the government will fall after the death. 김정일이 죽고, 북한 체계, 정부가 무너진다면 어떻게 될거라고 예상하십니까? 15. Do you think reunification of Korea is possible? Looking at how North and South has been apart for so many years, it seems impossible for the reunification to happen. 당신은 통일이 가능하다고 생각하십니까? 지금 남한과 북한이 떨어져있는 시간이 엄청 긴것을 염두하여보면, 상당히 힘들것이라고 예상됩니다만. 어떻게 생각하시나요? 16. Once again, that means that you don't have much negative feelings against the citizens in North Korea? 다시한번 물어봅니다. 그 말은 북한 주민들에게는 거의 나쁜 감정이 없다는 말씀이십니까? 17. Under the circumstances South Korea being much stronger than North Korea. Do you think it will be better to forcefully reunite using force? 남한이 북한보다 강하다는 가정하에, 강제로 통일을 시키는것이 낳을거라고 생각하십니까? 18. What do you want to say to the future generations? 후손들에게 무슨 말씀을 해주고 싶습니까? 19. In some ways, there needs to be some stronger force controlling the weaker ones. What do you think about that? 어떤 면에서는, 강자들이 약자를 다스리는 법이 존재하는게 더 낳다고 생각하는데요. 어떻게 생각하시나요? 20. What do you think will happen if Kim Jung Il attacks South Korea this morning? 김정일이 갑자기 남한을 쳐들어온다면 어떻게 될까요? 21. Does that mean, it can be used as a reasonable reason to forcefully reunite? 그 일을 발판으로 삼아, 그리고 핑계로 삼아, 무력으로 통일을 하는데 도움이 될수도 있다는 겁니까?

Interview media type="file" key="Interview - Ed.mp3"

Interview Translation audio and script 1. Please Identify your age, name, and your current occupation. My name is 김성철, I am 68, and I am a driver 2. When the war broke, how old were you? what occupation did you have then? When the war broke I was 9, so I didn't have an occupation. 3. Did you go to school at that time? Our family simply couldn't afford to send me to school at that time. School was too far, and my parents didn't allow me to go to school. 4. At that time, how were you informed that the war broke? I was first informed by adults. They told me the North Koreans attacked South Korea over the night. I heard people wanting to run away. My parents even told me to pack up to leave to safely run away from the war. Every now and then I heard gun shooting sounds. I even remember big sounds that I suppose was a sound of a cannon. During that time I was scared. Whenever the jets would go over our village. The siren would ring, and all the people would get in to a place called 방공호. 방공호 is a dugged up place for protection from bombing. 5. Do you remember what you were doing when the war actually broke? The war broke over the night, so I suppose I was sleeping during that time. I was informed some days after since our village wasn't the first one to get attacked. 6. During the war, I am assuming you had chance to talk to many others and discuss about the war. Please tell me how people thought about Kim Il Sung and North Korea at that time. I was too young to have conversations about war with others. According to the adults, Kim Il Sung was a very bad person. Every now and then, I saw North Korean soldiers coming to our village and beating up innocent people from the village. 7. Does that mean North Korean soldiers beat up anyone they saw? Yes, they beat up anyone they saw, as all South Koreans were their enemy. 8. During the war, I believe the U.S. came to help South, and China came to help North. What do you think would have happened if they didn't come to help each side? It is a hard question to answer since you never know what will happen. If U.S. didn't come, Korea would have been occupied by North Koreans and would have turned in to a Communist country. If China didn't help North Korea, South Korea would have won the war and completely unify the nation in to one. 9. According to the fact that South Korean capital was conquered within 3 days, I can't believe it. What do you think about it. As I already said, South Korea was attacked during the night so it is quite obvious how South Korea was losing at the beginning of the war. After couple of days South Korea would have pushed North Koreans all the way back to the North side of the border. 10. How was your life during the war? It was chaos. I can still remember what happened. We didn't have anything to eat, nor anything to wear. It was even summer so, even without the war we wouldn't have anything to eat unless rain falls. If rain didn't fall, we would have to starve again since we can't grow crops. When we were too hungry we would get grass from the ground and boil it to eat it. Rice was type of a food that we couldn't even imagine of. It was only for the rich men. 11. Even though the society was in chaos, were there rich people? Who got to eat better stuff and got to wear better stuff? Yes there were rich people, but very few of them. They got to have better food and better clothing during the war. 12. During the war, as you have went through a lot of hard times, I assume you have had many thoughts about how unfair it is for you to be born at that time. Have you ever thought, how it is unfair? Sometimes I thought it was quite unfair. However, it is something uncontrollable so I still love my life. I believe things can be overcome through hard working. 13. Most of the people who have went through the Korean War has negative thoughts towards the North Korean people. Do you have any negative feelings against North Koreans? I don't have much bad feelings towards the North Korean citizens. However, I have bad feelings towards the leaders of North Korea. They need to get some change. 14. What do you think will happen if Kim Jung Il dies? How the government will fall after the death. Somehow that might force the reunification to get closer. Some how that might lead to war as Kim Jung Il dies. As there are many good followers of Kim Il Sung. 15. Do you think reunification of Korea is possible? Looking at how North and South has been apart for so many years, it seems impossible for the reunification to happen. Reunification of Korea will not be occurring over little amount of time. I believe it will take many years to take place. However, I think, through persuasion of North Korean people to understand the South Koreans. It will happen naturally. 16. Once again, that means that you don't have much negative feelings against the citizens in North Korea. I don't have much negative feelings towards the citizens of North Korea as we are people from one nation. 17. Under the circumstances South Korea being much stronger than North Korea. Do you think it will be better to forcefully reunite using force? Forcefully doing anything will not bring any good results. Blood will bring more blood. Even if we have chances to forcefully reunite with North Korea we should not. I think the reunification should be brought by non-violent way. Helping the North Koreans physically and mentally will slowly bring a peaceful reunification. 18. What do you want to say to the future generations? The Korean war is a bad memory for all people in Korea. It is a very bad memory for myself too. When war breaks, nobody can benefit so I want to tell them that they should always avoid conflicts. 19. In some ways, there needs to be some stronger force controlling the weaker ones. What do you think about that? In anyway conflicts should not form. There shouldn't be any strong and weak relationships in the society that will cause conflicts. Everyone should work together to bring peace and balance in the society. 20. What do you think will happen if Kim Jung Il attacks South Korea this morning? Then, our nation should do anything possible to defend our country from North Korea. 21. Does that mean, it can be used as a reasonable reason to forcefully reunite? That is possible, but as I said before, I strongly disagree with anything including war or conflicts.

media type="file" key="interview translation 2.mp3"

Analysis Questions

1) I think the interviewers experience fit pretty well to what I learned about the happening. Moreover, I learned more horrible things that happened during the war. Learning from foreign text books from the states, I was not informed with details of what actually happened during the war. How people didn't have food and didn't have clothing were stuff that I knew. However, I didn't know people had to even it grass to live. How people had to go in to places called "방공호" every now and then because of jet planes attacking their village. Listening from the memories of a first person, I was able to learn real things about the war. After learning facts with emotions handed off from a person who actually experienced that time, I learned many more things than I would have learned through text books. According to the parts of how North Korean soldiers came in and violated innocent people, it was very similar to what I saw during class. The actual stuff that my interviewer went through were very similar to those happening in the movie "태극기 휘날리며" during class. I learned that it was not even overly exaggerated. My interviewer's descriptions of the war was fitting quite well to the descriptions that were given through text to students during class. 2) One major event affected my interviewers' life forever. It sounds obvious but the actual break of the war on 1950, June 25th, affected his life forever. As he was still young at the break of the war, it affected his chance to get education. If the war didn't break, he would have got better chance of getting some education even though his parents couldn't afford to send him to school. If he got better education he would have got a better job by now. I think it affected him more than anyone since he was young during that time, and his youth was ruined because of the war. 3) Hypothesizing how my interviewer was safe from danger, I have come to a conclusion very simple. I believe, my interviewer was simply just lucky. He was young when he had to go through such war. He even told me after the interview that he was simply just lucky how he survived through such a war. He saw many soldiers getting killed by North Koreans and how he survived seemed something like a miracle to me.

release form

In view of the historical value of this oral history interview, I 김성철 Knowingly and voluntarily permit, Edward Sung Heon Cho, Asian Studies Class, KIS, the full use of this information for educational purposes.

Signature: 김성철 Date: 12.7.08

Edward Cho Asian Studies 10D 12/7/08 Interview can help us understand the war scene better   The materials and readings during class helped me very much and they helped me understand what happened in my country Korea. They provided me with clear information what happened during the time. However, I personally think reading text can’t give full explanation about events. I believe understanding of any event gets better and better as you hear from different perspectives. From the interview today, I was allowed to learn things about the war from a person who was actually alive during the war. To certain extent, the interviewer might remember some things wrong or deliver information wrong in some way. However, I don’t think that is actually a problem. What we really can learn from a person who actually experienced the Korean War is the feeling people get during the war.  For the whole time in my life, I had negative thoughts against the North Koreans. I was assuming that people who have experienced the war in their life would feel the same. However I was different, the feeling that they had were quite different than what I was assuming after reading the texts during class. My interviewer told me that he did not and does not have much bad feelings towards the people who live in North Korea. He only felt hatred against the North Korean leaders. For the whole time reading the texts, I was also assuming him to hate anyone related to North Koreans.  I believe that interviewing people who have really experienced the scene will help us approach the scene in a more emotional way. Plus, I believe human beings get to understand certain scenes better if they hear from different perspectives. After hearing from a person who has actually gone through the Korean War, we will be able to add on stuff to our knowledge from texts and readings. We should pay close attention in to people’s emotion when they are explaining stuff. It helps us learn how it was like during that time.  I totally agree with that when interviewing someone who has actually experienced that happening, it will definitely help people understand the war scene. I believe in order to understand everything about the Korean War, it is necessary for us to listen to the story from a North Korean soldier’s point of view. Story can change from different point of views as people view things as how they want to view things. We will not fully understand things unless we listen from North Korean’s side. From the interview I was allowed to approach the war scene in a more emotional sense and seriously. Additionally, I was able to learn about the seriousness of the war. Especially the part when my interviewer told me how it was very horrible during the war, and people had nothing to eat nor wear.