Sarah+Hwang+KRW+Interview

__INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:__

1. Please describe yourself: your name, current age, and your family background and marriage. 2. What was your age and how was your family situation during the war? 3. Did you move to another place during the war? If so, to where and why? 4. Please describe your hometown during the war. 5. Please describe your school life during the war. 6. Did any of your family members got hurt or faced death during the war? 7. Describe a vivid or difficult incident that you suffered from, during the refuge. 8. How did you survive and overcome those situations? 9. After the war, were you able to go back home safetly? If so, how was the state of your home? 10. How was war influential to your life? 11. What have your learned from the war? 12. Please describe "war" with the best words you can think of.

Video: (takes forever to upload and can not be uploaded...somehow...)

__Summary:__ 1. Please describe yourself: your name, current age, and your family background and marriage. My name is Lee Kyu Chan, and I am around 72 years old more than 10 months old. I was married around 46 years ago, and I have three sons currently. 2. What was your age and how was your family situation during the war? I was around 14 to 15 years old when I was in middle school, when the war took place. The war happened abruptly at june. I used to live at PyongYang and because of the war, my family and I moved to the Seoul. During the 6.25 war, because the Han River bridge was destroyed by the bomb, people could not move back to the north once they were at the south. Thus, around july and august, most of the people went down to the Seoul. I had to stay hid at home and could not go out since it was very dangeroud outside. 3. Did you move to another place during the war? If so, to where and why? 4. Please describe your hometown during the war. My hometown is PyongYang since I was borned there. By 1945, the citizens gained independence from the Japanese. At that time, I was around 2~3rd grade. Because all the soldiers went down all the way to the 38th parallel, everyone moved down to Seoul. 5. Please describe your school life during the war. Because of the war, I could not go outside. I did not want to get send to the north at that young age. I had to stay home all day long, and lost contact with my friends. 6. Did any of your family members got hurt or faced death during the war? Fortunately none of my familiy members got hurt, nor anyone near to my family, like a miracle. The husband of my sister was once kidnapped to the north but was able to meet my relatives who lived at north. He was able to stay at their house and saftely come back to Seoul later on. 7. Describe a vivid or difficult incident that you suffered from, during the refuge. During september, my family planned to pack all the cash in to our backpacks, and came out of the house to move to the Seoul. On the way, I was caught by a soldier due to my tall height which was 163cm(which was actually a very tall height for a student at that time). The soldier considered me as a soldier who was serving for the north, and was able to shoot me as an enemy. I was begging and crying with all my heart out, denying it. However, just in time, a man came and touched by hand, and proved that I was not a soldier, since my fingers were not rough, which was an evidence that I did not handle guns. After I moved to Jeju Island and came back to my new hometown (Seoul), all I saw were dead bodies everywhere with rotting smelll of decayed people, and damaged buildings and houses. My house was destroyed by a bomb. 8. How did you survive and overcome those situations? Everyday was a pain, and many people were starving to death. 9. After the war, were you able to go back home safetly? If so, how was the state of your home? As stated before, fortunately yes. There were risky times when I could have died. 10. How was war influential to your life? I still remember the dead bodies and destroyed buildings demolished by the bombs. It was dreadful and I had to face great stress due to the war throughout my lifetime. 11. What have your learned from the war? What I have learned is that war can be only comprehended by the ones who hold actual experience of it. 12. Please describe "war" with the best words you can think of. I would describe it with one word "misery." War is just miserable, casuing miseries to people's lives and death.

__Analysis:__
//1) How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians?//

The interviewee have experienced the Korean War when he was young, hence he has many memories that he still remembers vividly. He is the great grandfather of my cousin, who is around 74 years old, and faced the war when he was around 14~15 years old. Moreover, he knows the pain of the Korean citizens during the war, since he has been one of them struggling to survive and bare with the war. He describes “war” as something very destructive and brutal, just as stated in the texts I have read about the Korean War.

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 interview faced the war when he was in middle school. Because of the war, his school life was deeply affected by it; his whole family had to stay hid inside the house, in order to avoid from getting caught by soldiers walking around in streets. Thus, he was not able to contact with any of his friends and could not continue going to school. He has even once got shoot by a soldier for mistaking him as an army served for North Korea. The war deeply affected his emotions and life, and he even still dreams of it due to its great unforgettable dreadfulness.

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

Since the interviewee’s social status was high due to great wealthiness, his family was a great target for the communist soldiers walking around at the streets. However, luckily he and his family was able to survive the great danger through moving at dark night when nobody can see them, without getting any of the family members hurt. The family had to spend days with long prayers. There were some times when the interviewee was so close to facing death by getting shot by a soldier for thinking him as a soldier from the north due to his great height. There was another incident when a bomb hit his house after approximately fifteen minutes as soon as his family got out of the house.

__Essay:__

Gaining information through a person than through books is such a difference that allows me to understand living a life during a war. The interviewee is more specific at describing the painfulness and the scale of influence casted by the war, since he has actually experienced the unforgettable war. Through listening to the story of risky adventure made by the interviewee, I was able to grasp an understanding of how scary and fearful living under a war is. Instead of learning the factual events that occurred, I learned more of the emotional events that occurred in the citizens’ hearts rather than the physical damages. The most crucial thing I have learned overall is that the length of the time war takes places is shorter than the damage it brings to the citizens.

“The smell of the dead bodies and the visual impact I have perceived when I arrived back to the hometown was too terrible, that the images still appears sometimes in my dreams,” stated the interviewee. “Except the people who have actually experienced the war, others can not even imagine how dreadful a war is,” stated the interviewee again. Hence, the dreadfulness of a war is more dreadful than what we expect it to be. Nevertheless, the war has taken place more than fifty years ago. However the interviewee has stated that the images he have seen during the war still come out in his dreams sometime. That demonstrates how hideous the visual images he have seem caused by the exploded bombs and demolished buildings, everywhere.

As interviewee has stated, it seems to a clear point that a war is a misery that only an experienced person can understand how harsh it is. In addition, the damages the war can be healed physically, but it would take an extreme long time to heal emotionally. That is why the topic “Korean War” makes Koreans feel sensitive towards the concept of war. The interview has helped me understand better how difficult and tough it was for the people in the older generation to survive, and how deeply it affected their lives.