Jessica+Choi+KRW+Interview

= Korean War Interview = - Jessica Choi -

Interview Podcast
part one: media type="file" key="asian st. part 1 jess.mp3" part two: media type="file" key="asian st 2 jess.mp3"

(the quality of the sound is not that great because there's a lot of unwanted background noise from the café. Some of the questions were re-recorded because you couldn't understand them. Sorry for the sound quality.)

Summary Podcast:
media type="file" key="asian summary interview jess.mp3"

Interview Questions
1. Can you please talk a little bit about your background (CURRENTLY – age, birthdate, family, etc) 2. And how about your background during the Korean War? (age, family, etc) 3. Where did you live? 4. How were you separated from your family? 5. Do you remember specific accounts of what happened - during the war? 6. (What was life like for you and your family?) 7. How do you feel about having to have left the rest of your family in North Korea? 8. (Explain what hurt you emotionally, the most) 9. So retracing back to before the war - can you talk about the lifestyle and family life in North Korea? 10. So I heard that you visited North Korea, in search of your family. Can you describe that experience? 11. Do you feel that there is a mental distinction between South Koreans and North Koreans? Or are we still one people? 12. Can you describe in depth, the journey down to South Korea? 13. How had the war impacted you now, as a person? 14. Briefly, what do you think about the possibilities of reunification?

(the ones in parentheses didn't need to be asked verbally because he answered them in other questions)

Analysis Questions
1) How does your interviewee's testimony fit in with what you have learned about the experience of civilians? The interviewee had a different case than most: he came from North Korea. He came as a soldier from North Korea, and was assigned to fight in South Korea. However, when he did come to South Korea, he had to fight for South Korea, under the government. He said that they were not allowed to refuse to fight in either country. So he wasn’t a typical civilian. He didn’t get caught, but he did know and see many people who did get caught.

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? While listening to him answer some of the questions, I remembered a few scenes from the Still Life With Rice, where people’s moralities were practically abandoned at the sight of war. The events we learned in class were primarily in the perspective of the South, so I couldn’t exactly relate to my interviewee, as he wasn’t involved in any of the specific cases. He did mention that he had to come by boat to fight in the south, but I couldn’t pick up the historical event of which he was referring to.

3) Hypothesize or explain how you interviewee was able to stay out of danger. The interviewee was able to stay out of danger because he wasn’t captured, and just had to switch sides and fight for the south. The reason for not being captured was that he had good timing and was able to hide when the people were looking for the soldiers: he called it luck.

Analysis Essay
Interviewing someone who has witnessed a situation as big as the Korean War gives so much insight on history - the reality of the catastrophe. Although the conducted interview was based on personal experiences and opinions, it had historical significance. Such examples included the march to the South. My interviewee was a North Korean soldier who was forced to fight in the South – being 19 years old. They had to go into South Korea, with many other soldiers, where he had experienced the sight of many deaths of fellow soldiers. He told me of how pointless he thought of the war, because it wasn’t fought with national pride or “for Korea”, but rather, against brothers. He was ashamed of how the Koreans had to fight against each other.

The interview has added to my understanding of the war in many ways. Before the interview, I thought that Koreans felt a mental distinction between the North and the South, but my interviewee gave me another perspective. He told me that the war was basically a fight between family; conducted by two superpowers – the U.S. and Soviet Union. In his opinion, the Koreans are still bonded together by blood and relations. In his case, he had to leave his family behind in North Korea, to come fight in South Korea.

He had said that leaving his family behind was what hurt him most, because although he has a family he loved here, it hurt him not to have any of his siblings or parents with him. There were also other factors that made me learn more about the Korean War. The journey to the South had also taught me how difficult life was for the soldiers – northern and southern. The difficulties that the people had – civilians and soldiers alike – really makes it seem like the whole war itself was not even worth it.

My interviewee also had family that he had left behind in North Korea – because they weren’t old enough to be drafted into the war. This was what he considered the most heart breaking, because he lost all of his siblings – four in total – from the war. When he visited North Korea 53 years after the war, to find the rest of his family, he found out that his parents and siblings were dead. Although he is grateful to even be alive, he said that a part of him would’ve rather been suffering with the rest of his family, than living prosperously on his own.

Many of these stories are truly saddening and tragic, and helped me gain more of an insight on the Korean War. The feelings of the people – the ones who experienced the situation first-hand – are clear, just by even looking into their eyes. When my interviewee was speaking of how he felt a hole inside him, where his family belonged, his eyes expressed more than his words.

In conclusion, I think this interview will help people better understand the Korean War by giving insight as to how the people felt. As a person who came from the North – with family left behind there – Kim ChangSuk has definitely shown that separation between families was common and tragic. To fight against his own people was also shameful for him and almost pointless. Reunification is a wish for him and many others, because he currently feels very separated from his other family – whose left of it, that is.