TaekMin Kim/Chapter 5 Final draft/Narrative composition/Tuesday 11 am

The Korean War, reality for someone

 

201200899

TaekMin Kim

 

I made an interview with my grandfather because I wanted to know how he survived the Korean War. I was curious about the difference between history book I studied and the reality which my grandfather had experienced.

 

Face filled with wrinkles, he always welcomes me with a pleasant smile. My grandfather is about 5 and a half feet tall, slightly stooped with age. I haven't tried to talk about when he was at my age. However, when I had to seek an interviewee for my essay I thought about him; I came up with the idea of writing a paper of him in his twenties. Thinking about his twenties to make some questions for him to answer in the interview, the Korean War brought up to my mind. I supposed, since he was born in the 1930's, one of the most important incident in his twenties would be the Korean War, which occurred on 1950 to 1953. Finally I was getting the image of my Interview.

My grandfather takes residence in Duksan, Chungcheongbuk-do which takes hours to go by car and since I don't have a car I had to call him and have an interview on the phone. It was quite frustrating to call him and start asking about the war. Our talk started with greetings.

"Oh, grandson, It is so good to hear your voice after a long time!" my grandfather said with a glad voice. It was the reason I felt so awkward to call him for an interview. I hadn't made a call for him often and it was hard for me to tell him that I called him for other purpose than saying hello, an interview.

"Well, actually grandpa, I need an interview about your experience during the Korean War, for my assignment for writing class." I said with a carful voice, checking his voice to see whether he was disappointed about the fact that I made a call because I needed an interview for my homework. However, he was still welcoming my call with his bright voice.

After all, I didn't need to worry about that, he told me not to get frustrated and he also mentioned that he was glad he could help my work. I felt that he read my mind by my cautious voice on the phone. He's saying was very thankful for me and I could start the questions then. The thing I was first curious about was his first thought when he heard that the war broke out and asked him.

"I was 16 when the war broke out. On the first day of the war our government told us that it is not a big deal and they were handling the problem so we don't have to worry about it. I first believed it because there often were some small engagements on the 38^th parallel that time." He continued. "Soon it turned out that it wasn't like what the government first said, our army kept losing to the North Korean army and my family and I needed to evacuate from our home town to avoid the war."

Then, I got interested about the grandfather's evacuation from his home, because I couldn't imagine how hard it was to flee from a war, so I asked him if I could hear more about it.

"It was tragic" he said with a rhetorical voice as if he was going back to that awful time. His father carried piles of baggage on his back and his mother also carrying some stuffs from home had my grandfather's youngest sister on her back. He carried some too because he was not that young like his brother and sister. He also held his younger brother's little hand while they were heading for his uncle's house in Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do. It was a long way evacuating because they only moved by walking, they had no transportation available, and it took more time because they were loaded with necessaries. He continued that one of the most difficult parts about the evacuation was hunger and the pain on his feet. They couldn't find much to eat during fleeing. He said he still remember the feeling of starvation and the terrible pain on his foot and body because of the long march they have been through.

Then, the word starvation kept spinning on my mind making me wonder how it was it like back in that time since we grew up far from the word starvation, and actually rather closer to the word obesity. So I asked my grandparents that I want to know more about his experience of starvation, not only when he were evacuating but during and after the war. So I asked him about the food situation on that period.

He stated with the saying that "The starvation, it is a dire disaster." and his saying gave me some extraordinary feeling, a feeling of sympathy towards my grandfather's youth. He told me that he was very glad that his son and I didn't experience that agony he had been. He recalled people swarming to safe places heading south, and remembered Daegu was also filled with starving peoples. Some people even died from the starvation. They maintained life with poor and little food. They even ate what they called pig's gruel which is made with food wastes from the US Army camps. It was very filthy but they had to live. He had to filter out trashes like cigarette butt and other trashes in it and his mother boiled it with some potatoes in the house.

 

After the interview I felt something strange, actually I think I was quite shocked because I didn't really thought about my grandfather going through that hard time, poor and hungry days before. I thought the Korean War was just an historic event on the text books and I haven't thought of that it could be a reality for my grandfather. He experienced it and the war was real to him. After the interview with my grandfather I thought that the tragedy on my country shouldn't be repeated again.