Alvin Chin

Period 4

3-4-06

The Pain of Separation

As I take a seat to interview my grandfather, Chin Ki Dong, for the first time, I notice the toll life has taken on him. Born on October 4, 1934 in Kyung Gi Doh, my grandfather lived through World War II and through the division of Korea. Now he resides in Chino Hills where he leads a quiet retired life. As I start the interview, I notice how these past memories bring up tears in his eyes. “Grandpa, what was it like in North Korea?”

Before the division of North Korea and South Korea, I lived in a big house. The house had about six rooms and much space left over. However, every bit of land my family owned when Japan ruled Korea was taken by the government once North Korea took over. My family and I lost our house to the government and were given a small hut to live in. The land we farmed in was all for the country. We farmed the land in shifts. The first day would be the Northwest corner of the field, and then the second day would be the Northeast corner of the field. The area I lived in was called Kyung Ki Doh. It was about one mile from the thirty-eight latitude which was the boundary between North Korea and South Korea. It was a distance that I could walk any day.

When the Japanese ruled us, we never had any education. However, when Japan lost the war to America, they let go of their rule over Korea. This loss of control caused the split between North and South Korea. After the split of the country, since I was eleven, I was given education in North Korea for three years. In North Korea, they taught arithmetic, art, music, science, and geography. At school, they made us sing songs everyday. We sang songs of the president, soldiers, and the nation; songs that only pleased them. Occasionally, we would exercise a few times a week.

In North Korea, the police tortured people if they were found crossing the border. There were no bribes for the cops when something happened because the villagers were all poor and could not afford it. However, the rich people did bribe the police to either let them go or favor a court sentence into their side. People like my family had fathers that lived in South Korea. So the police always strived to put us in jail or harass us for having family members in South Korea. Therefore, most of the time my family had to be on our best behaviors and never screw up or we would get into huge amounts of trouble for the smallest reasons. However, one good thing about the North Korean police officers was that they never hurt the people. Whether it was at school or in the public, the police or teachers would never lay a hand on us. But when I crossed the border to South Korea, it was different. In South Korea, they hurt you in school and they would hurt you in the public. South Korea is very well known to beat the students in school for not studying well or goofing off. When people are captured, what happens in jail is unknown to me because I never went to jail.

Because the land we worked on was owned by the government, the villagers and I who worked on the farm was on payroll. You were paid by the amount of outcome you made. There also was no compensation for those who got hurt while working. Even though you were injured, you would work because of the fact that you needed the money to eat. You did not have to sell your own crops because the government would take it for the army and you would have to use your hard earned money to buy crops from the government. Furthermore, since we could not get everything from the government, we did not have a black market, but we did have a small weekly market in my village. Every Sunday people from the village would come to a single place where people were allowed to sell or buy whatever item they needed. This was where much of the village children’s toys came from.

North Korea did not have any unemployment because to not have a job meant that you would die of starvation. Another reason there was no unemployment was because the police would threaten anyone that they would go to jail if they did not work. Therefore, there were no beggars or bums on the streets of North Korea. Everybody had a place to work and was making a living whether it was good or bad.

In North Korea, there was no such thing as freedom. Freedom in North Korea was a joke. Freedom of speech was not even heard of because the police would punish you severely and tortured you if you talked badly of the president or anyone of high ranking. Freedom of press did not exist because North Korea did not have any newspapers at the time. Freedom of vote was not even fair because in North Korea, there were two ballots, one big and one small. The big one represented Kim Il Sung while the smaller ballot represented the opposing party. Therefore, the soldiers of North Korea easily told who you voted for. If you voted for the opposing party, the soldiers would either destroy the ballot right there or they would threaten you to change your answer. As a result, there was no privacy in voting nor was there any chance of a new president being elected. There also was no freedom of religion. However, one good thing in North Korea was that there was no oppression of a sex.

The day I crossed the border was both joyful and scary. That day was sometime in the spring around July. When I crossed the border alone, I got caught by the South Korean guards. They thought that I was a North Korean spy so they tortured me for information. When I was proved that I had nothing, they let me go and I began my forty mile trek to Seoul. I walked to Seoul with my father who waited for me at the border. It hurt me so much to leave my grandfather and mother in North Korea. But my grandfather was too old for the trek and my mother had to take care of our grandfather so she stayed behind also.

Interviewed by Alvin Chin