Lots of American history in here, so I'm going to put in something Korean that affected my mother-in-law's family heavily.

My mother-in-law was born sometime around 1944--early enough she probably has a Japanese name on her birth certificate, late enough she doesn't remember the Japanese Imperial era. She was six when the Korean War broke out (although since Koreans count ages differently than us, this could be 5), and living in Seoul at the time.

South Korea in the late '40s was a mess. They were dirt-poor after decades of pillaging by the Japanese, whose departure left a serious power vacuum. Nearly everyone in a position of power or importance was arrested rightfully for treason, but the US army made sure they were pardoned in order to restore the infrastructure quickly. As you can imagine, that didn't make them so popular. It also oddly makes South Korea one of the few countries of the world where the left wing is more nationalistic than the right wing.

I won't bore you with the details of the war, but when it started the North advanced very quickly. The attack began on June 25, 1950, and by June 28, the North fully occupied Seoul (though not for long, and not for the first time).

In those three days of artillery fire, the people of Seoul and the South military was either retreating or defecting to the north. About a million people suddenly wanted to evacuate.

This was a major problem for people living on the north side of the river, as the only way across was by one of the bridges. And just to make it worse, the bridges were being rigged with explosives by allied forces in an attempt to slow the North's advance. Essentially, as soon as the president was safe, the plan was to blow it.

My mother-in-law was one of the ones to make it across, along with her mother and siblings. Then the bridges were blown, instantly killing thousands and dooming a great many more, including my mother-in-law's father.

Here's the bridge several months after, when Seoul was recaptured by allied forces.






Soon the UN joined the war, and pushed the North Koreans back, retaking Seoul and going so far into North Korea that the Chinese began to worry as they reached their border. There was debate over whether the attack should continue into China, but whatever was decided, the Chinese counterattacked, pushing allied forces down again and once again allowing the communists to retake Seoul.

When civilians moved back into Seoul, nearly every building was demolished. The hundreds of thousands of refugees and former Seoul citizens set up home wherever they could, with richer people claiming the lower land and the poorer people forced up onto the slopes of the city's mountains. That's something you can still see today, as most of these mountains are draped in extremely old shacks. The name for them is Dal Dongnae, or Moon Village, and these days many of them are being abandoned and demolished for highrises, now that the rich don't object to living higher up.

Three years after the first evacuation, my mother-in-law's mother was reading the paper, and found a list of North Korean POWs being released from a camp in Geoje Island (not far from an abandoned amusement park I know). She was shocked to see the name of her husband she'd long thought dead. She brought her children down to Geoje where they waited until he was released.

Apparently after his family evacuated, he wandered around northern Seoul looking for them, until he was captured by Americans who assumed he was a spy or scout or something. He was sent to the POW camp along with real North Koreans and probably a lot of civilians tangled up in the whole thing. He lived there for three years, surviving riots and insurgencies, while being subjected to all manners of pro-South indoctrination.

Here's some more reading about first-hand accounts of people who were there.
http://www.korean-...0/05/msg00064.html

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Epic.
All of South Korea boggles my mind because it is all less than 50 years old.
The lush green pine forest and all of the modern development literally sprouted up from ashes and shell craters.
The Korean people astound me with their ingenuity and work ethic.
We need to borrow a million of so of them for a decade here in the US.

Posted by DevilC Epic. All of South Korea boggles my mind because it is all less than 50 years old. The lush green pine forest and all of the modern development literally sprouted up from ashes and shell craters. The Korean people astound me with their ingenuity and work ethic. We need to borrow a million of so of them for a decade here in the US.

You had me going up until the part about "work ethic."

what i find so interesting about your story is the fact that the Korean Conflict is so forgotten... it was just an interlude between World War II and the morass of Vietnam... it just kind of falls the cracks.

Since you live in South Korea, I have to ask some questions, if you're feeling chatty. How do Koreans feel about the United States and the presence there? How do they feel about North Korea and their non-stop antagonism? In the presence of the global financial debacle, how has Korea done. The reason I'm asking you is because you see it on a daily basis and have a rather personal stake in the place.

thanks for sharing the story with us and please, share any more you might have.

Posted by Samurai what i find so interesting about your story is the fact that the Korean Conflict is so forgotten... it was just an interlude between World War II and the morass of Vietnam... it just kind of falls the cracks.

Yeah, here it has had a direct effect on everyone's lives, and everyone's family history. Actually my father-in-law's family history is much more interesting, but unrelated to anything worth posting in here. In brief his oldest brother escaped to the North, and started his own family which was briefly reconnected with my father-in-law a couple years ago.

Posted by Samurai Since you live in South Korea, I have to ask some questions, if you're feeling chatty.

Well I am feeling about dodging work.

Posted by Samurai How do Koreans feel about the United States and the presence there?

It's complicated, and here's a long answer. A lot of Americans think that South Koreans should be more grateful than they are. In my opinion, they endured the absolute worst thing that can happen to a country--basically a game of cross-country dodgeball with bullets firing from both sides, that killed record numbers of civilians. There's really nothing worse than that, not even 50 years of bad government. I honestly do think the whole peninsula would've been better off if they just let the North have it, but who knows what implications that would've had for global politics. Instead, you end up with two very schizophrenic governments. The US certainly deserves to be thanked for its contribution, but it's hard to be thankful when you lost half your family.

The US as a military presence here gets blamed for a lot, some fair, some unfair. As I mentioned in the first article, they restored power to the traitors in order to keep the country competitive with North Korea. To this day, the upper class of the country is almost 100% descended from people who betrayed their country to Japan. The US propped up decades of military dictatorships just to have a more pro-American government; it's only in the past 20 or so years that the South has been democratic (and currently we're not doing so well). Also, through no fault of their own, the military dictatorships outlawed criticism of the US (along with praise for the North or criticism for the South), which is just asking for trouble. They also received more than their fair share for the Gwangju Massacre, when the '80s dictator Chun Doohwan suppressed civil unrest with slaughter of civilians.

The ironic thing is that most of the more pro-US Koreans are the more un-American ones. An American friend of mine said the largest pro-American rally he ever saw was in support of the national security law (the one I just mentioned outlawing free speech). Probably to most Americans, nothing is more un-American than outlawing free speech. So on a local level, being pro-American kind of goes hand-in-hand with being anti-civil rights.

And all this is peppered with the occasional high-profile problem in the streets. I've met a ton of great people in the US military, but there are also tons of idiots who ruin it for the rest of them. There were the two guys who tried to rape a woman in a public washroom, only to find out she was a cop who kicked their asses (actually a fantasy of mine), or the guy who raped the 60-year-old cleaning lady, or the guys who went out onto the road and were jumping on cars with people inside and holding up traffic, and when someone told them to stop he got his throat slashed.

Of course the big one is the tank incident a few years back, when a tank crushed two schoolgirls to death. The US military seemed to treat it like acceptable losses, which infuriated Koreans. The impression that I got was that the US military doesn't quite understand that there's a whole country going on around them.

But beyond military politics, most Koreans are very pro-American, in regards to the whole "land of opportunity," "land of the free" spiel. They honestly believe the US is the best possible country in the world. I've been to so-called anti-American protests where participants were wearing clothes with the American flag on them.

Posted by Samurai How do they feel about North Korea and their non-stop antagonism?

Meh with a capital M, and when things look really bad, caps-lock MEH.

Posted by Samurai In the presence of the global financial debacle, how has Korea done.

Weak. Unemployment rates are high, the exchange rate sucks, and the government that promised economic reforms has turned out to be the worst thing possible for it. In response to the suffering economy, several national holidays were cancelled so everyone will work more each year. Also, the plan to reduce the schoolweek from six days to five days has probably also been cancelled. This year I think we have something like four statutory days off.

this is very interesting to me. I had no real knowledge of day to day life in South Korea. I was also incredibly ignorant to how the United States' presence was received. Very interesting stuff. Now, have you been near the DMZ at all? I think Americans envision it, if they even stop to think about it, as South Korea being a land of rainbows and then you get the to the DMZ and beyond the wire, North Korea is the barren wasteland with dark clouds, thunderstorms, even a dragon or two flying around looking commmunist. (bit of a joke there).

the collective consciousness of americans is somewhat weak when it comes to the realities of other countries.

Posted by Samurai this is very interesting to me. I had no real knowledge of day to day life in South Korea. I was also incredibly ignorant to how the United States' presence was received. Very interesting stuff. Now, have you been near the DMZ at all? I think Americans envision it, if they even stop to think about it, as South Korea being a land of rainbows and then you get the to the DMZ and beyond the wire, North Korea is the barren wasteland with dark clouds, thunderstorms, even a dragon or two flying around looking commmunist. (bit of a joke there).

I have never been up to the DMZ despite having planned two trips up there. The only good tour is not open to Koreans so I can't take my wife.

Speaking of dark clouds, thunderstorms, and dragons, here is how North Korea and North Koreans were depicted in an '80s cartoon (upper right corner):

Posted by Samurai the collective consciousness of americans is somewhat weak when it comes to the realities of other countries.

I've met and liked lots of Americans, but that is one of the few criticisms that sticks to them. Don't worry though, Koreans are far more guilty of it.

thanks for the dialog... i've been looking through your galleries for some time now and found that, through your eyes, South Korea seems a bit... confused, for lack of a better word.
Confused in that it doesn't seem to know what past to embrace, or what future path to follow. It struck me as very schizophrenic, in a manner of speaking.

Posted by Samurai thanks for the dialog... i've been looking through your galleries for some time now and found that, through your eyes, South Korea seems a bit... confused, for lack of a better word. Confused in that it doesn't seem to know what past to embrace, or what future path to follow. It struck me as very schizophrenic, in a manner of speaking.

Too many people see it in opposites--the North is evil, the South is good, or the North is a dictatorship, the South is a democracy, and so on. It's obvious which one has the worse record but South Korea has its problems too. The problem is when you bring them up, someone points out "Well it's a lot worse in the North." That's like saying "My father has a drinking problem, but it's okay because Samurai's father has a heroin problem."

Currently they're like two siamese twins who both suspect the other is plotting to kill them. If that doesn't lead to schizophrenia, I don't know what will. What needs to happen is for North Korea to change its regime to a less hostile one. I don't think the two countries can reunite.

To add to the identity crisis, modernisation was basically introduced to Korea by Japan. What took us 300 years, it took them 30. Their culture was basically gutted, their national treasures pillaged, their native language suppressed, their empress raped, mutilated, and murdered by assassins, and in exchange they received railroads and some newer buildings. Being frogmarched into modernity, they really missed a necessary developmental phase. I think Korea paid for a majority of Imperial Japan's wartime sins.

The hard thing to remember is that at every turning point--Japanese imperialism, the war, liberation, dictatorships, US military presence, democratisation, nearly every person in the country either made their livelihood or suffered for it, one or the other, for each one they were alive for. Compare that to American politics--how many people really get abortions? How many people in the course of their lives will realistically need a gun to defend themselves? Who cares if a bunch of soldiers go to some country nobody's heard of?