Anniversary of Korean War

One of my uncles was smart, studied well and was assigned to teach at an elementary school in Yangyang town on the East Sea coast (in what is now Gangwon Province), north of the current 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula. It was 1924 and the Korean Peninsula as a whole was occupied by Japan. It was a different, dark time.

In order to quickly climb up the advance ladder he changed his Korean birth name to a Japanese one. And he moved up the ladder fast and became a principal. My pro-Japanese uncle came to Japan for an on-site inspection of the educational system during the Pacific War. He spoke Japanese to me and Korean to my parents. He emphasized that Japan would win the war and I should become a strong militaristic boy and learn Japanese swordsmanship. I respected my uncle’s wish.

Yangyang then became North Korean territory when the 38th parallel was drawn in August 1945. My uncle quickly changed his name back to Korean and somehow the pro-Japanese teacher was able to keep the principal’s position under the communist government, as well. And this time he studied about Karl Marx and read “Das Kapital” putting aside the military imperialism he had been devoted to.

Then when he saw a wellequipped South Korean Army chasing after poorly armed North Korean soldiers escaping from the battlegrounds during the 1950-53 Korean War, he decided to return to his hometown, Uljin, located south of the 38th parallel although Yangyang became South Korea as the DMZ was drawn further north of the town this time. He took his wife and two daughters to the south but his son, a North Korean lieutenant at the time, was unable to join the family. In the south, luckily again, he got a job as the principal of an elementary school. Then he taught democracy under capitalism, speaking critically of the communism in the north.

On his death bed, when I asked, he said that he didn’t care about the nation’s ideology, he wanted to save his family. And he saved it through three different ideologies. Then a North Korean escapee earlier informed my aunt that the son she had left in the North was serving North Korean Army along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). That was in the 1960s. He, my cousin, must be 90 years old today if he is still alive.

On June 23, 2020, The Korea Times published my article “Surviving three wars so far.” In it I wrote; “I was recruited by the North Korean Army to build a bridge when they occupied my hometown during the war. And when South Korean Army returned to the front from their shameful retreat, they requisitioned young students to carry mortar shells up to the top of the mountain where artillery fire was being exchanged. I was among the shell carriers.”

Seventy years have passed since Koreans started engaging in that ridiculous fratricidal war, yet their children, grandchildren are still antagonizing each other endlessly. At this senior stage in life, I am not sure if I want to see my lost cousin. I don’t think we can talk.