Interview with Kwak Man Young
Highway Engineer

Q: In 1950, when Seoul was about to fall to the communists, you were trying to flee. How did the explosion of the Han River Bridge affect your escape?

Young: The Han River Bridge was blown up, and there were rubber boats under it that were used as bridges. There were hundreds of thousands of people crossing. Everyone was just fighting to cross and people were falling into the ice cold water. . .

We walked all the way to No Dyeung Gin, which is now No Dyeung Gin station. It didn't seem too far from the river, but there was a blizzard and there was so much snow, the trip was hard. The temperature was well below freezing, in the single digits... it was a very cold day. We were with my older sister's family and I had a bag of rice on my back. Eventually, we didn't have the strength to continue walking. So my sister suggested we take the train. The last train was going south and it was a cargo train for military arms and soldiers.

Q: What did you do when you got to the train station?

Young: When we arrived, it was two o'clock in the afternoon. We didn't feel it was that urgent because the South Korean army was still loading cargo, weapons and so forth, onto the train. . . When we heard the bombs, everything changed. . . the refugees suddenly poured in and everyone just wanted to take the train to the South. So while the train was getting ready to take off, everyone was trying to get on. The soldiers who were standing by couldn't do anything because there were so many people pushing -- rushing like water -- trying to get on the train.

Q: Were you able to board?

Young: There were so many people pushing and shoving, trying to get on the train. The train was full of arms and ammunition so people had to sit on the roof. While we were trying to climb on we heard two or three north Korean shells go off. The situation became chaotic.

My sister and her children scrambled on. The train suddenly lurched forward, but I couldn't get on. I shouted to her, "Let's meet in Pusan. Don't die! Stay alive!"

That's how we parted, and then there was a blizzard. . . . If it was just me, I would have hopped on -- but I also had my younger siblings and I couldn't leave them. And so I couldn't get on the train. . . My heart felt like it was completely empty. I wondered how I would live in this southern land, how I would survive. I just cried.

Q: Where did you go after you lost your sister?

Young: I lived in Taejon and people in Taejon called me the PhD of roads. The reason I was given that nickname was because I studied the roads in Korea so intently looking for my sister. Other refugees from North Korea knew this and I went to Pusan as well to look for my sister as well. My sister had changed her name through the reunification program and had already moved because it was so difficult to live in those days. . .

I walked to Taejon from No Dyeung Gin station and I just walked and walked. I was a refugee, and I didn't have anything to eat. Starving was normal at the time. . .

I felt like my heart was tied and I wondered why our people had to go through such a crisis. We spent thirty-six years as a Japanese colony, and North and South Korea were divided for five years. Why did we have to experience something so cruel?

Later, in the sixties, I was a construction worker and I didn't have much free time. I worked for the State company. I spent all of my weekends searching for my family. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to find my sister. I paid people to look for her. I bought ads. I went to where the North Korean refugees lived, and I went to the refugee center. . . . I tried everything to find her, but I couldn't.

Q: So how did you finally track her down?

Young: I don't think I would have been able to find my family on my own, without the help of the KBS media campaign. I realized then how important Korean reunification actually was. . . and how great this country is. I was so thankful that Korea made my wish come true. It healed my broken heart, and dissolved my sorrow. I also thought about how Vietnam was destroyed. All the boat people were dying but at least our country continued. If it wasn't for my country, I wouldn't have been able to find my sister. I don't know how to express my gratitude to Korea and to the KBS people who worked so hard. . .

Q: How much time passed before you were reunited with your sister?

Young: I hadn't seen my sister for thirty-three years. I was sixteen, my sister was twenty-five, and my niece and nephew were five and three when we were all separated. Thirty-three years later I went to meet my sister but I couldn't recognize her because she had changed greatly during those years apart. So when we first met, my sister asked me if I was Man Young and I said, yes I am. I held her and cried. Thirty-three years had passed, and we had both changed a lot. It was just an amazing scene.

Q: Let's talk about your life as a construction worker...

Young: In those days, to have the title of engineer and to construct and to rebuild was very prestigious. I think people felt as proud to have that title as they feel to go to college nowadays. I worked day and night and sometimes worked for a week without sleep. There was no such thing as vacation.

Q: What were your responsibilities in the construction department?

Young: I was an engineer, so I maintained the heavy machinery. I was even the director of management and maintenance. I maintained the heavy machinery in the construction department.

Q: Who supervised the reconstruction?

Young: There was no team supervising the whole project because we were such a backward country. President Park was a military person and the people who came to supervise construction were military men, and young men without experience. They always said to hurry up and finish the construction. There were very few engineers and people who knew about technology.

There was no hands-on knowledge of construction. . . . We used books to teach ourselves. . . . We didn't go abroad to America or to richer countries to train. We didn't have that kind of system. We just studied theory.

Then we went to Taiwan and did some construction and then came back into the country and gathered the technicians together. So we mainly just learned on the job. We borrowed money from the World Bank to buy a 7.5 ton piece of machinery from England to carry asphalt. Technicians from England came to maintain the machinery and to look over the plans.

We didn't have much machinery for construction in those days. It was mostly brought in from America or Japan, or we borrowed money to buy things. That's how it was run and maintained.

Q: What was a typical work day like?

Young: We started work at sunrise and worked until after sunset. We were taught about construction and machinery at midnight. The workers were allowed to sleep but the management needed to learn at night. I think Korea was able to catch up with the other countries in such a short period of time because of our country's stubbornness and strength. . .

Everyone here accepted hard work. . . The actual workers got some sleep, but we as management needed to catch up and learn what we didn't know. While other people slept, we learned about technology. . . A person who had taught in other countries said that he made the most money teaching here because the teachers were all paid more for teaching through the night.

Q: Did you see your family during the reconstruction?

Young: I went home for the first time in six months. I didn't go because I wanted to, but because it was the rainy season and we were on stand-by. At that time my oldest son, who is now twenty-nine, was four years old. He said, "I have a father, I have a father too!" and he hung on to me. I wasn't able to spend time at home with my family because I was working on construction, rebuilding the country.

Q: How well were you paid for construction work?

Young: I didn't have large wages. . . but I had enough to buy a radio! In those days, there were a lot of smuggled goods -- such as foreign goods and foreign electronics that you couldn't get in Korea. There were a few Japanese products, but they were all illegal imports. I really wanted to have a Sony transistor and I think I would have starved ten days to get that. . . Now we are rich and we export them, but in those days I was considered a king for having one.

Q: What was it like to have a radio in those days?

Young: Radio and television all emit sound, and it is sound that makes people laugh and cry. You could also hear the news from all over the world. . . I was not envious of anyone else because I had that radio -- and I didn't care that I had to starve for ten days to buy it.

Q: What was transportation like?

Young: In the old days, the roads were not made of asphalt and if a car was going twelve miles an hour, people would point and say, "Now that's a good car." Every spring and fall people in the area would go out and throw pebbles on the road to fill it in. Now we're rich, so the construction company comes to maintain the road.

But in the old days, it took three days to travel from Seoul to Pusan, if you were going very quickly. In between there used to be resting places on the highway where you could sleep and eat. Today's cars are so fast that you can have breakfast in Seoul, go to Pusan for lunch, and come back to Seoul for dinner. In those days, a quick trip like that would only have been a dream.

There were very slow buses in the countryside that appeared once or twice a day and rarely ran. People in the countryside walked very long distances to go to the market because the transportation was so bad. Before the war, there was no such thing as middle aged diseases because everyone walked and exercised. Today people don't even want to walk the stretch of land between one bus stop and the next.

Q: How did television affect your life?

Young: As you know, I looked for my sister for more than thirty years. I looked everywhere, but I wasn't able to find her. I saw a television program on reunited families and I applied. They found my sister in an incredibly short amount of time.

So television is an amazing medium. The broadcast was live. It was amazing to be able to talk to your family, in a different city, on screen, and watch it from far regions across the country. It reunited us and changed our lives.

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