The article is an interview with the American professor Dr. Horace Underwood III about his life experience in South Korea. The author of the article tells the reader about the history of Korea through the life story of a US citizen. The interview covers the period of Korean history from the 1920s, the Japanese occupation, through the 1950s, the Korean War. Throughout the article, the reader comes across the critical nuances of Korean citizens and foreigners’ everyday life during the covered period.
Dr. Horace Underwood III was born in 1917 in Korea. His father was a US protestant missionary and the founder of the Yonsei University. When Underwood was born, Korea was under Japanese occupation and was going through the milder periods, as the Japanese did not bother anybody very much, especially the foreigners. In the thirties, however, things began to get rougher. At this period, the Korean students had to get the education only in the Japanese language, and later the students were forbidden to speak in their mother tongue. Moreover, the Japanese made Shinto shrines obligatory to visit for the Koreans and foreigners on certain occasions to demonstrate loyalty. Overall, the shrines became not only religious but also national, which made everyone, especially Christians, bitter. The repression of the native population lasted until the World War II.
In June 1942, right after Pearl Harbour, all the foreigners were forced to leave Korea. After a brief period of internment, Underwood returned to the US where he volunteered to join the Nave as part of the intelligence team. He was assigned to the Korean military government in 1946, during Yeosu rebellion, when a lot of disturbance was in the air. Many people said that the trouble was due to the agents of the North, but some insisted that South Korea had its genuine reasons for the unrest. Underwood returned to his missionary work in Yonsei in 1947 and was teaching there until the Korean War.
When the Korean War broke out Underwood enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Japan joining the Naval Headquarters there who were planning Incheon landing. After the landing, Dr. Horace Underwood III was told that he should not be in the front lines and was transferred to the more peaceful divisions. He then served as an interpreter from English into Korean during the armistice negotiations. Dr. Underwood reflects upon this period of his life in detail, as it was very delicate and responsible work. The team of interpreters came across many concepts that were foreign to the Americans and had no equivalent in English. These disputes lasted until 1953 when the war came to an end and all the Korean soldiers were repatriated.
Dr. Underwood declares that the Koreans seemed downtrodden during the Japanese and the Chosun Dynasty rules. Only after the Korean War, the people began to show creativity and self-confidence, as they were now free from aristocrats’ and foreign intervention. Besides, after the war, Koreans’ healthcare system, in particular, began to thrive and Korean women received more rights and privileges. As the downside, family ties began to weaken, so now there appeared some nursing homes, and elder sons no longer sacrificed their education for their younger siblings to go to school.
In conclusion, Dr. Underwood points out the differences between western and the eastern mentality. In the West, people often sacrifice relationships through their value system. In Korea, interpersonal relationships have the top value, therefore loyalty has a priority over honesty. This polar opposite value system gives Westerners a hard time grasping and accepting it.