WON Yong-chul
This text is a placeholder for the story of our meeting with the "Master". It is here that we can tell, with our words and emotions, the shared moments and the stories he entrusted to us.
This text is a placeholder for the story of our meeting with the "Master". It is here that we can tell, with our words and emotions, the shared moments and the stories he entrusted to us.
This text is a placeholder for the story of our meeting with Lee Sangman. It is here that we can tell, with our words and emotions, the shared moments, the stories he entrusted to us, and the impact this meeting had on us. This format allows us to go beyond the purely factual to share a human experience.
Mr Yang's testimony is very moving but needs to be put into perspective: how did a former successful restaurant owner end up collecting cardboard boxes? His valuable account traces a bygone era and highlights the link between an individual's destiny and the major historical upheavals linked to the double-faced figure of Park Chung-hee.
In the 1960s, the country was emerging from a devastating conflict, the Korean War (1950-1953). South Korea was ravaged, the country reached a threshold of extreme poverty, making it one of the poorest countries in the world. Its economy was at rock bottom and the country managed to survive thanks to American aid.
It was during this period of economic dependence and chaos that General Park Chung Hee (1917-1979) decided to stage a coup d'état on 16 May 1961, overthrowing the democratic government, which he considered too unstable. His top priority was to lift Korea out of poverty and build a strong nation capable of defending itself against North Korea. He then established an authoritarian and repressive regime from 1961 to 1979, with the KCIA, the intelligence agency that tracked down and tortured any political opponents of the regime. His government was therefore a dictatorship.
Although he appeared to be a threat to Korea, General Park implemented a strategy that would result in economic success, allowing South Korea to rebuild itself and join the ranks of the most technologically advanced countries: this became known as the ‘Miracle on the Han River’.
He selected a handful of promising Korean family businesses and invested all the power of the state in them: the economy was therefore directed and planned by the state, through these conglomerates, known as chaebols. In return, the state expected the chaebols to meet set export targets, resulting in South Korea's economic success in the global market.
This strategy led to explosive economic growth: the country's economy grew by nearly 10% each year for almost two decades. Millions of Koreans left the countryside to join the new factories in the cities.
Wages rose, and for the first time, an urban middle class with purchasing power emerged.
It was during this period that Mr Yang prospered. He was not an isolated case; his success was a direct result of Park's economic policy: this new middle class, these executives and workers who were earning money, wanted to spend it. Restaurants, bars and shops sprang up everywhere. The prosperity of large corporations ‘trickled down’ to the small businesses that served them.
But this dream of prosperity was shattered when, on 26 October 1979, Park Chung-hee was assassinated by his own intelligence agency during a private dinner. The assassination plunged the country into chaos. When a system like Park's is built around one person, the fall of the leader invariably leads to an unprecedented political and economic crisis: the country is left without leadership and order.
For someone like this restaurant owner, whose entire success was built on the stability and growth guaranteed by Park, his sudden demise was a shockwave. Fear paralyses consumption: in a dark period marked by protests, massacres and coups, people stay at home, spending only on the bare necessities for survival.
Mr Yang's words are not nostalgic memories of a dictator: they are a profound regret for a period of stability and opportunity that allowed him to build his life. For him, Park Chung-hee was not an oppressor but the guarantor of an order that allowed him to rise socially.
His death not only decapitated the government, it also broke the economic machine that fed his restaurant and his family. He experienced the transition from dictatorship to democracy not as a liberation, but as a plunge into chaos and precariousness.
His personal story mirrors South Korea's turbulent economic and political history.
Even though Grandma JO Cheon-rae is over 80 years old, she still works hard today, pushing a heavy wheelbarrow, with the pain and weight of life on her shoulders.
Despite this, I'm reassured to see the consideration, empathy and respect of many passers-by on the street when she stoops to pick up the boxes.
The boss distributed boxes and bread to her, and there were many market vendors who gave her gloves and warm words when I helped her these last days.
However, I feel deeply sad that the labor cost was not worth it, let alone the hard work and the sweat. Life isn't fair at all, as always
Grandma said that she was happy to be accompanying me and she and many people thought of me as her grandson, but she was sad that she could not afford to buy me food. Her words and her generosity moved me.
Her warm heart and her smile were enough for me and filled me with peace, but I wish she had enough money to take care of her and eat without worrying about anything.
