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- Herausgeber: coree
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This new e-book captures images of Koreans in many parts of the world through the camera lens of Kim Jiyoun as her own journey on the subject matured from that of a photographer to a master documentarian over 20+ years. Painful struggles, memories, and maltreatment endured by her subjects will touch the viewers anytime, anywhere through this new digital medium.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 72
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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KoreanDiaspora
KIM Jiyoun
20 Years as a Documentarian
1. The Beginning
It was around 1998 when I first visited the House of Sharing, right after seeing Director Byun Young-Joo on TV talk about the documentary film she had just produced – The Murmuring.
Deep in self-pity at the time, I was awoken by the shocking piece of history which a female director had jumped in to document as the events unfolded. Just then, the courage to break free from my humdrum existence arose within me.
Every weekend, I went to the House and helped clean the place. Even though I neither owned a car nor had an easy way to get there by public transport, I went just because I felt like it. Perhaps I was in the process of switching gears from being self-absorbed to being charitable.
Then one day, one of the elderly ladies spoke to me, “Who are you, and why do you keep coming here?”
Hard of hearing herself, she nearly yelled at me to show her curiosity about my presence there.
“Ah… that is….”
How do I explain myself? “Well….”
Not sure how to introduce myself, I told her, “I am a photographer, Halmoni.”
“Then, why are you lingering? Just take the damn pictures!” “May I…?”
Next time, I brought my camera with caution.
Halmoni remembered and called me into her room to take pictures. She started to pose for me—smoking in a slow motion, staring into the air, as if beckoning me naturally. I realized that she knew how to deal with the media, since she had been interviewed so many times. It took me twenty minutes or so to take snapshots of her. And then it dawned on me, “Ah, this is how to communicate with a subject and make a documentary!”
That day, Halmoni Pak Du Ri seemed to hold my hand and teach me as if saying, “This is how you take pictures,” and
she directed where to position my camera.
This is how I started my career as a documentarian.
Born in 1971 and raised in the age of industrialization in Korea, I attended school in crowded classrooms in Korea; I completed my college education abroad, clashing with a foreign culture, and then, I was thrown into a society stricken with the chaos of the so-called ‘IMF’ economic crisis.
2. Meeting with the１
After the Sharing House, I moved on to Da-il Commune managed by Pastor Choi Il-do and Sung-Nam Foreign Laborers’ House as my next subjects. Pastor Choi was nicknamed ‘Pastor bap-puh’ as he was always scooping up rice for theresidents. I accompanied them to visit China in 1998. It was around then that the mass media started to report on the North Korean defectors. However, those reports seemed like stories of distant lands and didn’t quite resonate with me yet.
Children Who Could Not Grow
Upon arrival in Yen-Ji, I started eagerly snapping shots of local scenes here and there, as a typical first-time visitor to China. As soon as our group unloaded our travel gear at a hotel, little kids surrounded us with their dirty hands stretched out. They were the young children, called ‘Kkotjebi,’ meaning ‘flower swallows,’ who escaped North Korea in hunger to subsist meagerly by begging for food in China. They did not strike me as strange or uneasy. Instead, I felt as if I was looking upon my childhood playmates. I felt pity for their tiny hands, stretched out for food.
ReturninghomeafterabriefvisittoChina,Icouldn’thelpseeing their faces in my mind. Compared to South Korea, where people were getting sick from eating too much, North Koreans had to risk their lives to cross the border in search of food. That bothered me very much.
Soon, I was introduced to Mr. L. who was helping the little defectors in Yen-ji. Despite his own physical handicap, Mr. L.felt compelled to rescue them from starvation. His best friend,whocouldnottraveloutofthecountryduetohis military obligation, gave Mr. L. 20 million won (about 20 thousand dollars). With thatmoney, Mr. L.opened a shelter for the little defectors from North Korea.
November 19, 1998
All is quiet. The occasional small pattering of footsteps breaks the silence. The candle, lit around five in the afternoon, has burnt down to a short stump of a pencil. The shadows of a pencil and the hand holding it lie long on my diary. I remember that i visited the shelter every two weeks. Among the people I met there were: an 18-year-old grandson with his 70-year-old grandmother, carrying on his back his father who lost both legs to frost bites; a woman who had lost two kids in starvation; a man who got caught crossing the river and became crippled from torture; a 28-year-old guy who didn’t bother to help out in the shelter but ate ten bowls of rice in one sitting and got sick; a 40-year-old man who lost his wife and kids the past winter and wandered around North Korea before defecting; a 30-year-old medical student who ran away when he found out we were from South Korea; and a young guy who said he lived off the grass that goats and rabbits live on.２
Having decided to explore what I could do to help, I turned in a request for leave and cancelled my lectures at the graduate school. Then, I packed up my camera and Chinese VISA, and left for China without a definite plan. Iwas able to connect with Mr. L. without much problem.
In addition to the shelter he manages, I checked out a few other places to meet up with North Korean defectors. Since it was illegal to help defectors in China, I was extremely careful not to attract any attention and moved around alone with my camera tucked inside a bag. I then found a Christian organization that had converted an old school to an orphanage for these Kkotjebi kids. Slumming on a styrofoam mat in a corner of the school, I filmed the whole process and the kids. Slowly, I got used to living on the mat, comforted by a bottle of white rice wine for one yuen from a Chinese store.
I prepared myself to start taking pictures and filming at relatively stable locations with people who were willing to help. But then, I found the kids extremely hesitant to being photographed. I came to realize that being photographed was a grave concern for the children who believed that “they would be killed when they returned to North Korea if they had been photographed by South Korean reporters.” The rumor has it that a child who served as a witness on a TV program for a mere 500 Chinese Yuen (about 70 USD) was killed upon returning to North Korea. I realized how self-centered I was to think I could help them.
At the time, the food shortage in North Korea was extremely serious. It worsened by the collapse of socialist countries and３. More people started to cross the borders in search of food, and the governments of NorthKorea and China tightened their border controls.
I stopped taking pictures of the children when I realized their hesitance. Instead, I started to just eat and play with them, drawing pictures, etc. One day, one of the kids hid behind a curtain while playing a hide-and-go-seek game. Only then, did I understand the harsh reality of those children who could not reveal their faces. I started to take photos with their faces half-hidden.
Taking portraits is normally straightforward and can be done in confidence. Even those with uncomfortable stiff expressions can be taken as an expression of their desire to share how they feel with others. But, with these children, their reluctance and fear of uncertainty come through so vividly in their gazing into the camera. What was it that made them feel the need to hide themselves at such a young age? (Omitted)４
JungJin-Guk(PhotoCritic)
It is not easy to remember everything from twenty years ago.
Therefore, my recollection of memories and photos from those days may be fragmented even with the help of the book, Children Who Went To Yanbien, published by Noonbit. Yet, the feelings captured by each of the photos can never be forgotten.
