Mission life: THE KUKMIN DAILY

"That’s how it was back then!": Korea Through Western Supporters’ Eyes

2014-09-15 16:34

Save the Children opens to the public its 1987 “A Letter From a Korean Village”

How did Korea appear to western supporters in the era when it was receiving aid from international relief organizations?

On September 11, Save the Children (board chair: Kim No-bo) opened to the public 'A Letter from a Korean Village,' a book that introduced Koreans’ everyday life to Ango-American supporters in the days when the country was a recipient of relief aid.

Published jointly in 1987 by Save the Children and UNICEF, the book shows the living situation of residents in Sanbuk Village, Geumsa-myeon, Yeoju-gun (now Sanbuk-myeon, Yeoju city), Gyeonggi-do, and images of children who were receiving aid from Save the Children.

The book, which takes the form of an illustrated letter, introduces in detail the situation of Sanbuk Village and the lives and values of its children, following its participation in Save the Children’s decade-long regional development project, started in 1972. The project improved health and sanitation, raised incomes and expanded educational opportunities. According to the book, Sanbuk Village in 1987 was a model farming village of 2,500 residents, among whom 85% cultivated rice, barley, potatoes, beans or other crops. The people lived in “U” or “L” shaped houses, and the women did their families’ laundry in the creek, using washboards and laundry paddles. Visible in most yards were laundry lines, farm tools and firewood stacked up as winter fuel.

Compared to the early 1970s, the village had developed beyond recognition. Save the Children, with the help of the local government, had brought in electricity, telephones and a post office, and got a bus line operating between the village and Seoul. They promoted cattle farming and mushroom cultivation, which expanded the income of farming families. Though individual income in the 70s was below the national average, by 1987 it was higher than the average. A growing number of residents were buying refrigerators or bicycles, and new educational institutions such as nurseries, elementary schools and middle schools had appeared.

Having experienced such rapid development, what were the lives and values of the area’s children like? Save the Children, being asked this question by overseas supporters at the time, interviewed children who had been born and raised in the village. The majority of the children said their future hope was to become a teacher or a doctor, and one wanted to be UN Secretary General.

In response to the question “What should you do to make others happy?” many children gave deeply thoughtful replies. The most frequent answers were, “When we share happiness, it doubles, and when we share sadness, it becomes half,” and “We need to respect and understand others.” When asked, “If you had 100 dollars, what would you most want to do with it?” the children answered, in order of frequency, “Share it with my relatives and an orphanage,” “Use it to buy my grandmother’s medicine,” and “Buy a book or a bicycle.”

A Save the Children source said, “Through this document, we can understand that, just as we wonder these days about the lives of children in African regions who are receiving our support, 30 years ago overseas supporters of Korean children wanted to know how they were getting along…We hope that the 120 some countries of the world will be transformed through development, like Sanbuk Village and Korea as a whole.”

Reporter Yang Minkyeong (grieg@kmib.co.kr), with Marion Kim (marionkkim@icloud.com)


Click here for the original article in Korean

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