Jenny+Kim-+F+block

media type="file" key="interview(project)-JennyK.m4a"

__Jenny:__ Hello, My name is Jenny Kim and I am going to interview my brother’s friend’s mother, named Mi Hwa Yoon. She is 52-years-old and she is a housewife. She was born in the southern countryside, went to the college and had a job in the city. She moved and lived outside of Korea for 20 years afterwards, and came back to Korea last year. She was born little bit after the Korean War, so Korea was chaotic during that time. During the interview, we will talk about education, spare time, technology, transportation, and some traditions.
 * Introduction**

__Jenny:__ First, we will talk about the education. Can you tell me about the education, or high school back then?
 * Education**

__Mrs. Yoon:__ When I was in high school, there were more students who didn’t go to any college. So if there was 7 classes, 2 classes were for students who wante d to go to college (those who study), and the other 5 classes were for students who were preparing for their future jobs. They learned abacus calculation, accounting, and something else like this to prepare for jobs after their graduation. In the 2 classes, there were students who got accepted to the colleges and those who didn’t get accepted. So.. we didn’t have to study really hard like these days because most students didn’t go to colleges. We did more activities, such as drawing, going and playing outside.. it was more important to have friends and keep that relationship. What I am trying to say is that we didn’t study much because there was almost no competition between students like these days.

__Jenny:__ What did people do during their spare time? Did they go to any hakwons?
 * Spare Time**

__Mrs. Yoon:__ We didn’t have hakwon back then. Some people participated in religious activities for spare time... for me, I drew pictures after school with my friends since I was in Art club. And some friends made something like literature book. Studying... well, we studied when we had time left, after all those activities.

__Jenny:__ How about technology? Was it developed?
 * Technology**

__Mrs. Yoon:__ No. There was no computer. All the electro devices came into Korea when I was around elementary, middle school age. There was only few who had tv. Telephone, tv.... well, there actually was no technology. The computer was not common back then. So we called.. no, actually telephone appeared when I was in high school. Letters..! We communicated by writing letters.

__Jenny:__ I want to ask you about the transportation now. Was walking the only transportation?
 * Transportation**

__Mrs. Yoon:__ Transportation was.. all walking. We walked to school, walked to go to friend’s house... the bus was there, too. But walking was more like a common sense then riding a bus. We always walked. Especially for my parents’ generation, they walked long distances, climbing mountains, walking for days and nights. For my generation, though, had bus to go to another countryside.

__Jenny:__ Were there any bicycles?

__Mrs. Yoon:__ Bicycle.. was there also but it was too expensive for the students to buy it. Only adults, men bought bicycles and rode it.

__Jenny:__ Most common transportation now is car and subway. Was there any subway back then? And how about airplane?

__Mrs. Yoon:__ There was no subway at all. For long distance, there were train and bus; for short distance, walking. Airplane was also existing, but it really really was not common. Back then, not anybody could get a passport, because of the situation between North Korea and South Korea. For that political reason, almost no one got a passport and traveled to other places. If my relatives were outside of Korea, then I could make a passport easily. There would have been something like Korean air, but normal people couldn’t ride it, only special people could.

__Jenny:__ I have a question about traditions. I am most curious about the birthdays. How did people celebrated their birthdays back then? Was there any special tradition about birthdays? Like these days, we eat miyuk gook(sea weed soup) for breakfast and have cake sometime during the day.
 * Tradition**

__Mrs. Yoon:__ Almost all the people ate noodles for dinner for their birthdays. They had miyuk gook for breakfast and noodles for dinner. We believed that if we ate noodles, then our life would last long. We had miyuk gook for breakfast because we could get good lucks by eating miyuk gook. But there was no cake. We also celebrated the New Years Day and the Thanksgiving, even though our economy was not in a very good situation. We celebrated it hugely with out family.

__Jenny:__ Thank you, Mrs. Yoon. From this interview, I learned that there are a lot of difference between now and about 30 years ago. It was very interesting to know that Korea’s technology, transportation, and education developed quickly and a lot during the past 30 years. As an example, for education, people didn’t compete much with others to go to good colleges 30 years ago, but now, people study a lot and have great competition with others to go to good colleges. This ends my interview with Mrs. Yoon. Thank you again and see you next time.
 * Conclusion**