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    Korean Diaspora: 20 Years as a Documentarian
    Korean Diaspora: 20 Years as a Documentarian
    Korean Diaspora: 20 Years as a Documentarian
    Ebook150 pages51 minutes

    Korean Diaspora: 20 Years as a Documentarian

    By Jiyoun Kim

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publishercoree
    Release dateApr 15, 2024
    ISBN9791198679819
    Korean Diaspora: 20 Years as a Documentarian

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      Book preview

      Korean Diaspora - Jiyoun Kim

      1712211162417_0

      Korean Diaspora

      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.

      1712178160078_641712178160094_651712178160141_661712178160188_67

      2. Meeting with the

      １

      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.

      Returning home after a brief visit to China, I couldn’t help seeing 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, who could not travel out of the country due to his military obligation, gave Mr. L. 20 million won (about 20 thousand dollars). With that money, Mr. L. opened a shelter for the little defectors from North Korea.

      November 19, 1998

      All is quiet.

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