What Happened to My Family in 1997?
201001006 Hyejin Kim
As a student who is majoring in international studies, I have learned various fields including politics, economics and international law. Especially I have focused on economics and last year, I took a class about the history of the Korean economy. At that time, I wrote 4000 word essay about the 1997 financial crisis in South Korea. In 1997, I was 7 year-old kid and I' don't have any memory related to the crisis. However, my mother used to talk to me that my family spent really harsh time as an aftermath of the crisis and I decided to interview her in order to find out what happened to my family at that time.
My mother was born in a small rural town as the last kid of 7 siblings. Her father was dead when she was 2 years old. So I guess her childhood's environment was not that abundant. After graduating from high school, she got a job in a bank and she married my father when she was 28 years old. What I knew about her career was she quit the work after my younger brother was born. First I asked her whether she could expect the crisis or not since she was working at the bank at the moment and I thought she might have known something. Then she said that there was a rumor that the crisis would hit the Korean economy but nobody was sure about it. And just after the crisis broke out, there was the presidential election. So people would say that they should choose the person who could overcome the crisis. Then I asked how tough my home to endure the crisis. She thought for a while and started to talk slowly that my father had a job in a bakery and she was working at a bank. However, the bank carried out a large-scale restructuring and she was very tired of her work. Therefore she decided to quit the work and open a bakery with my father with the money she received as severance pay.
In order to earn money, they tried to start a bakery, but they couldn't because there were already a lot of people who were fired and opened a bakery. She added that a bakery was one of the easiest businesses with lower barrier to entry. Unfortunately as an aftermath of the crisis, the bakery where my father worked also had to close. After a short pause, she added "after 1 year later, the hardest time of my life started". She explained she didn't feel that managing livelihood was really really difficult in 1997 when the crisis broke out since she had some money that she was given when quitting her job. However after a year there was no money left and "literally we had no money to buy rice", she added. I said "but mom, I had no idea that we struggled like that and I can't imagine it." She replied "Of course you could not recognize it. You were too young to know that and you were not that mature kid." Saying that, she laughed and I said "No way!!"
Then I added that I heard someone killed himself because of a huge debt in our town and asked her she knew anybody who lost job and spent harsh time like us. She sighed and she said that she heard a story about a person who killed himself by pouring oil on himself, setting fire on the body and committing suicide by drowning but there was no friend of her who spent harder life than her. This is because most of her friend had no choice to quit their job but their husbands had very solid job. So they didn't have to worry about money that much. "Well. I can say that moment was a kind of turning point of my life. Before the crisis, I had no worry about work and earning money since working at the bank was secure and stabilized job. However, after the crisis I realized how naïve I was", she added. Since I heard that there were a number of the homeless, I asked her whether she could easily see the homeless in the street. Surprisingly, her answer was "no". According to her explanation, it was hard to see the homeless in my hometown but definitely there were a lot of people who lost job, home and family in bigger cities like Seoul.
I also asked about gold-gathering movement. I mentioned it on my paper and the movement was a voluntary action of the Korean people who wanted to help the nation by donating their gold including accessories, wedding rings and so on. She replied that she participated in the movement with some rings she had at that time. Suddenly she seemed to remind of some memories and said that she came up with a fact that she rarely saw the homeless in the near street, there were many couples who divorced. And I replied "As you said, my family was under the really harsh situations and you and father lost the jobs. Had you ever considered divorce?" Saying that, I thought I worried that I was asking a sensitive issue to her. To my surprise, however, she answered flatly with confidence. "No, never. Think about it. Of course we were struggling but it was not our fault. Your father and I tried hard to protect our family. How could I request him to divorce blaming him? I believed money was not a problem at all to your dad and me. I thought if we had no money, all we had to do was working and earning money. It was not that big deal". At that moment when she was talking, I was very impressed and I truly admired my parent. Then I asked how she and my father overcame the situations and she said she found a new job and my father also started to work at a bakery again. Actually she is still working at the same company and very satisfied with her work. In addition, my father is running his own bakery now.
It was time for her go to bed. Finally I said "thank you" with my all heart for telling the story and overcoming the serious crisis for family. Tears in her eyes, she added her final comment that "I'm about to cry thinking of the moment. It was the hardest time of my whole life and I really thank god that your father and I passed through that time". I tossed and turned on my bed long time after my mother falling asleep. When I wrote the essay about the crisis, I was very neutral. I analyzed the causes and the impacts, bail out of International Monetary Fund, and the policies of the government and focused on the economic indicators like debt ratio, since I had no idea what happened to my family when the crisis occurred. After listening to her story, I sympathized with many other older people who were fighting desperately with the crisis to protect their family.
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