25:50 CD 12 md 2 part 2 –
well we made it home after driving for a really long time. We made it home and went all over the country side. We went to the north Korean border, we went to the DMZ area, where I learned about north and south korea… and we went to so many Buddhist temples which were so beautiful. In some of the temples there were large Buddhist statues, and gold statues. And some of them were stone outside standing, There were 9 of us in the car, and it took a long time to drive. My cousin can speak engligh, and I he helped me a lot. And my girl cousins, sung he and sung me, who are also helpful. It’s hard to record with so much emotional things coming out and also with so much going on. It’s hard to record. Plus my mom gets uptight sometimes because she gets agro. And she wants me to do what she tells me, which this is not how I have been raised. She gets nervous and agro, untilmate agro and I have to deal with that. Put your shoes on, rarara chill out!!! Chill out!! Buit that’s not so good. I try to avoid conflict as much as possible. But it’s been good. Cousin is going to come and we can go shopping or something. I like him because he is my age. My mom’s personality fits in with her brothers, family is very close and loving and do a lot together.
4:01- today is Thursday. We have been relaxing after so many things. This is my radio diary. We have been shopping a little and going around a lot. Loud airplanes. You want more money. You say you gotta go shopping. I have big bucks to spend. You only spend 800$? I didn’t spend 800$. I thought you said you needed the rent money? No that’s fine. So… He’ll take it. Yeah he will. So me and mom have been here for 8 days. We have done a lot in 8 days, packed it in. So many temples and mountains, ocean. My mom talked to her brothers about the good old days.
8:00 What we grow up, what we had to do. Why my father always beat the crap out of my older andyounger brother. We grew up very poor. Very poor. Not much to eat. Not much of anything. We were happy. I raised my younger sister by myself. My mom would go to market at 3am and come back 10 at night. My younger sister was one month old. I raised her myself. I was 7 or 8 and she was just born. After that she was 14 when I left her, day after that my brother take care of her till she got school and graduated.
Did they say anything about when you left?
They were sad. My older brother was there, younger brother was sad.
Younger brother relationship:
Well, it’s not that, I had so much to do. I had to take care of my younger sister. We had a hard ship. They had to go quite a way to get water, what we could use. A lot of the times we would run out, my younger brother should get it and wouldn’t and I would have to go get it. A lot of times he wouldn’t listen. Well he was young too, he was 5 or 6. I would have to carry with both hand. We had to work all together, and he doesn’t and I couldn’t do it by myself.
My mother was working!
See you don’t listen to me! I already told you what was going on, and you don’t listen to me.
11:37- one last question, when you were leaving were you still very poor?
12:00- they were still poor, but not as poor as when we were growing up. My brothers get older and can get more money. My older brother went to service. They could find different jobs, so they got more money. Father passed away when we were young. My mother had to put the food on the table, that is why I had to take care of my sister.
13:17- hard relationship with step mother?
When the daughter found her that is when we had bad relationship. She didn’t appreciate what I done, she take everything for granted. That is when I say heck with it, I take care of myself no one else.
14:00- run away from home?
I didn’t run away from home, I was close by working.
Why did you want to leave korea?
14:25- I didn’t have a choice, if you marry someone, you go where he wants to go.
Why did you want to marry my dad and not a Korean guy?
You don’t have a chouce. Something in love you don’t change. You can’t choose that, you have love. We were young and in love. Same thing like a teenager these days,
My dad was a young and handsome man.
Yeah he was a nice looking man.
15:30 How did you feel when you saw that picture?
I was surprised. I know I had some picture but I didn’t know they kept them all these years. I had a lot of pictures for a while, me and my girlfriend. There were four best friends, we hang around, go to movies, go shopping. Close knit friendship.
Took a lot of pictures.
You don’t want to look them up now?
No, they won’t know where to find them.
Just like finding your brother for us was a very smooth transaction.
We did good even though we didn’t know how to speak Korean very much. We didn’t struggle very much, we did good. Put your mind to it we did good.
17:00- now that we are here do you feel complete?
Yes, my whole family did very well. Pretty close. I am very happy. I regret that my children and their children did not get together when they were young.
How is your sister handling seeing you again?
18:00- my sister is seeing me is very relieved. She was hurting a lot of years. She blames herself all these years. That something happened to me, because her and I was like a mother daughter relationship. Now reunited, hurting has healed. She had emotional bound hurting. She had a lot coming out that was inside of her. I am glad. She is a grown woman. According to her husband, her heart was broken, and she had a lot wrong in her head. She needed to find me.
How would you describe your brothers and sisters:
My sister didn’t change much since I left her. Her face is the same as before.
My older brother- didn’t change at all. I recognize him right away.
But my younger brother is very hard work. He work hard car wash, chemicle on his skin, he lost some hair. I would not recognize him at all.
Do they act the same?
My sister does. My younger brother we didn’t spend a lot of time together. He was 12 when I left. Hard to describe. All the growin up I missed. He is as crazy as me. He acts just like me! Wild and easy going.
When you see pictures of the children growin up what do you see?
I would say no different than my family. Whole family was missing me, they talked about me, and wondered how I was doing. Every holiday.
What do they think they brought your daughter with you?
They were surprised. The police called and said someone was with you, they thought it was my husband. They didn’t know my daughter was with me. They are very happy. I think they would imagine what renee would look like. My brother said renee loook like her father.
And she got a Korean name. Eun hae, humble one. My name is ok cha, more money than you could bye. I am so happy, and see what happens when we leave, maybe we will cry.
What does the future hold?
We’ll get together, write letter, family get together. Lots of family. 7 niece, one nephew, one is married, and we will hear about it. Close knit family. I am happy with it., I often wondered if they were alive or dead or sick. I am glad they found themselves happiness.
I feel happy to find my family, because I only knew one side, and now I met my cousins, and aunts and uncles. And I see they are just like me in many ways. And they are treating us like queens and kings. They are taking care of us and it seems like we have known each other for years. It doesn’t feel like we are picky Americans., We adapted very well, and they have been taking us everywhere. Whole family vacation. All these stuff we went to see I never saw them before, because we were poor. Never seen anything like that before.
You never went on trips. Never went anywhere.
Old house is gone now. Don’t recognize it. I am glad now, because the factories are gone. Stress life. I like it.