500 folded paper cranes
Tangerines
Socks and backpack
Pocket Warmer
50,000 won notes
Bandages
Oily Rice Cakes and a Persimmon
1. One of my student's grandmothers fled a field in her village where hundreds of people were executed, including many youth. She was nine at the time. She hid under a large stone on the beach, managing to remain in hiding several days until escaping to safety. She gave me this jar of 500 paper cranes in 2013. People in Korea believe the intricate labor of folding paper cranes brings luck.
2. I was often given practical items for use while doing outings for filming or research—a backpack when the strap of mine failed, a pair of socks on another occasion.
6. The 50,000 won bills were given to me by a monk on two visits to the temple in his charge. The monk's grandfather, one of the many known heroes of the 4.3 Uprising era, was executed for harboring individuals deemed to be communist sympathizers. The monk was taken from the temple grounds by residents and the many bullet holes in his body stuffed with material from mats used during prayer. The monk's deceased grandfather was known for bringing many Buddhist paintings of a rare sort to Jeju Island during the Buddhist revival of the turn of the century.
8. Though I received many gifts from the man who gave me this box of bandages, this was the one I've held onto. We visited the countryside and the cave where his father had hid during the 4.3 period, along with many others from the village. The great number of caves on the island allowed for an underground network of hiding spots which many villagers in peril took advantage of. In many cases, the locations of such caves were compromised. In the case of my friend's father, he was never discovered and survived.
Tangerines
Persimmons
Book of poems
Local History Book, Darakut Village
Handmade Clay Cup Portraying an Island Landscape
Boiled Eggs
Sweet Breads
Chopsticks
Seaweed from China
Seaweed from China
10. This woman escaped from her village when she was just a little girl. Her teenage friend pulled her away by her hand while the other children and villagers were being shot at. The two ran together through the forest and, subsequently, through a great number of fields, until they reached the safety of the city. Later on, the two became sister-in-laws and life-long friends. The teenage friend, who had saved her life, married the younger girl's older brother. I first came into contact with them when investigating a shamanic shrine that was desecrated in their childhood village.
11. The book is a volume of poems written by a man who was also a child survivor. He wasn't able to flee to the mountain with other children and hid alone in the woods as long as he could. One day, hungry and cold, he took a chance with his life and came out of the forest with his hands above his head. He surrendered to a soldier he encountered along the road. Luckily, his captor showed mercy. He returned home to find that his entire village, like scores of others on the island, had been burnt away.
12. The man who wrote this local history of Darakut Village escaped to Japan with his family during the Jeju 4.3 Uprising period. After working as a school teacher in Japan, he returned to his home and served as a public official. Surviving members of the Darakut community returned after the strife of the massacres to rebuild their torched homes.
17. In coastal villages, the gifts of courtesy are often from the sea. This seaweed called 'mum' is an essential ingredient of Jeju Island's local cuisine. The women from the village, including the abalone diver in the photo, remained in their homes during the height of the violence of the 4.3 Uprising, while the men of the village hid in an secret location on the mountain. Those in hiding often visited such villages at night to steal away with food and other resources. The journey back to the mountainside was risky and would have likely meant execution if caught. Smartly, according to the woman diver, the men of the village didn't share the exact location of the hiding place, not even with their wives. This way, they couldn't be informed on even if villagers were put under physical or emotional duress.
Map (showing the location of graves on a schoolyard drawn by an eight year-old boy)
18/19. Items from children should not be excluded from the collection. The above is a hasty map drawn by a third grader in elementary school. The oblong structure in the top image (the main building of his school) and the circles on the bottom image (his schoolyard) represent areas where he believes victims' bodies to be located. Many people were indeed killed nearby his school campus. While teaching an ESL class, I saw the student drawing and overheard him telling other students that there were bodies still buried under his school. Younger generations have inherited the trauma of the 4.3 Uprising and respond to it in their own ways. On one occasion, I came into the classroom and found students play-acting scenes from what they know of the uprising. They were huddled together in the middle of the room holding their stomachs and pretending to shiver. In jest, they said they were hungry and the room was cold, "it's like 4.3 in here."
25/26. A letter and diagram drawing given to me by a nine year old girl that I teach.
We have to be happy because we are very lucky. Very, very lucky. My grandmother was younger that me when the soldiers came to the village. She was so scared and hid beneath sesame leaves in the garden. She heard it while she hid. Do you know what I mean?
Handmade Chocolates (from a school trip)
Various Items
For information on the 4.3 Jeju Uprising: