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| The late President Park Chung-hee delivers a speech at a community center in the German city of DuisProf. Kwon Yi-chong burg on Dec. 10, 1964, in this file photo. / Courtesy of Association of Korean Miners and Nurses sent to Germany |
Ex-miner recalls late leader's 1964 speech in Germany
This is the third in a series of articles highlighting Korean miners and nurses who went to Germany in the 1960s and 70s. — ED.
By Kang Hyun-kyung
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Prof. Kwon Yi-chong |
Kwon Yi-chong, one of some 400 miners present at the speech, recalled during a recent interview that almost all of those who gathered there wept during Park's speech.
"In fact, we, miners, became emotional from when President Park entered the hall to deliver his speech. When he approached the podium, I began sobbing as I couldn't control my emotions," Kwon said.
"President Park and first lady Yuk Young-soo couldn't leave the hall for hours as weeping miners asked them to stay longer," he said.
Kwon, now a professor emeritus at the Korea National University of Education, said hundreds of miners, who were immensely homesick, traveled by bus to meet Park in person.
"Looking at your tanned faces, my heart is broken. All of you are risking your lives every day as you go down thousands of meters underground to make ends meet," Kwon remembered Park saying. "What poor people you are! You go through these trying times just because Korea is so impoverished."
Park's emotional speech went on for a while.
"Although we are undergoing this trying time, we are not supposed to pass poverty onto our descendents. We must do our part to end poverty in Korea so that the next generation doesn't experience what we are going through now," Park noted.
Park, father of incumbent President Park Geun-hye, pointed out the root causes of poverty in Korea, comparing it with Germany.
"About 150 years ago, the industrial revolution was in full swing in Germany, whereas Koreans had no idea of how the world outside was changing. Koreans stuck to their traditional way of life without knowing what was going on outside the country. We were like frogs in a well," Park said.
"How can a country like Korea, which was not fully prepared for the upcoming era, be as rich as Germany now?"
Kwon went to Germany months earlier prior to Park visited Duisburg.
He said Korean miners experienced a number of challenges, including the language barrier, as they did the precarious job in Germany.
Despite this, he said, he was able to make his German dream come true thanks to several kind-hearted Germans he met.
"Life was rugged while I was in Germany for 16 years. I went there as a coal miner in 1964, years after I graduated from high school and extended my stay there as I pursued degrees in education," he said.
"Life didn't turn out the way that I expected. After my three-year work contract ended, I was to return to Korea. I packed all my belongings and went to the airport to come back. But a German lady who took care of me just like a godmother there asked me to stay in Germany as she knew that I longed for a degree there."
It took 16 years for Kwon to make his German dream come true.
"Studying at a German university in a foreign language was tough. Besides the language barrier, I had to deal with another formidable challenge _ poverty. It was hard to make ends meet there. So I cried in the rest room whenever I felt I was overwhelmed by the daunting challenges facing me," he said.
Kwon's hard work paid off as he eventually earned a Ph.D. in education. He returned to Korea in 1979 and worked as a professor at several different universities.
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