By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
JEJU ISLAND _ A high school student who won first prize in the Peace Festival Essay Contest has donated her prize money to South Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II. The contest was organized by the East Asia Foundation.
``I didn’t expect any awards for my essay, so I was very surprised when I heard that I had been chosen to receive the first prize. I’m very thankful for that,’’ Kim Eun-ji, 17, said in an interview with The Korea Times on Friday.
``As the main subject of my essay is war and peace, I decided to donate the prize money to the Korean victims of the war,’’ said Kim, a second grader at Gimhae Foreign Language High School in South Gyeongsang Province.
The award ceremony was held at Haevichi Hotel in southern Seogwipo on the sidelines of the fourth Jeju Peace Forum.
Kim won the one million won ($1,000) prize money for her essay, titled ``The Korean War Memorial that Stands in a Small Town.’’
In her work, she described impressions of the war and peace after participating in a school project to build a Korean War monument during her stay in the United States between 2004 and 2005.
She delivered the money to the House of Sharing through the Institute of Peace Studies at Cheju National University. The House of Sharing is the home for South Korean ``comfort women’’ who were kidnapped and forced to work as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers during World War II.
``We need to take lessons from the calamity and tragedy of war rather than hiding it. That’s what I wanted to say in the essay,’’ Kim added.
Kim said she wants to be a ``cultural mediator’’ who can play a role in bridging the gap between countries and their different cultures such as interpreters or diplomats. She said she enjoys reading all kinds of English books and learning useful English expressions from the books.