[INTERVIEW] Rediscovered cache of color photos gives life to ordinary people of postwar Korea

Bustling Namdaemun Market was located a few blocks from the Bando Hotel. Regardless of what the weather was like, it attracted hordes of buyers at all times, boasting everything from cooked food, rice, herbs and produce, to fabric and clothing. Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

Hawaiian-born, Korean American photographer Marie Ann Yoo, 85, captured resilience of Korean society three years after Korean War

By Park Han-sol

In December 1902, 102 people flocked to Wolmi Island to climb aboard a ship en route to Hawaii, a land of new hopes and possibilities, marking the start of the first wave of Korean immigrants to America (Hawaii was annexed as an American territory in 1898).

As they toiled in sugarcane plantations under the grueling heat, the majority of these migrant workers ― who initially hoped to return to their homeland with a hefty sum after a few years ― eventually began to settle down. With many of them being Christians, a Korean church was soon established for them to practice their faith and form their own community in a foreign land.

Chin-tae John Choy and Elizabeth Pahk were among these first-generation Korean immigrants, whose numbers grew to the thousands in just two years. In 1904, the couple arrived in Hawaii, with Choy sent as a missionary for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"He was known at that time as a 'circuit rider,' that is, a minister who went from different villages [on the island] to preach to the Korean immigrants," their granddaughter Marie Ann Yoo said during a recent Zoom interview with The Korea Times.

Choy died shortly upon his arrival, and to support their three young children, Pahk cooked in a girls' school in Honolulu until she made the acquaintance of Syngman Rhee, who would later become the first president of Korea.

Early in the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, Rhee was based in Honolulu to rally support for Korea's independence movement, while serving as the principal of the Korean Central School. He hired Pahk to be a cook and a housemother at the boarding school for the children of Korean immigrants.

Thus began the friendship between Rhee and Pahk's family that continued over the years, down to her three children, including Salome, Yoo's mother.

Marie Ann Yoo, a Hawaiian-born Korean American photographer whose color photos document the lives of ordinary people in postwar Korea, 1956-57 / Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

Yoo, now 85, is a third-generation Korean American born to Salome and Kee-chan Hank Han. She was raised on the Kunia Camp pineapple plantation on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, as her father was one of the only Asians at that time to serve as a "luna" (Hawaiian for "field supervisor") for the plantation under the Del Monte Corporation.

When Yoo was young, her parents were strict about education. They didn't allow their children to speak Korean, as they felt that speaking English was of foremost importance to assimilate into American culture. Growing up on the plantation, largely separate from the Korean community, meant that she had no Korean classmates or friends to play with. "All my friends were Chinese, Japanese and Haoles (a Hawaiian term used for non-native Hawaiians of European descent)," she recalled.

Therefore, Yoo's main exposure to Korea's culture was through food, which she experienced on a daily basis.

"My mother was actually an excellent Korean cook. She cooked all the fancy traditional dishes… because she learned that from her mother. So that was our content about Korea."

Upon the death of her father, 15-year-old Yoo and her family moved to Honolulu, when the deadly Korean War broke out on the Korean Peninsula. Her recollections about the 1950-53 war came from the intermittent news she read in the newspaper and heard on the radio.

"What sticks out in my mind is the [news of the] North Koreans being released by President Rhee when they were imprisoned down in the South. That I do remember," she said.

In June 1953, Rhee made a series of attempts to deter the armistice negotiations among the U.S.-led United Nations Command, China and North Korea, in the hopes of continuing the war until he could unify Korea by force. His ordering of the release of some 25,000 anti-communist North Korean prisoners, instead of repatriating them to the North, was one such attempt. Such efforts turned out to be unsuccessful however, as the armistice agreement was ultimately signed a month later.

But while Yoo heard such news from this faraway island, she had no idea that she herself would soon set foot in the country, which had been bruised and battered by the war.

Bando Hotel, located on what is now the site of Lotte Hotel Seoul, was where Yoo stayed with her family during her 18-month-long sojourn in Korea, 1956-57. Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

Trip to postwar Korea (1956-57)

It was 1955 when President Rhee offered Yoo's mother, Salome Han, a position as public relations director at the Bando Hotel, located on what is now the site of Lotte Hotel Seoul. It was Korea's first commercial hotel that mainly catered to expatriates, businesspeople, foreign dignitaries and U.S. military government officers.

Han accepted the offer and soon flew to Korea. After a few months, she asked her two daughters ― Marie Ann and Elizabeth ― to join her. This trip became the very first time abroad for Yoo, then a 20-year-old student at the University of Hawaii.

"We flew via Pan American World Airways. Gosh, it was a 17-hour trip, with refueling on Wake Island and a stopover in Japan," she said. "We then arrived in Korea. It was February, and we had come from Hawaii. It was extremely cold. And at that time, the airport in Gimpo was just a shack."

As she traveled from the airport to the hotel, which would become her home for the next 18 months, everything from the scenery to Korean people's clothing fascinated her instantly.

"I was born in Hawaii, so you can imagine, all the culture and the sounds, the sights, the smells, the clothing people wore ― everything was just so different."

A street scene in front of a restaurant selling "bulgogi" (marinated grilled beef), cold noodles and "dosirak" (lunch boxes) in Seoul / Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

In 1956, the year she arrived in Korea, the streets were ravaged by the war's destruction and destitute families still constituted most of the country's population. The haunting legacy of the war, which killed an estimated 2.5 million civilians and reduced major parts of cities to rubble, seemingly erased any hope for the future beyond surviving the immediate chaos.

But even within such scenes of destruction, people found ways to survive.

"The thing that really struck me was the grit and resilience of the people; they were in the process of recovering from a devastating war that displaced so many people," Yoo later wrote. "But the markets were crowded, people went about their business. Things had to get done!"

She was gripped by the desire to forever capture these hardy spirits of postwar Korea that she had witnessed in person ― not just with memory or writing, but through her camera.

With the first paycheck she received working as a clerk at the Eighth U.S. Army headquarters in Yongsan Garrison, Yoo purchased a Petri 35mm camera and Kodachrome color film at the PX, taking her new treasured possession straight out into the streets afterwards.

"I felt that color film could capture everything that I saw better and more accurately: the nuances of the climate, the trees, the whole environment and the people," she explained.

Having had no prior experience in photography, she was her own teacher as she figured out what the exposure, shutter speed and focus did to each image.

Unlike shooting a picture of a particular landscape or an environment, which she could snap away at during any given time, capturing human subjects who were aware of her presence was a different story.

At the time, in the war-torn country with very few tourists, anyone holding a camera was still a rare sight. Plus, she was a young woman roaming freely around her environment, who "looked" Korean but could barely speak the language. Looks of puzzlement followed her as she walked down the street in a Western-style dress, holding a camera.

But when she asked people if she could take their pictures ― not through words but through the simple gesture of holding the device up to her eyes ― their responses were often positive, with some, especially children, showing excitement at the prospect of hearing the click of the camera.

A group of six playful children pose for a photo at Namdaemun Market. The picture reminds Yoo's daughter, Katherine, of the classic American comedy short films "The Little Rascals." "On some level, because of their innocence, they probably had no understanding of what was going on around them," she commented, "They were just living and playing." Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

This picture of two gentlemen in white hanbok and "gat" (traditional Korean hat) standing by a river in the countryside remains memorable to Yoo. "It looks like it could have been taken hundreds of years ago," she said, "It's sort of timeless." Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

Yoo soon began faithfully documenting not only her own regular excursions around the alleys and marketplaces of Seoul, but also occasional tours taken outside the capital city, accompanied by politicians, businesspeople or the military generals that President Rhee introduced her to. These places included the southeastern city of Gyeongju, Jinhae Naval Base and even the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), with rows of marching soldiers and tanks.

But while she had the privilege of taking a glimpse into the lives of both those of affluent social circles and commoners in Korea ― indeed a rare opportunity at the time ― Yoo found ordinary subjects to be the most striking.

"I really don't recall taking so many pictures of the elites because they were always invariably posed. I thought, 'Eh, not so interesting,'" she said. "I was more interested in taking photos of people and places just as we saw them, as we walked among or passed by them."

Many of her images taken in the streets of Seoul give color to the resilience of postwar survivors, as they are seen trudging along with heavily loaded carts, carrying large heaps of grain and performing back-breaking activities to put food on the table.

Two particular scenes come to her mind.

During her stay, Yoo witnessed roadwork taking place all around postwar Seoul. What struck her was the high number of women working at these sites, equipped with what seemed to be little more than shovels and baskets. Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

One was the frequent road repair that took place all around the capital. What especially struck her was the number of women present at these sites, which was just as great as the number of men there, equipped with what seemed to be little more than shovels and baskets.

"My goodness, it was women [who were] cracking and hammering at the stones, carrying them in their baskets and then laying the new stones. It was very difficult work."

Another scene that has been seared into Yoo's memory was the bustling Namdaemun Market, located a few blocks from her home at the Bando Hotel. To this day, the marketplace remains her go-to site every time she visits Seoul.

Regardless of what the weather was like, the market attracted hordes of buyers at all times, boasting everything from cooked food, rice, herbs and produce, to fabric and clothing. In addition to the sheer range of items, it was the plain struggles of the people trying to make a living that she witnessed, which made her return to the place over and over again.

"They were just really struggling to sell their goods," she noted. "They were living in old military tents or huts they fashioned out of flattened tin cans. There were no stalls per se. Everything was laid out on the ground."

Wide strands of noodles are being air-dried at Namdaemun Market. Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo

Being an observer to such scenes of poverty and coming back to the hotel later was always a difficult experience for her: "I knew that the majority of people were enduring such incredible hardship and survival was not guaranteed."

Throughout the 18 months of her sojourn in Korea, her initial fascination with the scenery and the people of Korea on a surface level changed gradually into a deep awareness and appreciation for its culture. After her trip, she transferred to the University of Oregon, majoring in East Asian Studies and Political Science.

Yoo's photographic works see light of day after six decades

Yoo's collection of more than 400 rare color photos that give life to the rebuilding of a war-ravaged nation in the mid-1950s, makes her the only known female Korean American photographer from this time period.

But for nearly six decades, these historic snapshots gathered dust in an old suitcase, forgotten even by their creator, as she settled in the U.S. mainland after she married and raised three daughters.

It was only in 2015, through the hands of her daughters, Katherine and Christine, that they finally saw the light of day.

Two years prior to their actual discovery, the two saw the suitcase when they were helping Yoo move back to Hawaii from Memphis for her retirement. Thinking little of it, Christine took the suitcase to her house in Los Angeles, soon forgetting about its existence once again.

"In 2015, I happened to be searching for something in her [Christine's] closet and found the suitcase," Katherine told The Korea Times. "I didn't know what it was, but it was very old so it intrigued me. I thought it might be an old sewing machine or something. I opened it up, and my sister and I… were both shocked at what we found! It was literally like discovering buried treasure."

Hundreds of Kodachrome slides found in Yoo's old suitcase have been cleaned and catalogued by her two daughters, Katherine and Christine, as part of the ongoing restoration of her photographs which began in 2015. Courtesy of Christine Yoo

With great delicacy, the two spent the next several years, unbeknownst to Yoo, combing through each slide ― cleaning, restoring and cataloguing them.

After five years, Yoo's three daughters decided to create a website showing the photos that honors their mother as a woman with her own artistic merits and accomplishments. It became an unforgettable Christmas gift for Yoo last year.

While the cataloguing and restoration process remains ongoing, a selection of her photos ― divided into the categories of Seoul, Namdaemun Market, Postwar Political Life, the Countryside and the Han River ― are currently on display at Yoo's debut online exhibition, "The Feeling of Han: Portraits of Postwar Korea (1956-7)," hosted by The Korea Society until Dec. 16.

But the end of this online exhibition marks just the beginning of the family's plans to conduct proper historical research and eventually present a physical exhibition of her images in remembrance of the postwar experience that became a foundation of modern Korea.

"It would be great to work with a Korean historian, because I believe the photos, especially those of the countryside, have anthropological value," Katherine said.

"We are definitely seeking an organization that wishes to work with us to mount a new exhibition or related project. Ultimately, as my mother expressed, it would be amazing to have these images… on display in Korea, sort of their rightful home, so that the younger and future generations can access them."

A village laundry day taking place by the Han River was a common sight even after the Korean War. Courtesy of Marie Ann Yoo