My grandmother is the most talkative person among all of my family members. Every time when she starts to talk and when I listen to her, I am always impressed by her surprising memory that catches every single details of her experience and by her ability to explain well which makes me feel as if I was there too at that time. I have always wanted to have this talent that nobody in my family but my grandmother has because I believe telling someone one’s old experience interestingly is quite a difficult thing. It’s hard for everyone to recall precise details of memories and organize them to make a story.
So that’s one of the resons why I wanted to do an interview with my grandmother among my family members.Besides, like many other students at my age, I have rarely had time for trying to listening to my grandmother and for understanding her life. Though I was thinking of doing an interview with my friend, these reasons changed my mind to do an interview with my grandmother. Also, I thought, probably, I wouldn’t have many chances to have serious talk or interview with my grandmother.
And I was right. My grandmother’s voice sounded so glad when she got my phone call. I could feel energy in ther voice that she was pleased to get interviewed and willing to tell her story. And it was pleasure for me to start the interview with favorable interviewee. I started with questions like how was her childhood, her parents, her house in the past, etc. Many times we had to stop because she didn’t understand what I was saying. But , for me, it was pretty interesting to ask questions. Especially, while interviewing, it was fun to know places and things she mentioned were so different from now.
Memories of childhood of my grandmother were very fun to listen. She lived near the police office in Jong-no and hung around with her friends there. AS an older sister among her siblings, she led her sisters and brothers and had fun with them so even police officers nagged them not to play around near the police office.
But she went through a tough time in her childhood once when Korean War broke out. She said her family didn’t evacuated at first but as the war lasted longer her famly also had to evacuated like other families. She also added that all the people who were evacuating from Seoul didn’t expect that their evacuation would be long that much. So they couldn’t prepare enough food and shelter during their journey. She explained how young she was when the Korean War broke out and asked if I could imagine that she moved for a long time with her big family, having her young sister or brother on her back at that young age.
After having returned from evacuation, she met her husband and got married afterwards. And suddenly, I wondered what would be the favorite places of my grandmother and asked if there were any special and meaningful place for her who lived her entire life in Seoul. Her answer was Han River. When she was young, Han River was different from now and people could swim and even could rent swimsuits. This also surprised me because, apart from the fact that it was the place where people could swim, my favorite place is also Han River. I felt closer to my grandmother.
Lastly, the answer of the question what what was the best thing in her life was having all her children grown up well and she added she was happy to see her grandsons as well. She lived somewhat a normal life but I believe it’s not the normal life for her family and the existence of my grandmother will remain forever in our memory and I appreciate her so much. I think I have taken it granted having grandmother near and listening to her lifestory before the interview. But it was more interesting than I thought.
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