Passing the Torch to the Next Generation

My father-in-law is from the war generation. He was born in 1944, during the Japanese Occupation, just one year before Korea’s liberation. But as Koreans celebrated a day of independence on August 15, 1945, that day became the beginning of an intense ideological conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

At the end of World War II in order to ensure the liberation of Korea from Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union decided to divide the Korean Peninsula along the 38th parallel. But as the United States and the Soviet Union established opposing political systems on the two sides, it soon became clear that this division resulted in serious ramifications.

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War officially broke out, even though this ideological clash had already caused thousands of deaths before then. My father-in-law was only six years-old. Along with the rest of Korea, his whole family became directly impacted by the war. He was a middle sibling amongst seven, but only five children survived to adulthood.  

After the war, Korea was a devastated and impoverished nation. Stephen’s father’s family was blessed to be better off than others. Every day as my father-in-law went to school, he would pack two sack lunches: one for himself and one to share with his friends. In the post-war era, many Koreans suffered from a lack of food and malnutrition.

So, when we first told Stephen’s father that we were planning on going to North Korea to provide humanitarian assistance, he called us crazy. “What? Help those who invaded our country in the Korean War? You’re out of your mind!” he exclaimed. His response was expected considering his age and experience with the war.

But despite this initial response, the more he thought about the possibility of visiting and working in the North, the more his interest was sparked. As South Korean born and raised, although he thought it crazy to reach out to them, he started to realize that inside of him was also a desire to visit the North. His own wife, my mother-in-law, had been born and raised in North Korea before her family fled south during the war.

After much thought, my father-in-law began to imagine what it might be like to work inside North Korea. With entrepreneurial experience in South Korea, he started to write a business proposal for the Rason Free Economic Zone in the northeast region of North Korea. He had the unique business expertise and the cultural understanding to successfully venture into business there.

Stephen Yoon and His Father in Rason, DPRK

A shoe manufacturing company was not what we had in mind for our work in North Korea. But my father-in-law brought with him 25 years of experience running a shoe factory in South Korea. At the time, we had no idea how many areas a shoe factory could impact.

When we visited the existing North Korean factory, there was no equipment for making shoes. Instead of conveyor belts and machinery, we just saw female employees sitting on the ground, laying shredded dried pollack on plastic sheets covering the ground. We wondered if this was ever a shoe factory at all.

Because of the lack of raw materials or operating machinery available to use in the factory, many of those who worked there had lost their jobs. The company manager said that they were now making money by selling dried pollack because there was no other work for them, and they had to do something.

Over the next several months we worked tirelessly to bring the factory back online. A large portion of that work was done by my father-in-law who spearheaded creating business proposals, finding investors, and doing the technical research for raw materials. Soon we had created a solid business plan and started looking for investors. We decided to lean into my father’s experience making winter snow boots, as North Koreans typically only wore dress shoes or simple canvas shoes.

For several years, the shoe manufacturing business continued with an outsourcing contract, even though the company had to move locations three different times. It came to the point, though, that it was no longer advantageous for the company to continue to outsource. Instead, our team established a foreign-owned independent trading company in the DPRK that would allow the manufacturing of our own shoes and more direct control of the business. This process of negotiation was not easy, but my father-in-law was able to push the proposal forward and hire over 40 local employees under our own payroll. [Read more in Crossing the Divide!]

The shoe manufacturing company was primarily sustained because of Mr. Yoon, my father-in-law. He spent ten full years establishing, building, and developing the shoe manufacturing business. His original perspective of North Korea radically transformed from viewing North Koreans as enemies to never wanting to leave the country. He fell in love with the people of North Korea to the point that he worked there until the end of his retirement in 2017.

Mr. Yoon and Shoe Company Employees in the DPRK

It is now 2024 and most of the war generation in Korea has or is passing away. In some ways, there may be more opportunity to engage with North Korea because the pain and bitterness from the war is passing away with this older generation. But in other ways, the younger generation today is much less interested and passionate about peace on the Korean Peninsula. They have no sentimental attachment to their relatives in the North nor any desire to reunite with them.

As the torch is being passed from one generation to the next, we are sensing the need for new wineskins. In ancient times, wine was preserved in animal skins, such as a goat skin wine bag. If new wine was put into old wine skins, when the fermentation process took place, it would tear the old seams of the old wineskin. This is because the old wineskins had already been stretched to its limit and could not sustain the pressure of the fermentation process. Putting new wine into old wineskins would burst the skin, spilling and wasting all the wine.

Similarly, in order to understand the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, we need to get rid of old, brittle perspectives and replace it with a newer, more flexible viewpoint. Peace on the Korean Peninsula will be obtained when the current generation moves past the inflexible perspectives of the war generation and into a new era of change, much like how Mr. Yoon’s view of North Korea was completely transformed from his time inside the country.

Just like my father-in-law used to pack extra food to share his lunch with his classmates growing up, oftentimes we need to place ourselves on the level of those we are trying to reach in order to understand them. It is my hope that as the old generation passes the torch of peace to the younger generation, a new approach and stance towards North Korea will be realized.