Korean War (1950-1953)
Both North and South Korea claim that the other party provoked the conflict with border fighting, but the full-blown war begins with North Korea’s invasion of the South on June 25, 1950. South Korea, the US, and allied nations fight North Korean and Chinese troops supported by the Soviet Union. Sources indicated that up to 4 million people died in the civil conflict, most of them civilians. Both Koreas were economically devastated by the conflict, which caused extreme anti-American sentiment in the North, whose cities were almost completely destroyed by American bombings. In the South, meanwhile, anti-communism was stoked by the conservative government.
1950 North Korea Invades
The war began with the North Korean invasion on June 25, with North Korean troops almost completely occupying the south. By October of that year, South Korea, the US, and its allies pushed the North Koreans back to the country’s norther border with China, whose forces soon joined the fray. Formally, the Korean War was fought between North Korea, supported by China and (to a lesser degree) the Soviet Union, and South Korea and its UN allies. The US led the United Nations Command and was effectively in charge of war operations.
1950 December 23
“The Meredith Victory withdrew from Hungnam Port carrying 14,000 refugees.”
As detailed above, the Hungnam Evacuation was a tremendous logistical undertaking. After China’s triumph at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, allied forces retreated. The land route cut off, the US command decided to extract soldiers, materiel, and refugees in an amphibious operation at Hungnam, a port district of the North Korean city of Hamhung.
1951 Early in the Year
Gukje Market, Busan
The Korean War displaced much of the peninsula’s population. Busan was an important port and a major logistical hub for the US military. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Busan during the war. Housing was limited, and refugee shantytowns grew around the city. Gukje Market was one such center. North Koreans made up many refugees in Busan. Unlike southerners who could eventually return to their homes, they were unable to go back to the North.
1953 July 27
Armistice Agreement signed.
The armistice signed on July 27, 1953, halted hostilities and maintained a division between the two Koreas at the 38th parallel. There is, to this day, no formal peace treaty between the two nations.
Authoritarian Developmental State (1950s-1980s)
South Korea was extremely poor in the postwar period. The north recovered more quickly, and South Korea didn’t overtake North Korea in per capita GDP till the mid-1970s (Lie 78, citing a 1978 CIA factbook). Syngman Rhee’s tenure was especially economically disastrous. The dictator Park Chung Hee who succeeded Rhee in the 60s and 70s championed a “developmental state.” He implemented policies oriented towards the fast development of a poor nation. Sociologist John Lie contends that Park’s domestic policies had little to do with the country’s enormous wealth gains: normalization of relations with Japan and South Korea’s role in supporting the Vietnam War effort, however, were key in the development of light industry and integrated South Korea with the Japanese and US economies (Lie 43-44). South Korea’s triumphant 1988 Olympics was a capstone of its tremendous economic growth in the previous decades.
1954 Tensions in Vietnam
After it gained independence from France, Vietnam was divided, like Korea, into a communist North and anti-communist South supported by the USSR and US respectively. The Geneva Conference of 1954 established the two states but stipulated a future reunification. As in Korea, such reunification was an ideological conflict. The North supported a communist insurgency in the South, while the South carried out anti-communist action. US military presence was initially relatively small, but the US was actively supporting the South.
1960 April 19 Student Uprising
A local student uprising initially, the April 19 Protests spread through the country and forced out the corrupt regime of Syngman Rhee. Hopes for a democratic South Korea, however, were dashed in 1961 by a military coup.
1961 Park Chung Hee Coup
General Park leads a coup, prematurely ending South Korea’s democratic revolution. His economic programs are remembered by many South Koreans as miracle plans that helped the nation emerge from postwar poverty, though as mentioned above, geopolitical circumstances had a lot to do with the country’s economic growth.
1963 Autumn
West Germany and South Korea reach a bilateral agreement to send South Koreans to work temporarily as miners West Germany. In the film, Duk-soo learns about the recruitment from a newspaper clipping that Dal-gu shows him. High rates unemployment in South Korea make temporary labor migration an attractive option, even as most men who travel to work have little mining experience and must deal with grueling work upon arrival.
1964 Spring
Hamborn Coal Mine, Duisburg
The film introduces a group of South Korean miners working in Duisburg. These men would have worked alongside short-term workers from other countries whose labor helped support the continued success of West Germany’s postwar recover, the so-called Miracle on the Rhine, in the face of a domestic labor shortage. Another group of South Koreans, nurses, was working in West Germany at the same time.
1964 Gulf of Tonkin
An attack by a North Vietnamese torpedo boat on US ships precipitated the Gulf of Tonkin crisis and was used as a pretext to expand the scope of the Vietnam War, first with bombings, then large scale troop deployment. The US began negotiating for the dispatch of South Korean troops to Vietnam in May.
1965 Normalization Treaty with Japan
Normalization of relations with Japan was crucial in helping the Japanese economy grow, but it was difficult to manage socially. After all, Japan had been a colonial power in Korea. Access to Japanese media was censored, ostensibly to prevent South Koreans from becoming attached to Japanese culture again. Normalization is economically beneficial to the South, linking the relatively poor country with Japan’s bustling economy.
1965 South Korean Troops Deployed to Vietnam
The first South Korean troops sent to the Vietnam War hail were the elite Tiger Division, a unit that was responsible for protecting the South Korean presidential palace. Over 300,000 South Korean soldiers are deployed between 1965-1973.
1966 December 21
“First group of miners return from Germany.”
Working on a three-year contract meant that miners who first left South Korea in 1963 had to return in 1966. Their short term work visas prevented large scale immigration and kept the South Koreans from accessing the labor protections that a West German worker enjoyed at that time.
Early 1970s Labor Protests
Workers’ rights activist and worker Jeon Tae-il set himself on fire in Seoul to protest the horrible working conditions faced by the working class that fueled South Korea’s economic miracle. His death was a political catalyst for labor unionizing and galvanized pro-labor and anti-Park feelings among students and intellectuals. South Koreans who supported the Vietnam War effort were represented in the labor protests of the early 1970s. A group of Hanjin workers protested unfair labor practices in Seoul in 1971. The US government, who had contracted with Hanjin, dismissed these complaints, assuming, correctly, that the Park government would back corporate interests.
1972 Yushin Constitution Promogulated
This new constitution officially allowed Park to govern with dictatorial powers that curtailed human rights. Park was anxious about the stability of his regime both at domestically and geopolitically; the new constitution was meant to protect his powers. By this time, the war in Vietnam was winding down, and South Korea could no longer use military assistance to ensure support from the United States. Continuing to industrialize the country remained crucial for Park to hang on to power.
1973 US Troops withdraw from South Vietnam
The US withdraws its troops from Vietnam on March 29, 1973. Military advisors and civilians working in war-related fields remain in the country. Fighting between South and North Vietnam continues until the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
1974 Summer
Saigon, Vietnam
Duk-soo and Dal-gu are among hundres of thousands of South Koreans who participated in the Vietnamese War effort. They work military logistics, other South Korean characters in this section of the film are soldiers.
1975 APRIL 30
“End of the Vietnam War.”
In the film, this date is announced over a shot of Duk-soo leaving a Vietnamese village with a group of refugees. The most iconic images of April 30th are shots of the last Americans evacuating via helicopter and plane during the Fall of Saigon which brought the war to a close.
1979 Park Chung Hee Assassination
Park was assassinated by his own security chief in October, though it’s not clear whether this was part of a larger planned coup.
1979 Chun Doo-hwan Coup
Chun and a cabal of elites staged a successful coup in the post-Park chaos on December 12. Calls for democratic reforms followed Park’s death.
1980 Gwangju Protests
A second coup by Chun Doo-hwan solidified his leadership. He arrested opposition leaders, closes universities, and declared martial law on May 17th to suppress political dissent. Protests against his undemocratic seizure of power broke out one day later in Gwangju. Those events are detailed in the EASC film guide for A Taxi Driver.
1983 Summer
Yeouido Plaza, Seoul
Finding Dispersed Families, a family reunion program designed to bring together those separated by the Korean War aired from June to November of 1983.
Democratic Korea Emerges
South Korea’s peaceful transition to democracy began in 1987, when massive protests of Chun Doo-hwan, who was aiming to extend his presidency beyond the legal limit, ousted him from power. The waning of the Cold War meant that American anti-communism could no longer be relied on to bolster the nation’s dictatorial regimes. A democratic election was held, and another member of his party legally won power. By 1993, an opposition lawmaker was elected president and by the middle of the decade, justice for Gwangju was sought in South Korea’s highest courts. Specters of Park Chung Hee, however, would come to haunt South Korea again when his daughter, Park Geun-hye was elected president in 2013, then impeached in 2016, and ultimately, jailed in 2017. None of this history is referenced directly in the film.
1987 June Democratic Struggle
South Koreans took to the streets when Chun announced that he would serve a second term instead of allowing for a democratic transition. The situation was so heated that Chun stepped down and his successor Roh Tae-woo was elected when opposition candidates split the vote.
1988 Seoul Olympics
Since civil war did not break out in 1987, the much-anticipated Seoul Olympics could be held in South Korea. The event was incredibly important for South Korea as it showcased the enormous economic (and by now, political) progress that it had made since the end of the Korean War. The television program Reply 1988, available on Netflix, is a nostalgic retelling of the late 80s and early 1990s that begins with the Olympics.
1993 Opposition President
Kim Young-sam, South Korea’s first opposition party president and first civilian president in over 30 years, began his tenure in 1993. He oversaw the arrests and prosecution of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo.
1997 IMF Crisis
The IMF Financial Crisis devasted the economies of multiple Asia countries that had been thriving in the early 90s. It plunged South Korea into a dramatic economic downturn. Many committed suicide and others were left with traumatic memories of the IMF crisis. South Korea eventually recovered economically, but “IMF,” as the crisis is colloquially known, left a huge scar on the nation’s psyche. The economic downturn would definitely have impacted Duk-soo’s family, but viewers get no sense of this traumatic moment in the film.
2012 Park Geun-hye Elected President
Park Chung Hee’s daughter, Park Geun-hye mobilized her party, the right-wing Saenuri Party, won the presidential election. She assumed power in 2013, initiating a cultural moment of reflection about her family’s legacy in South Korean history. Some recalled Park senior’s rule nostalgically, while others bemoaned the ascendancy of his dark historical legacy. Ode to My Father was released against this political backdrop.
2016 President Park Geun-hye Impeached
On rocky ground since her administration’s lackluster response to the Sewol ferry disaster, Park was embroiled in scandal in 2016 when it was revealed that Choi Soon-sil, a woman with no position in the government, had access to classified materials, impacted Park’s policies, and used her close relationship with the president for financial gain. In 2016, the largest protests that South Korea had seen since the 1980s broke out around the nation in reaction to Park’s actions. Park was impeached in late 2016 and sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2018. She is one of many former South Korean presidents who ended