Grand Father

The grand father of my wife lives in China. He is more than 80 years old - I don't know the exact age honestly. Although he has the chronicle hearing problem in his ears, he becomes incredibly talkative when his grand children visit him. I was very glad to be his story listener on the day.

During the second world war, he was recruited to the army and had to fight on the Japanese side although he is not Japanese.

I was casually listening to his old stories as it was just amusing to hear from someone actually experienced the second world war. Also, they were very personal stories such as how dare new young Japanese officer threatened him on his first day, how he fought back, how cold the weather was when he was stationed in Manchuria and so on. I wasn't really shocked until I heard about the new cannon and bombing aircrafts.

So it was all about the extra packets of cigarette he received when his team shot down US aircraft with the cannon newly deployed in his base ... then I was like 'You shoot down what?'

I wouldn't go too much into the details of what type of cannon and aircraft he mentioned as I had bit of difficulties of understanding him. He explained that the previous cannon didn't have long enough range to reach the aircraft, on the contrary the new one was actually capable of getting the US bombers. Then, the prize he received were the packets of cigarettes.

Probably, I have fallen victim to the stereo typical Hollywood made war movies, overly emotional and blindly sentimental. To the individual who actually witnessed the event - the war, it was just bonus cigarettes that what he remembers. I felt bit sad, weird and amazed at the same time.

He continued his exciting stories for a while and unfortunately many parts of his stories I couldn't fully understand since he speaks very old fashioned Korean, maybe too old for me. I wish I can have another chance to visit and record some of his stories.

Finally, I took some pictures of him and wish his health and well-being from the bottom of my heart. Be well grand pa! I will meet you again.