Chinese translator remembers Korean conflict
Print Edition
Retired Shanghai English teacher Guo Juesheng, 88, has complicated feelings about the United States. Though he has never been there, he speaks fluent English, loves Hollywood movies, and worked as an interpreter for American prisoners during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53).
Now Guo is writing his memoirs, focusing on his experience in the war.
October 25, Friday, was China’s memorial day for the war, commemorating a major victory in Battle of Onjong, which began on October 25, 1950. Chinese forces of the People’s Volunteer Army resoundingly defeated forces of the Republic of Korea and America.
Shanghai Daily interviewed Guo about his experience.
“I went to North Korea with strong passion, patriotism and romantic ideas, but the reality was that war was cruel,” Guo said.
“I know that the war was not doing anyone good and people died in it,” he said. “So I would tell the prisoners that the war was caused by misunderstanding and we didn’t like it. Nobody liked it.”
Born into a family of intellectuals in Shanghai, Guo received a Western education and attended St John’s University, majoring in English literature and history. His architect father had attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Guo was very fond of American culture, especially Hollywood movies of the golden age. His favorite is “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943) about the Spanish Civil War, starring by Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.
“It was beautiful and romantic when Gary Cooper told Ingrid Bergman to wait for him but later sacrificed his life in Spain,” he recalled. “And at that time, as naive as I was, I thought going to a battlefield would be that beautiful too.”
In 1950, the Chinese government encouraged people to volunteer to fight in the Korean conflict. “We were urged to protecting our homes and defend our country,” Guo said.
He and some school mates wanted to serve their country and enlisted as interpreters.
“Our generation suffered from the invasion of Japan, and I once witnessed how Japanese soldiers slaughtered civilians with bayonets,” said Guo. “We were very sensitive to invasion and hated nothing more than that, so we all rushed to enlist to go to North Korea.”
Guo mainly worked with American and other Western prisoners of war. He would explain their food and routine, as well as the Communist Party’s policies toward them. If they had problems or were ill, they turned to him.
“We were very lenient, we never tortured or interrogated them,” Guo said. “They ate the same food as we did, which wasn’t as good as their own.” As long as they didn’t try to escape, they could have some recreation, play ball games, read the Bible and pray, he said.
Though he wasn’t on the front and escaped death and serious injury, Guo was not far from death. He saw death and watched men die.
Once his battalion was relocating their base, taking a long winding road at night while Americans attacked sporadically. Some soldiers fell asleep and the next day one soldier named Wu wouldn’t wake up.
“We shook him, but he didn’t react. Then we found a piece of shrapnel in the back of his neck. There wasn’t much blood, he died without making a sound,” Guo recalled. It was shocking and he would never forget.
Another time he narrowly escaped death. After filling his lunch bowl with rice, a US bomber attacked. He dived into a shallow ditch and when the bombing ended, his rice was covered with dirt. He returned to the lunch shed, only to find the shack had been blasted, everyone inside was dead.
After the war Guo and his comrades returned to China, settling in Andong, today’s Dandong in Liaoning Province in the northeast. He translated intelligence and English materials for the army.
In 1958 he was labeled a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-59) that swept up an estimated 550,000 people accused of not supporting the Party and its policies.
Guo was forced out of the army and couldn’t find a permanent job until 1979 when he became a teacher at the Shanghai Customs College. During the “cultural revolution” (1966-76), he secretly worked as an English tutor. Textbooks were still available but no school taught English and few teachers would dare teach the Western language associated with imperialists and capitalists.
“I had to support my family and many people actually wanted to learn English at that time,” Guo said, “including young people who wanted to go abroad and those who wanted to find a good job one day.”
Guo retired in 1985 and lives with his wife in Shanghai. All his siblings are abroad in the United States or in Europe.
“They ask me to visit them, but I don’t see the point. I’m content here,” Guo said.
He wants more people to learn about the history. “I hope people and governments will bear in mind that peace is the most precious thing that we must cherish,” he said.
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