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대학생기자단/해외상생기자단

Studying Korean between Berlin and Pyongyang

Studying Korean between Berlin and Pyongyang

Interview with Holmer Brochlos, Korean language lector, conducted by Jan Creutzenberg (part 1 of 3)

 

 

 

 

pic1: Dr Holmer Brochlos in his office at the Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin (2009) © Jan Creutzenberg

 

 

 

- Mr Brochlos, you spent years in North as well as in South Korea, you taught German to Koreans and Korean to Germans—I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences… But let's start at the beginning: How come you started to learn the Korean language? Was there a decisive impulse?

 

 

Let's put it this way: I did not really plan to study Korean, it happened rather by circumstance. When I went to high school, I was interested in languages, especially English. But at the little provincial school I attended, it was not common knowledge that it was possible to study something like Korean. At that time, there were only very few students learning Korean and it was difficult to get accepted. The guidance counselors at school were not really eager to make public exotic subjects like that, because if students would apply but did not make it, that would put the school in a bad light.

I became aware of the possibilities when an older student from my hometown went to university and started to learn Japanese and English. In effect, it was this "sonbae" who inspired me to apply for English in tandem with an Asian language, to become a interpreter-translator. But at that point it was not possible do decide the exact language yet.

 

 

First there was an entrance test: written exams in Russian and English, the languages taught at school, and an oral exam about current affairs. For example, they asked me to name the party currently ruling in Great Britain. I knew that Edward Heath was Prime Minister at that time, but I could not remember the name of his party. So I said "Heath Party"… The examiners were rolling on the floor laughing and I passed the test. But before I could begin my studies, I had to join the army for 18 months.

 

 

It was only shortly before the actual studies began that I could decide on the language I wanted to take. At the Humboldt University in Berlin, where the Asian Studies were concentrated, you could choose between six or seven languages, all the languages spoken in the countries that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) had official relations with. Among them were Mongolian, Bengali, Vietnamese—and Korean.

 

 

I finally settled on Korean, although I did not have much of an idea about the country at that age. Only that it was a divided country, like Germany, and that South Korea was kind of taboo in the GDR. That made Korea pretty interesting, compared with the other possibilities. Furthermore, I had learned a little bit about Hangeul from a guy who had taken the entry test with me—a rather polyglott person, interested in all kind of languages. He told me that learning Korean would be really great, especially the script. Maybe that tipped the scale: "OK, I will study Korean then!"

 

- I would guess that Korea was not very present in East German daily life? Could you see Koreans in the streets?

Hardly. And the reputation of Korea was not very good either, likewise in West Germany. Not unlike today, unfortunately—I find that very sad. The period of dictatorship in South Korea that lasted several decades probably is the reason: On TV, there were only images of demonstrating students and tear gas. And, in the times of Korea's economic boom, people would think, for example, that shipbuilding in Korea would endanger the German naval industry. When the shipyards in Kiel and Bremen [seaports in Northern Germany] closed, people would blame "the Koreans" for providing lower production costs.

In the GDR, on the other hand, South Korea was absolutely taboo. That was a kind of arrangement with North Korea, supposedly a "Socialist brother state". North Korea claimed the "exclusive mandate" for representing Korea —a "presumption", as it was called in West Germany. Like the other "leading" countries of the Eastern Bloc, the GDR did not recognize the sovereignty of South Korea until 1989. Likewise, the West did not recognize North Korea as a sovereign country.

 

 

- While you were learning to speak Korean, did you get in contact with North Korean people?

Rather sparsely. There were only a few students who learned German at Humboldt University, mostly well-selected "diplomats' sons", because for them even German studies was a political subject. If those guys would have studied political science, maybe they would have learned what their Juche-ideology really is all about. At that point, the Marxism-Leninism taught in the GDR and the North Korean Juche-ideology were not compatible any more. There were so many discrepancies that North Korea would send only very few students to study humanities.

 

 

North Korea had a rather pragmatic attitude: They wanted well-trained engineers, the rest they taught themselves. So in total there were quite a lot of North Korean students in East Germany, at least five hundred. There were maybe three who learned German, the rest studied mostly natural sciences or mechanical engineering. With those, we did not have any contact.

 

We had a language teacher, though, who was a native speaker from Korea— of course from the North. The one who taught us during my undergraduate studies… Well, today you would call him a "hardliner". It was impossible to have real conversations with him.

But when I later worked as a research assistant at the university, there was new one with whom I got along pretty well. This new lector had earned his PhD in the GDR and was working on a Korean textbook together with a German professor—the book was published, eventually, after the German reunification. What is he doing today? I do not know. After having returned to North Korea, he wrote me a letter from time to time. But postal service was subject to censorship in North Korea and he knew that. In his writing I could recognize that the letters were carefully composed, keeping in mind that someone else would read them.

 

 

 

pic2: On a trip at Mangyŏngdae, the birth place of Kim Il-sung. Holmer Brochlos is standing in the back row, the fourth person from the right (1979). © Holmer Brochlos

 

  

- You also studied in Pyongyang for some time… Did you study with North Korean students there?

No, us foreigners were pretty much isolated. We had to stay among ourselves, even in our leisure time. From time to time there were picnics and excursions, for example to a sports event, where Koreans would participate. But usually those excursions were organised for foreigners only.

 

We also had our own dormitory. All in all, there were about twenty-five foreign students living in Pyongyang (there were more in other cities): two Germans (a colleague of mine and me), three Russians, two Romanians, two Albanians, one Polish and one Yugoslavian woman. But the most part were Chinese, twelve or thirteen people.

 

- Quite an overseeable group... So there were not much possibilities to get acquainted with Koreans?

Well, most people shared a room with a North Korean... including me, I had a guardian, too. He even admitted that he had to report on my activities every night.

 

 

 

pic 3: Holmer Brochlos with his "Tongsuksaeng" (roommate) at the dormitory of Kim Il-sung University (1979). © Holmer Brochlos

 

He was learning German, so sometimes we practised together, like language partners. Of course, he was subject to constraints—that was kind of sad. For example, he told me that his hometown was somewhere in the province, a hundred miles away from the capital. I later realised that his parents had an apartment in Pyongyang. When you live together for two years, naturally you would invite your roommate home for a weekend sometime. But as he was not allowed to do that, he had to tell me this story.

 

 

When comparing the situation in East Germany with the one in North Korea, the GDR suddenly seems like the most liberal country on earth. The standards were quite different: We could invite whoever we wanted, no questions asked. But my roommate couldn't and had to lie to me instead. It is really sad to see how nice people get corrupted by the political system.

 

- After two years in Pyongyang you finished your studies in Berlin. What job possibilities were there?

Well, the degree I received was "interpreter and  translator: Korean and English". Working as a freelance interpreter was very rare, but I could have applied at "Intertext", a kind of translation institute in Berlin. Or work for a ministry.

 

 

pic 4: In front of the Ulmildae-Pavillon, an ancient fortress on Moran Hill (Moranbong) in Pyongyang (1979). © Holmer Brochlos

 

In the small GDR there was only a low demand for Korean-speaking people, maybe three or four were needed each year. As the universities had to provide jobs for their graduates (so there would be no unemployment), they would take not much more. There were six students in my year when I started—and indeed, four of them eventually dropped out, for various reasons, and only the two of us remained.

 

 

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs needed one graduate for the diplomatic staff. The other one had to stay at the faculty that needed young academics, too. They said to us: "Arrange it among yourselves!" Well, the other graduate, a young woman, was very ambitious. Me, I was quite sure I did not want to join the Ministry. I am not the diplomatic type and I did not aim for a big career. Wearing black tie and going up and down the elevator every day—I would not like that. "So," I thought, "why not stay at university?"

 

Dr. Holmer Brochlos studied the Korean language in the 70s in East Berlin and Pyongyang. In the following years he worked as a translator, interpreter and language instructor in the German Democratic Republic, reunified Germany, North and South Korea. Today he is lecturing on Korean language, history and politics at Free University in Berlin. As temporary head of the faculty from 2004 to 2008, he established a BA-program in Korean Studies.

 

(Interview conducted and translated from German by Jan Creutzenberg, jannberg@zedat.fu-berlin.de, September 2009)