The Seamaeul Movement

“The early bird catches the worm,” as you know, this proverb symbolizes the meaning “diligence.” In South Korea, there was Saemaeul Movement in 1970s~1980s. Saemaeul means “New Village.” After Korea became independent of Japan in 1945, Jung-Hee, Park, who was the president in 1970s~1980s, decided to develop my country from poverty. So, the new village movement had three concepts, those were diligence, self-help and cooperation. President Park set some plans to improve our economy. The movement started from 1971 and continued about fifteen years. There were four stages: basement establishing, self-developing, self-completing and democratic finishing. The government encouraged many company and business and especially, the electronic industry. Furthermore, this Saemaeul Movement was a meaningful event in my family.

To begin with, everyone had to get up early once in a week on their day-off. This was because one of the Saemaeul movement activities was cleaning your neighborhood. The rule was that family members had to go out from your house and clean your backyard, in front of house, the road and next to your house. At least one of the family members had to do the task. On the other hand, you can think about that no one wants to go out on your day-off or holiday like Sunday. Saemaeul Movement had its own logo song.

This was the song:

The dawn bell rang
The new day started
Everyone gets up
Makes new morning
We can make Beautiful country by ourselves

So when I listened to this song, mostly, my older sister, EJ, and I went out with a big broom to sweep outside. I was an elementary student so I really did not want to go out. However, everyone had to do the job because it was a rule so I could not break the rule. I actually did not want to go out because people said to me and my sister such as “How old are you?”, “What is your grade in your class?”, “Where is your school?” some things like that. Also it was six or seven am in the morning.

In addition, since the movement had started, my father’s company worked well because one of Seamaeul Movement’s concepts was improving electronic industry. This meant that my father could earn some money and he could have some time with family members. From my childhood, he was always outgoing so mom and EJ and I spent most time together. At that time, the government inspired the electronic companies and my father had Deakwang Jungi which was his own electronic company. He had such a good technique and skills about electronics and wanted to develop new ways. However, he also loved his family and wanted to spend time with his family so we went to eat at delicious restaurants. We could enjoy food and spend enough time at the restaurant. He could support us so we did not care about how much we could eat. Whenever I went with my family, I ate a lot. It happened once in two weeks and I was so happy.

Finally, one of the Movement’s concepts was developing the countryside so I could experience countryside and city life. When I was young – I was born in 1979 – the neighborhood was agricultural areas. Next to my house, it had a small stream and I could see different flowers every season near the stream. I had heard frog’s crying in every spring and had seen a lot of grasshoppers. In the river, I could see some fishermen and their outcome from small fish to big fish. I had been gone on field trips in my elementary school near TaeWha River, which was the main river in my hometown like Chicago River, with my classmates and my mother. I played some games with my classmates and ate some delicious lunch. As I am getting older, the neighborhood has changed. For example, big supermarkets were built near my apartment and shopping centers around my town. The life became so convenient that I could not remember the previous environment.

In conclusion, Saemaeul Movement was meaningful event in my family. Nowadays, in my hometown, Ulsan was developed a lot but I moved from Ulsan to Seoul, the capital of Korea, because of my university. However, I usually go to my hometown to spend big holidays like New Years Day and Thanksgiving Day. Whenever I go to there, I have seen vast apartment towns, big shopping malls and department stores. The roads are so good to drive and the environment has been modernized. No one can die by starving and the gap decreased from countryside to city life. As a consequence, Saemaeul Movement was effective project in my country, Korea, and it was written as one of the amazing projects throughout the world.