Entering and having the courage to live each day

Part 1: Kim Dong-jun
Will I be able to go to work tomorrow in my right mind? _Kim Dong-jun
It's a sin not to do good deeds - Kang Seok-kyung (Kim Dong-jun's mother)
I was usually sensitive to violence, but I missed Dongjun. _Kang Su-jeong (Kim Dong-jun's aunt)
We must expose the violence we don't recognize as violence. _Kim Ki-bae (labor attorney handling the Kim Dong-jun case)

Part 2 Kim Dong-jun and others
Policymakers are all powerful people - Lee Sang-young (Lee Min-ho's father)
These children are on the front lines, meeting the most disadvantaged sections of our society. _Jang Yoon-ho (Teacher at Icheon Jeil High School)
I want to become a capable mechanical maintenance specialist. _Lim Hyeon-ji (3rd year, Yuhan High School)
I think I'll have a hard time later on, just like my senior who works overtime. _Seo Dong-hyeon (pseudonym, graduate of ○○ Industrial High School)
Can our first labor be truly human? _Lee Eun-ah (Chairperson, National Specialized High School Graduates' Labor Union)

It's Okay to Be In Pain - A Roundtable Discussion with the Families of Field Intern Students on the First Anniversary of Lee Min-ho's Death
Recommendation

The life and death of a young worker

There was a kid who wanted to be a programmer.
I decided on my career path early and entered a Meister high school, which is said to be advantageous for employment, and before graduation, I began my career as an intern at a large company famous for its cultural industry.
And the job I ended up doing was packaging sausages at a food factory.
Unable to endure long working hours and workplace violence, the child took his own life in January 2014.
The night before, he wrote on Twitter:
“I’m so scared.
“Will I be able to go to work tomorrow in my right mind?” The boy’s name is Kim Dong-jun, a third-year student at Dong-A Meister High School and an intern.

Similar deaths have occurred among field trainees before and since then.
The on-the-job training system, which allows students at vocational high schools (specialized high schools and Meister high schools) to learn work as both students and workers, has become a graveyard for young workers.
In November 2017, Lee Min-ho, an on-the-job training student working at a bottled water factory in Jeju, died after being caught in a loading press. In January of the same year, Hong Su-yeon, an on-the-job training student working at a customer service center in Jeonju, committed suicide due to work-related stress. In Changwon, Kim, who had graduated from a technical high school, worked as an on-the-job training student, and then worked as an industrial technician, was found dead.
Kim, a young worker who died while repairing a screen door at Guui Station in May 2016, also started working as an on-the-job trainee.
Around the same time, Kim Dong-gyun, who was in charge of boiling soup at a restaurant in Seongnam, ended his life due to bullying at work.
Decades have passed since the publication of the biography of Jeon Tae-il, which recorded and testified to the life and death of a young worker, but accidents and deaths of children just starting to learn to work continue to occur even today.
“Fixing subways, building cars, making soup at a buffet restaurant, answering the phone at a call center, packaging and transporting bottled water, making ham, repairing elevators…
“So, the traces of the ‘unknown death of a child’ remain in every area of ​​our daily lives, from what we eat and drink to what we use.” (p. 17)

『The Death of an Unknown Child』 seeks to illuminate and mourn the deaths of Kim Dong-jun and countless other Kim Dong-juns and young workers who were not properly known or mourned, and to remember their deaths as social deaths.
Furthermore, I would like to share in the grief of the bereaved families living after the loss (the meeting of bereaved families of field training students mentioned at the end of this book served as a small spark for the creation of the network of families affected by industrial accidents, "Never Again").
This book is a work that seeks to remember the children who “were only stuffed as unfortunate field trainees through death” and “were called Mr. ○○ or Miss ○○ every time a similar incident occurred even after death” “not as field trainees Mr. Kim or Mr. Lee, but as unique beings, complex and colorful individuals who each accumulated experiences and memories within their own unique relationships” (p. 11).
And it starts with the question of why these children had to die, and the question of what kind of people they were and what kind of lives they wanted to live.

Stories of people working, dreaming, despairing, and dreaming again

"The Death of an Unknown Child" listens to the voices of young workers who are only seen after they die in industrial accidents, and of specialized high school students who have become invisible in an education system focused on college entrance exams, while also asking about the well-being of all of us who work and live here now.
This book begins with the records left by Kim Dong-jun in his notebooks and social media, and traces and reconstructs the life of the departed, while also overlaying and overlaying the lives of those who live after their death.
The stories of various people continue, including Kim Dong-jun's mother, the aunt who reported this case to the press, the labor attorney in charge of the case, the father of Lee Min-ho, an intern who lost his life in an accident in Jeju in 2017, a vocational high school teacher, and young workers who are currently enrolled or graduated from vocational high schools.


Therefore, this book is not limited to a memorial to the death of Kim Dong-jun or an accusation of the reality that the unjust deaths of young workers are occurring everywhere.
Lim Hyeon-ji, a high school student with a deep desire to become a machine maintenance expert; Seo Dong-hyeon, a graduate who hates studying and wants to make money quickly; and Lee Eun-ah, a 21-year-old who unexpectedly became the president of the National Specialized High School Graduates' Union, talk about their dreams, but also express their anxiety about the future and the prejudice and discrimination against specialized high school students.
Furthermore, he asks how we can know what is unjust and dangerous, and how humane work is possible.
The future they will face, the time of adulthood, is intertwined with what we dream of or what we despair of.
In this book, when a mother who lost her son, an aunt who was involved in social movements, a labor attorney who handled Dongjun's case, a father who also lost his son, and a specialized high school teacher interested in labor rights education tell their stories about their lives, the connection between their stories and our own becomes clearer.
The homes, workplaces, and schools where they are are places we have passed through, places where we exist now, and places where our children may be.
The stories of those directly and indirectly involved with Kim Dong-jun powerfully remind us not only of a society where dangerous labor and death are concentrated on young workers, but also of a society insensitive to the chain violence of everyday life, a life where everyone works themselves to the point of breaking down and being unable to protect themselves, the universal experiences of working, dreaming, and despairing, and how we want to live and what kind of world we dream of.
The delicate writing of the metaphor vividly captures the sadness, anger, helplessness, and hope they are held captive by, and Im Jin-sil's photographs, which capture this intense and profound emotional landscape, amplify its resonance.

A delicate reportage essay on the metaphor of the "humble witness."

Writer Eun-yu has received widespread acclaim from readers for her collections of essays, 『The Front Line of Writing』 and 『Words of Writing』, and 『Becoming Transparent Every Time We Fight』 and 『Approaching Words』, which showcase “warm yet sharp, everyday-focused writing.” However, she is also an excellent interviewer and reportage writer who has written 『Between Violence and Dignity』, a collection of interviews with victims of fabricated espionage cases, and 『The Heart of Publishing』, a collection of interviews with people who create and promote books.
"The Death of an Unknown Child" is not a book about "the language of those who have no reason to change the world," but rather a book that honestly captures the lives of "those who cannot speak for themselves" and "those who have no language," and a book that fully explores the concerns about writing that moves people's hearts. In this book, metaphor shows its aspect as a "humble witness."

Regarding the two years of interviewing and writing, Eunyu wrote, “It was difficult work, listening to the stories of people who were suffering greatly,” but “it wasn’t all that hard” (p. 31).
“It is the writer’s choice what to keep and what to erase from the original interview, which is two or three times as long,” and although he “often hesitated” and “wanted to run away, afraid and confused, wondering if I lacked knowledge” (p. 32), Eunyu willingly stayed by the interviewees’ side, transcribing their voices, and succeeded in delicately revealing the emotions that captivated them.
And that's because the metaphor was in the position of a 'humble witness'.
“I approached this with the mindset of a fluid, vulnerable, and imperfect being whose thoughts and feelings change every moment, watching, listening, and recording the life story of another weak being.
I tried my best to make the result the best.
“It was possible because it was a task that could be done with humility to put aside one’s own judgment and sincerity to listen again, rather than with any literary talent or sociological knowledge.” (p. 33) Thanks to these multilayered stories left behind by Eunyu, we will be able to hear the voices of small but great people and meet children we did not know or see, even now.