The Tunnel of Destiny

by Hyung-cha Kim, Allen D. Clark (Translator)

Astonishing Experiences of a Family from 1870s to the 1960s, the Most Tragic Moments in Modern Korean History

Twin brothers believe they were born into an inseparable destiny, only to be betrayed by fate. Kim Hyung-cha is conscripted to serve as a student soldier during the Japanese occupation under conditions of severe cruelty, while his older twin, Kim Hyung-tae, who remained in the North after liberation, goes missing in the turbulence of the Korean War. Kim Hyung-cha joins the allied forces and advances to the Yalu River with the war, where he miraculously finds his brother's family and manages to evacuate them to the South.

Beyond stripping Korean contemporary history bare, this book forces an introspective look into the common yet esoteric concept of human destiny. Through a most peculiar interlacing of events and encounters that confront the family, leading towards an uncanny untangling of ties, readers will walk the "tunnel of destiny," where many coincidences are proven to be indisputable fate.

368 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2018

Reviews

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been a special part of my family since before I was born. Donald Sheckels (Sgt. Schacle) was my grandfather. I have very fond memories of Mr. Kim coming to visit each year, always bringing with him a different family member to meet us. My grandparents loved him so dearly. I remember that he always had a thousand smiles to give and his enthusiastic kindness was genuine. As I grew older and learned the story of how he and my grandfather came to be friends, I felt such a deep respect for this man who had endured and achieved so much in his life. I had only ever read and held tightly to an old, delicately bound, first edition of this wonderful story, so I was shocked and thrilled to receive this new edition as a Christmas gift from my mother. I have cried tears of loss, sadness, and even joy reading the afterword. I will always be grateful this book exists so that I can share it with my own sons.

[Mickeymouse1986 · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Tunnel of Destiny' by Hyung-cha Kim is as powerful as the book 'Ghost Flames' by Charles J. Hanley. It tells the history of the time, with some excursions to the families history before and after, of the time between 1941 and 1951 in the eyes from a North Korean civilian, drafted first into the Imperial Japanese Army and after into the UN Forces to free South Korea from the occupants from North Korea. The book doens't hold back with emotions to make the reader develop a deep sympathy for the author. The book was written many years ago in the 1960s and was republished in 2018 so it also includes notes from a son and a grandson in the new edition which cast a slightly different light of the author.

It also shows, that the Japanese Army treated its soldiers from Korea not only bad but even the soldiers felt not treated wrongly, that they were soldiers without their own country and throught the book the hardships of this time are over and over evident and that the Koreans were happy to be liberated.

It is also a bit of the story of Christians in North Korea and the constant denial of their religious freedom in the North after the Japanese Occupation and that the Koreans were not free after all.

[Elise Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a personal account of terrible wars. It is interesting and gripping in most parts, but it doesn’t follow a sequence. It jumps from place to place, there seems to be a disconnect with the translation, and there are some embellishments or unnecessary sentences that take away from the personal accounts of the story.
This started as a twin-brother connection, but I never got that throughout the book. Still, this has come from a remarkable time in history, and it is something I would recommend reading.