Choi Hong Hi was born on November 9, 1918 (Eastern calendar) or December 22, 1918 (Western calendar) in the rugged, mountainous, harsh area of Hwa Dae, Myong Chun District, in what is now North Korea. At the time, Korea was under Japanese occupation and it had not yet been divided into a North and South Korea. Choi was the third of eight children, five boys and three girls, of family that owned a brew house. In his youth, he was frail and sickly and was a constant source of worry for his parents. However, even at an early age, he showed a strong, independent spirit.
In 1930, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, a group of female Korean students on a train bound for Kwang-ju City was harassed by a group of Japanese students. When the train arrived in Kwang-ju, a group outraged Korean students attacked the Japanese students. The Japanese police arrived and ruthlessly crushed the group of Korean students. The incident was known as the Kwang-ju Student Uprising.
As word of the incident spread throughout Korea, students in schools around the country staged strikes and walkouts to protest the outrageous acts of the Japanese students and police. At the time of the uprising, Choi was twelve years of age and a fifth grade school pupil. He planned and directed a mass student walkout from his school in protest of the uprising and was indefinitely suspended from the Japanese school system for his actions. This was the beginning of what would be a long association Choi had with the Kwang-ju Students Independence Movement.
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