Therese Park

Asians View of Life after Death
Asians' view of life after death



While reading about a regiment of life―size ancient Chinese terra cotta soldiers and chariots excavated from the massive grave of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (221―206 B.C.) that are now on a tour of the United States, I was reminded of how ancient Asians viewed life after death. These clay figures are only a fraction of the 7,000 terra cotta soldiers, 400 horses, and chariots, most of which are still buried in an area of 22 square miles in remote Lintong County, Shaangxi Province.



Even before Buddhism spread in Asia, people believed that life continued after death, and some even romanticized death as a passage to an eternal life, richer and more fulfilling than life on earth, waiting for them on the other side of this planet. Obviously, Emperor Qin Shi Huang was no exception. As a warmonger who unified all states in the vast land and became the first Emperor of Imperial China which lasted until the communists took over, Emperor Qin perceived himself as the undying chief commander of his devoted army, and took them with him to his grave, this time, made of clay, in a battle formation.



On a smaller scale, common folks like my parents tended toward romantic feelings about life beyond death. While I was still in Korea in the early 1960's, they heard the news that the Seoul Catholic Diocese had just opened the first Catholic Cemetery on a scenic mountain village some 20 miles north of the city and were elated. The next day, my father took a day off from work and left home early to investigate the place, with a box lunch Mother had packed for him. Returning that evening, he broke the news that he purchased the best spot available.



"You'll like it," he said to Mother at the dinner table, acting as though he was a new owner of a vacation home in Hawaii. "Our plot sits on a terraced slope that gives a distant view of the Han River and overlooks a peaceful green valley. It's an ideal spot for a family picnic, too." They were only in their early fifties.



Back then, as a young adult itching to leave home and explore the modernized world out there I didn't share their excitement about finding their eternal rest place. I even thought they were silly. Why did it matter whether they would lie among Catholics or Buddhists or Hindus after they were gone? How could they appreciate the surrounding scenery when they couldn't see it?



On my first trip back home in the summer of 1978, I finally understood their wishes. Their joint grave, which they had chosen with care and loving intentions, had become a gathering place for their children and grandchildren. One of my four brothers who had been living in San Francisco for some time returned home at the same time as I did, and with other siblings and their children living in Seoul, a dozen of us gathered at our parents' grave. After a humble ceremony of prayer and silent dialogues between them and us the living, we had a picnic, just as our parents had wished that we would.



One's grave isn't just a mound of dirt that keeps the remains in place, but rather, it is a place for the living, to renew themselves and to reflect on the past, present, and future. Emperor Qin's terracotta soldiers on tour of the United States will do no less for the American viewers: They will learn much about Emperor Qin, his leadership, his ambition, and what China was like 2300 years ago but also think about his/ her journey of life after death.

Workloads of Working Mothers
Workloads of a Working Mom



Since 1970's, the number of working moms have multiplied in the United States, statistics show. Though women still make significantly less than men in the same fields, the number of women seeking fulfillment in life besides being a mom and homemakers will steadily grow.

"Motherly duties" is such a simple, vague term compared to the wide variety of tasks a young mother has to accomplish daily. After a full day at work, she's a chauffeur taking her kids to library or birthday parties or a piano lesson or baseball practice. She is also a nurse tending her little "patients" with a fever or a tummy ache; a judge settling arguments between siblings and pronouncing "timeout!"; a tutor nagging about homework or poor report cards. Most of all, she's a healer who dries tears and soothes pain with a warm hug and kiss.

At work, she wants to do more than her share so that her "motherly duties" wouldn't dent her professionalism.

I've been there. In early 1970's, I was a cellist with the late Kansas City Philharmonic and a mother of three young daughters, all under four. Often, I wondered why God didn't grant me two pairs of strong arms and weight lifting abilities, so that I could carry my twins, hold hands with my three―year―old, and carry a diaper bag at the same time.

Mornings were difficult. With three small children, a hundred things can go wrong, even if you line up their clothes, socks, and shoes and are ready to go the previous night. One baby can have a fever, the other diarrhea, and your three year old might cry because she wasn't in the mood to be dragged out of the house and dropped off at her preschool.

On a good day when all goes smoothly, you drop off your three―year―old at preschool and the twins at the babysitter, but you're not free. On the way to the Music Hall for a rehearsal you hear their cries echo through your head. If you didn't forget the sheet music you had checked out to practice, you're lucky. If you wore decent clothes without milk and baby food stains all over, congratulate yourself. Forgot to feed yourself breakfast? Oh well, missing one meal wouldn't kill you.

When the rehearsal ends and you pick up your little ones, one from preschool, two from the babysitter, you're as happy as a hen sitting on her eggs. But this is the time you worry about laundry, grocery shopping, doctor's appointments, and what to feed them for dinner. No matter how hard you worked that day or how many miles you drove, as you sit on the stage at the Music Hall, in your long black, behind your cello, there's always the nagging voice that says that you have not done enough.

Even after nearly four decades since those nearly impossible days, I still have recurring, stress―related dreams.

I speed on the freeway like a gust of wind for the eight o'clock concert, but as soon as I enter the Music Halll, the concert has begun without me. I tiptoe to the backstage, hoping I might be able to sneak onto the stage when the conductor wasn't looking, without disturbing my colleagues. But when I open my cello case at my usual spot it's empty! No cello means no playing! Calm down, I tell myself. This isn't the end of the world. The personnel manager shows up from nowhere and clicks his tongue. "Late again," he says. "The fine for a tardy is 5% of your weekly salary. It's in the contract!"

When I wake up I'm grateful for the fact that my children are now adults raising their own.

It is a known fact today that happy hens lay healthy eggs and happy cows produce more nutritious milk than unhappy ones. Working mothers' emotional state directly affects that of their young children. Employers and managers, don't be hard on the moms under your wings.

END



End

Hearing Aids Bring Happiness
I finally got my hearing aids. Why am I bragging about it, you say?

It was a difficult decision to make, but like anything else in life, once the decision was made and the purchase transaction was complete and I brought them home, I was glad. Technically speaking, my husband owns them: It was his idea and he paid for them, but he rather keeps them in my ears, not in his. He bought them because I’ve been annoying him whenever we watched TV together by asking, “What did he say?” or “Why is that guy beating that other guy?” or “What’s funny?” and he had enough of it. With the hearing aids in my ears, he's definitely happier.

During the first week with hearing aids on, I was miserable. I felt as though I was being punished for something I didn’t do. Everything was too loud. I didn’t know that something as insignificant as water running from the faucet could sound like Niagara Falls. Even the grocery sacks rustled like trees in a torrential wind. With one squeal, my Quaker parrot sent me to the other end of the house.

On my next visit to the audiologist I complained about the loudness, and he adjusted the volume, plugging me into a machine, which was connected to his computer. I felt as though I were a rat going through an experimental test, but as a result, the noise is subdued. Still, when a truck passes my open window I feel as though I am in a war zone. Why do I deserve this?

I came up with a clever idea. By not wearing the hearing aids I am embracing Nature’s ultimate wisdom bestowed to older folks, in addition, I will get a taste of what the immortal composer Ludwig Van Beethoven might have suffered during nearly three decades of his 57 years.

Even after his death 182 years ago, Beethoven’s jewel like music is still performed all over the world. But what the great composer impresses me the most is the fact that he produced his most praised work―the Choral symphony, his fifth piano concerto known as Emperor, his numerous string quartets, and his grandioso Missa Solemnis―while he was stone deaf.

Beethoven was a genuis, you say?

A German philosopher wrote. “Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.” Growing up in the poor area of Bonn (Germany), Beethoven was an under priviliged, average child, whose alcoholic father often beat him for not practicing piano, and whose mother was always ill from tuberculosis. “Help yourself,” was his boyhood motto, which he carried with him through all the “complicated” tasks he had to tackle. He only had three years of schooling, yet he was the first composer who integrated the grand literary work of Goethe, Dante, and Schiller with his music.

I made a new resolution: Without the booming noises in my ears, I shall be more productive whatever I do in my old age. I should even write another book. Why not?

Most importantly, we are a happy family again; my husband can watch TV without my interruptions, I am happy that my quaker parrot and water from the faucet quieted down significantly, and I can “help myself.”

What about my hearing aids, you ask? They’re well and safe in their sturdy case

Questions linger after teen's slaying of mother
Are the prosecutors treating the American born defendant and her slain Chinese mother fairly and justly? What if some of accusations against the slain victims are false? Who can speak for one in eternal rest when the laws are made strictly for the living?

We Drank Nothing But Tea
Coca-cola was introduced to our family in July, 1951, during the Korean War. It was a gift from two American soldiers, total strangers we met at the beach. In spite of their kindness, we didn’t fall in love with the American drink. In fact, I still don’t touch it, although I am an American citizen now.
That year in July, truce-talks between the United Nations and the Chinese began. The intense fighting we'd suffered through the preceeding year had finally subsided, giving some anxious refugees time to leave our town of Pusan, to check on their homes and missing families. The beaches, once closed and opened, it was time to enjoy life again.
One Sunday afternoon we were among Korean families enjoying the cool ocean breeze on a sandy beach.
Nearby, army tents were flapping in the wind as dozens of American soldiers swam, played volleyball, and sunbathed.
While our family was eating lunch, we had visitors. Two American soldiers, each with a six-pack of Coca-cola bottles, greeted our father in English.
Father was baffled. “Are they trying to sell the drink?” he asked my eldest brother, a high school student, who was learning English at school.
“No," my brother answered. “They're giving it to us for free," he said.
Father smiled. He took the six packs from the soldiers and said “Tank you!” the only English he knew.
“Enjoy! Enjoy,” the soldiers seemed to say, smiling, as they left.
My brother opened a bottle. Brown bubbles crawled up.
Father looked worried. “Is it safe to drink?”
“Of course it is,” my brother said. “Americans drink it all the time.
My brother lifted the bottle to his mouth with a certain air of pride and began drinking it.
I watched him with envy. In our family, we never drank anything but Barley Tea.
Something went wrong: my brother began to spit up the brown, bubbly liquid, hiccupping. The liquid dribbled from his mouth and nose.
“Are you all right? You look sick,” Mother said.
My brother wiped his mouth and grinned awkwardly. “It’s pretty good, really! It pricked my throat like hell, but I’ll drink it again.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven, the Immortal Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a prolific composer who wrote 34 piano sonatas, nine symphonies and countless vocal, piano, and chamber ensemble works, only to mention a few. His greatest accomplishment, however, was liberating music from a cloistered form set by earlier composers such as Hayden, Handel, and Mozart, and expanding it to give dimension, color, and depth. He also integrated the grand literary work of Goethe, Dante, and Schiller with his composition, and enlarged the size of the orchestra by doubling certain instruments, and moved the theme melodies from violins, flutes, oboes to lower voices--violas, cellos, and bassons. In short, Beethoven lifted music from the pleasure of “hearing” to the expression of hearts and souls.
Most of Beethoven’s music begins with a simple theme, which branches out in the middle, and then reaches a powerful climax before ending with the basic theme, like a giant pine that expands in the middle but tapers toward a single stem at the top. His Fifth Symphony is such an example. It begins with four simple notes, which symbolize one’s fate knocking on the door, but develops into vibrant, colorful phrases and rhythms that intertwine and weave a large-scale tapestry of sound.
To understand Beethoven’s grand work of art, one must understand the young Ludwig’s graceless childhood, which contributed to his intense will to rise above himself and others. Growing up in a poor area of Bonn in Germany, one of his mottos was, “Help thyself.” Although he played with marbles and practiced archery like any boy his age would have at the time, his early days were marked with pain, distrust of the world, and craving for something better, something sweeter than what his family could offer him.
Ludwig’s first music teacher was his alcoholic father, Johann van Beethoven, a tenor, who forced the boy to practice piano and violin for hours every day. While the small boy pounded on the keyboard or sawed on the strings, his father would stand behind him, pouring a stench of alcohol about him.
“What’s all this nonsense,” the father would yell, stomping his foot, startling the boy. “Play according to the notes, or I’ll smack your ear!”
Such unpleasant lessons encouraged Ludwig to hide in the attic, away from his father and away from the piano and violin. There, in the attic, he saw the purplish Segovian hills and villages perched on the horizon far beyond the Rhine River and daydreamed of the place he had not seen before. He imagined the Spanish castles and kings he had read about, too, which always accompanied the lively tunes that sprang effortlessly in his ear. He couldn’t understand why he had to obey the written music that lacked imagination and weren’t as sweet as the melodies he heard in his own ears. He couldn’t understand why his father wouldn’t allow him to make his own music and to have fun with it, too. Still, Ludwig advanced quickly in both piano and violin playing.
At eleven, he took a job as a cembalo (a keyboard instrument) player in the town orchestra to earn a few coins. Here, he learned so much about symphonic music, which he would explore later, but also witnessed the musicians who couldn’t play their parts. The more he saw weak personalities, the more he told himself, “Help thyself!”
At the age thirteen, Ludwig became a distinguished court organist earning as much as his father was. By now, his mother was ill with tuberculosis and the family couldn’t survive on his father’s income alone.
Three years later, he went to Vienna to play for Master Wolfgang Mozart, then 32. Mozart was impressed with Ludwig’s brilliant piano playing as well as his improvisational skills. Afterwards, Mozart told other musicians, “Watch out for that chap! Someday he will make the world talk about him.” Mozart accepted Ludwig as his pupil.
Vienna fascinated the boy from Bonn. The ancient city had everything for him--the calm Danube River, the opera house with grand marble staircase, many concert halls, the cathedral with a tall steeple, and the city walls built to resist the Turkish invaders of earlier centuries...
But Ludwig couldn’t stay in Vienna very long, for his mother, Maria Magdalena, was dying. He barely made it in time to see her for the last time. His grief of losing his beloved mother who had shown him much affection as a small boy was so deep that it took a long time for him to compose again.
In 1798, back in Vienna, at age 28, Ludwig Beethoven was reaching his height as a passionate pianist and composer, who had produced three piano trios, three violin sonatas, and one of most brilliant sonatas of all, the Pathetic Sonata Opus 13.
Another tragedy awaited him that year. One spring morning he discovered that he couldn’t hear anything. Years later, he told his pianist-friend Charles Neate what happened that day. He was at his desk, as usual, writing his Oratorio when he heard a loud door-knock. Irritated that the visitor might be the tenor who had been asking him to change his part, he sprang up from the table under such ”rage” that he fell on the floor. When he rose he found himself deaf.
Beethoven’s letter to his long-time friend Carl Amenda reveals his anguish at losing his hearing:
“How I wish you were with me, my friend. Your Beethoven lives very unhappily, in constant conflict with... his creator. Often, I have cursed Him for making his creature suffer the most terrible chances... What a sorrowful life I must now live, avoiding all that is dear and precious to me. Oh, how happy would I be, if my hearing were completely restored!”
Among many theories regarding his deafness, Dr. Franz Wegler, Beethoven’s long time friend and physician, contends that Beethoven had a severe attack of typhus, the infectious disease transmitted by body insects such as lice, which he may have had at adolescence. Unlike common belief that such loss would deteriorate one’s spirit and debilitate him from all creative work, music scholars believe that Beethoven’s work benefited, rather than suffered from his hearing loss. It forced him to stop playing piano, which devastated the brilliant pianist, and robbed him of the pleasure of listening to his performances and all sounds around him, but it never limited the composer from creating and dictating music ringing freely in his inner ear. Here, in the depth of his agony, Beethoven made peace with God to free him and all mankind from suffering.
Beethoven spent many hours walking in the woods of Vienna intoxicated by the beauty of nature, which the great Artist Himself created. Beethoven wrote:
Every tree seems to speak of Thee.
Almighty, I’m happy.
Blessed in the woods...
Every tree has a voice through Thee.
On the height is peace--
Peace to serve Thee.

In his Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven paints the beauty of nature with descriptive melodies and lively rhythms. As you listen to it, you could almost see the short, broad-shouldered Beethoven with dark, curly hair walking in the woods of Vienna in the warm sunlight, humming or singing loudly, his hands beating time; he would occasionally look up to watch birds chattering from the acacia branches and the sky beyond, and then very quickly, he would produce a notebook from his pocket and scribble.
He died on March 26, 1827, in his apartment in Schwarzspanierhouse in Vienna. He had returned from his brother’s home in Gneixendorf in freezing weather and contracted pneumonia. The cause of death was cirrhosis of liver. His last moments suggest that he triumphed over all his physical limitations and delivered himself to the divine world. Robert Haven Schhauffler, the author of “Beethoven,” describes:
Late on the afternoon of March 26, 1827, there was a flash of lightening and a sharp peal of thunder. The unconscious Master raised himself...as if answering the thunder. He clenched and lifted his right hand, remained in that posture for several seconds, and fell back.

Duty, Honor, Memorial
Duty, Honor, and Memorial


The Korean War isn’t “forgotten” after all, the members of the Korean War Veterans Association-Kansas Chapter say. The construction of the KWV Memorial will begin in September or October 2005, not in 2006 or 2007 as they had originally planned, association Commander John Gay said.
Thirteen months ago, in June 2004, the KWVA-Kansas Chapter only had $20,000 in the bank. “We have a lot of work to do,” Veteran Jack Krumme, then the commander, had said to nearly 150 veterans and their families and supporters at a fundraising luncheon hosted by a South Korean women’s organization.
In December the same year the Bush administration awarded them with $371,250 for the memorial, which was proposed by Congressman Dennis Moore and Senator Sam Brownback.
“We were very surprised,” Veteran Clyde Koch, one of the members of the Memorial Committee, remembers. “When we began the campaign two years ago, we didn’t know where to begin. We haven’t done anything like this before. This grant is like a wild dream coming true.” Koch was with the “Charlie Battery” (1st Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division) during Inchon Landing in September 1950.
The age of the KWVA-Kansas Chapter is only five-years old. The National KWVA in Washington, D.C. officially recognized them as one of its branches in June 2000, and the KWVA-Kansas Chapter 1-181 held their first meeting at American Legion Hall, 75th & Lowell, Overland Park in March that year. The idea of constructing a memorial in Overland Park was initiated by two veterans--Jack Krumme and John Williams (passed away since) but it was common desire of all. After brainstorming and investigating, they sought legal help.
“We were helped considerably by Mr. Byron Louden, a lawyer and former Overland Park City Councilman,” Veteran Tom Stevens (Vice President of KWVA), says.. “He donated all his services.” On June 9th, 2000, the City Council of Overland Park unanimously approved the construction of the Korean War.
The site dedication ceremony took place two months later, on August 23, at the corner of 119th and Lowell, with Senator Brownback’s keynote address. Congressman Dennis Moore, County Commission Chairperson, Annabeth Surbaugh, Mayor Ed Eilert, and many other local dignitaries were among the guests. The National KWVA Chairman, Harley Coon, gave a heartfelt talk about his experience as a Korean War POW, a compelling testimony of the Communists brutality against humanity.
After the ceremony, General Robert Shirkey, a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, gave a check for $500 to Veteran Stevens as “seed money.”
The fund raising campaign followed. The Memorial Committee developed strategies, made brochures and flyers, and letterheads. Sixty-plus KWVA members contacted numerous organizations and individuals, distributing the campaign materials. Sleeves rolled up, they made pancakes and fried eggs and served them, too. They held garage sales and hosted golf tournaments as well. Their dedication and enthusiasm toward the memorial moved strangers, their golf buddies, and people of all color and all areas of life.
Donations poured in.
The local South Koreans didn’t “forget” who liberated them from the Communists. Nor did they forget how poor and helpless their homeland had been when the Russian tanks mowed down on a Sunday morning in June 1950. The Korean-American Ladies Foundation of Overland Park raised more than $10,000 for the veterans and the Korean-American Society of Greater Kansas City $20,000. Nancy Accord, the leader of the Korean-American Ladies Foundation, addressed at one of the luncheons honoring the veterans: “We can never thank you enough. We’re honored to do whatever we can...for your memorial”
More than a hundred organizations and countless individuals sent contributions. Last May, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation awarded the KWVA with a “Leadership Gift” of $50,000 in commemoration of Memorial Day 2005. The Overland Park Art’s Commission chaired by Wendall Anschuts, the former anchorman of KCMO (now KCTV5), pledged $50,000 for the memorial.
Anschutz says, “...somehow history overlooked the Korean War Veterans' sacrifices.... The memorial will be a magnificent addition to many beautification projects we are working on, as well as a lasting reminder of those who gave...everything while we went about our privileged daily lives. No one makes a greater contribution to our society than those who put their lives on the front line.”
Veteran George Moods, who served in South Korea between 1952-1954, is proud of what he did a half century ago. “We worked very hard,” he says with confidence. “Our 79th Army Engineering Battalion built water-purifying plants, army headquarters, and highways and bridges.... South Korea has changed so much since. I feel good knowing that we helped them.”
The ages of the Korean War veterans range between 71-78. Most of them were only seventeen or eighteen when they arrived in Korea to control a “police action.” Before they could figure out what the “police action” was all about, thousands died or were injured or captured.
The North Korean Communists under Kim Il-sung had been secretively preparing war against their “other half” since the beginning of 1949, transporting modern Russian tanks and training the troops along the 38th Parallel, while the South Koreans’ hands were tied under the stern American military advisers. Whenever the CIC (Korean CIA) reported them the North Korean’s suspicious activities along the 38th Parallel, they ignored it. The North Korea’s “surprise attack” across the 38th Parallel the following year was a sheer terror for everyone.
After three years of bloody battle, the 38th parallel didn’t shift and the map of Asia remained the same. As the world leaders tried to end the war, anti-American demonstration erupted throughout South Korea. School children, labor unions, church organizations, women’s group--all poured out to the streets, shouting, “We’ll fight on. Move out Americans! We want reunification!”
Life Magazine printed on June 22, 1953 under the caption "One Old Man Against the Truce." It reads: “South Korea's 78-year-old President Syngman Rhee cried that truce between the UN and the Communists 'means death' to his country and threatened to fight on alone to expel the Chinese Reds and take the entire Korea. ‘If you have to leave us, we're sorry to see you go!’ he said.’”
American soldiers came home without banners of glory and honor. With another war erupting in Vietnam a few years later, the Korean War and those who fought in that war faded from people’s memory.
But it’s history now. Finally, the Korean War veterans’ sacrifices in South Korea will be engraved in granites and bricks. Their photos, diaries, letters will be displayed, too. The area residents, including children, can learn why the Korean War happened, who fought in it, and what the world learned from it.
Today, many American sons and daughters are fighting in Iraq. What message could be more comforting for those young Americans (and their families) than the fact that their country will “remember” their sacrifices?
The KWVA-Kansas Chapter 1-181’s Mission Statement reads: We pay tribute to those who gave their lives, were wounded, and were prisoners of war or missing in action. This (memorial) is for them....

Marian Anderson: The Goodwill Ambassador
At a post office one day, I saw stamps with Marian Anderson’s portrait printed on them and told the clerk I wanted ten of them. As she handed them to me, I told her that I had heard Anderson sing in Korea when I was in high school.
“I didn’t know she went there,” said the clerk.
I told her it was a part of Anderson’s ten-week concert tour of the South Pacific and Asia in 1957, and that two years earlier, the State Department in Washington had awarded her with the position “Good Will Ambassador,” a prestigious honor any American could dream of. “I am one of the lucky ones who heard her live performance,” I bragged.
“Wait a minute,” the clerk said. “I thought Marian Anderson was an actress, not a singer.”
I couldn’t believe how ignorant she was. I almost said, “Do you consider yourself an American, not knowing who Marian Anderson was?” But fortunately my gentler side (if applicable) took over the situation. “Maybe we are not talking about the same Marian Anderson,” I said, and quickly left the post office.
If the clerk had listened, I would have told her more about Anderson, especially the way her fellow Americans treated her due to her non-white skin, and what powerful message she delivered to her fellow African-Americans of today, with her magnificent voice and elegant stage manners.

That summer evening in 1957, our family sat on the balcony of Ehwa University’s auditorium/gymnasium in Seoul, anxiously waiting for Anderson’s recital to begin. After the Korean War had ended with the Truce in July 1953, our country’s door was wide open, and world-level engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and experts in all areas of life poured into our war-wrecked country--some to help rebuild it and some to seek fortune.
Musicians, artists and entertainers came too. As horrifying as it was, the Korean War introduced us to the rest of the world, and now we were indulging in a healthy diet of cultural nourishment from all over the world.
As a sophomore in high school, I had just started playing cello, and my anticipation of hearing Anderson’s recital was beyond words. This was the singer the grand conductor Arturo Toscanini complimented by saying, “The world can hear such a voice only once in a hundred years.” How could one not be excited?
Ehwa University auditorium wasn’t built for music performances. The hardwood floor squeaked whenever someone walked on it, and the stage was poorly lit. The black velvet curtains on both sides of the stage weren’t the best things in music halls, but we didn’t know it back then. This auditorium was the only building in Seoul spacious enough to accommodate a thousand music lovers, and we proudly called it “The Korean Carnegie Hall.”
The hall lights suddenly dimmed, and tall black lady in a long, snow-white dress appeared on the stage. The applause shook the hall. She reminded me of a black swan with gleaming white feathers.
The program began in a hushed silence. As Anderson’s rich velvety voice echoed through the auditorium, I was led into her music world. While she sang Schubert’s Ave Maria, I wanted to rush to our church and kneel and pray; while she sang the Negro Spirituals, I was one of the cotton-pickers in southern America. At some point of the evening, I felt as though it was I who was singing my heart’s content, telling of my sorrow, my faith in God, and my longing for peace and freedom. It was something I had never felt before.
When the recital ended with three curtain calls, I wanted to be a musician. What would be more rewarding than being able to express my deeper feelings through cello, like Anderson could with her voice?
Ten years later, I joined the Kansas City Philharmonic (now the Symphony), after two degrees from two music schools--one from Seoul, Korea, and another from Paris, France.
One day, during an out of town concert, I overheard the conversation that Marian Anderson had been the featured soloist with the Philharmonic a year before. It wasn’t a happy story at all. While the local newspapers raved about Anderson’s luscious voice and outstanding accomplishments, all hotel owners in downtown Kansas City refused to give the black singer a room. Anderson had no choice but get a room in all black area, miles from the Music Hall!
It was the first lesson that taught me about racial discrimination the white Americans inflicted on their black neighbors. I revisited the summer night in 1957 many times, while practicing cello or walking or riding a metro. How wonderful it would have been, had I joined the Philharmonic a year earlier and met her in person? I would have mustered some courage to go up to her on the back stage and introduced myself, saying I had heard her in Seoul. I am sure Anderson would have been glad to learn that her music so inspired a teenage girl on the other side of the globe that she eventually found her way to the United States.

End

A Late Bloomer's Resolution
I am a late bloomer in the school of aging. Looking back, it’s no surprise, because I was never an advanced reader and wasn’t good at math. I still don’t like math that much. My accumulating age makes my head spin.
However I am quick to notice my friends’ deepening wrinkles and graying hair and their dentures. Once I called a cashier “Old lady” and was embarrassed when she turned out to be four years younger than me. I would have been furious if anyone called me that.
But recently my age and the business of “aging” suddenly caught up with me, like unpaid bills, and I had to balance my life account.
It all happened about a month ago when I walked into a patient’s room in a local hospital as a Korean-English translator. The speech pathologist met me in the hallway and explained that the patient had a stroke three days earlier and that he lost ability to communicate in English, along with his short-term memories. She said that the kind of stroke the patient suffered wouldn’t affect his ability to speak his native language and the events that happened in his childhood.
In the room, I recognized him: He has lived in the Kansas City area as long as I have and spoke near perfect English whenever I heard him talk. But now, his watery eyes wandering about the ceiling, he didn’t seem to be aware of his condition or why people were encircling him.
Our session began with the doctor’s questions, which I asked him in Korean. “Mr. Kim (not real name), do you see your daughter in the room?”
The patient’s head turned slowly toward the young woman standing in the corner with puffy eyes, and he stared.
“What’s her name?”
His lips trembling, he pronounced a Korean name.
“Do you remember what happened to you three days ago?”
He didn’t reply. Closing his eyes, he was silent for a long moment. Then, while we were watching, he drifted to sleep.
Or, did he pretend that he was asleep, so that he didn’t have to face the reality? I had no clue. Our session had to end.
On the way out, I picked up a couple of brochures on stroke from the nurses’ station and read them, standing in the hallway.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the US. Brain cells depend on blood to supply oxygen and nutrients, and when the supply is cut off or drastically reduced, cells begin to starve or die suddenly. The degree of damage depends on the location in the brain and the length of time blood flow is obstructed or reduced. About 70% of stroke patients recover and lead a near normal life, but the rest suffer permanent damage, including partial paralysis, speech impediment, and cognitive deficits.
One kind is a hemorrhagic stroke, in which the blood vessels break. This is usually associated with hypertension or high blood pressure, and learning to relax or avoid a stressful situation might help in reducing the chance to be attacked. The second type is an ischemic stroke. This happens when a small blood clot block the flow in the blood vessels. The brain is most vulnerable to such chaos, because it cannot survive without a timely supply of oxygen. To prevent this type of stroke, one must exercise, stay away from saturated fats, and restrain from smoking.
Driving home with newly gained knowledge, I was as determined as a soldier heading to the battlefield. I can’t lose my second language at any price, because I worked so hard to learn it. It would be a nightmare if the clock suddenly turns backwards and I find myself waking up in a hospital room surrounded by people babbling something I don’t understand. It would be sad, too, if all my short-term memories are wiped from my brain, like a computer file that vanishes with an accidental click of a mouse, and I can’t recognize my loved ones or remember their names.
I resolved to defend my second language and all my fun memories of my loved ones with all my might. I will walk daily, eat sensibly, and enjoy the sunsets every evening.

His Majesty, the Bird
Once I had compassion for all caged birds. I even considered their owners a heartless bunch. But since I became a bird owner myself last fall, I see things differently. Now I am more compassionate toward bird owners than those noisy, obnoxious critters who have nothing but bundles of feathers.
My eight-month-old parrot’s name is Sparky but I call him His Majesty, because he considers me his subject rather than his owner. His wings are clipped, but he has freedom. His cage is open 24 hours a day, and there’s no curfew. He can stride in and out of his “castle” whenever he feels like it. He squeals powerfully, too. “Pirrrrit, pirrrrit, pirrrrit” until my ears hurt, ordering me to bring his food and water, change his cage, and demanding treats, which he feels he deserves. Unlike ordinary birds, His Majesty isn’t satisfied with the store-bought feed but likes cheeriors, crackers, grapes, and mango, anything that people eat as though he had been a human in his previous life.
He has some annoying habits: He doesn’t like to use his own feet when he wants to walk around the house but prefers riding on my shoulder. I didn’t mind it at first, but after his claws dug into my skin and stained my new blouse with you-know-what, I don’t let him anymore. He likes to chew on things, too, my fingers or watchband or necklace, anything he could lay his beak on.
One thing His Majesty can’t stand is boredom. He likes to play with things that are thought-provoking and entertaining. Two or three times a week, I buy him a new toy. He particularly loved a palm-size electronic keyboard I had bought for him at Wal-Mart, but he broke it. He played it over and over, making interesting melodies--biting all eight keys and poking the gaps between them. No musical instrument can stand such abuse, and sure enough, in less than a week, the keyboard gave out its last sound.
His Majesty screeched so much afterwards that I made another trip to Wal-Mart and bought him a toy cellular-phone that rings and chirps like a real one. His Majesty was enthralled with it, turning it on and off, on and off, for hours, but I could tell that he didn’t like it as much as he did the keyboard, for its mechanism was too simple to operate. He tossed into his water bowl on the same day I brought it home.
From his caretaker’s point of view, Majesty is a messy eater. You’d be amazed how fast he can shuck a sunflower seed without even using your claws. Shelling a peanut is no problem, either. Holding it with one foot (or hand), he bites the shell off piece by piece until the floor is covered with bits of peanut shell.
By contrast, he is a neat housekeeper. He has a playhouse on top of his cage, in which he plays hide-and-seek alone. Anything I put into it, toy or food, he throws out. Keep it neat and clean, is his order.
When he has nothing else to do, he watches TV. One day I found him watching a circus, hanging upside down from his wire-cage door and swinging back and forth, imitating the performers on the screen. He likes nature shows, too, especially the ones about birds. Chattering and babbling, he tries to communicate with his kind on the screen.
Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t squeal so much and make less mess, but he challenges me to think and see the world from a bird point of view. I think I’ll keep His Majesty.

Bird Nest Soup, Anyone?
Longevity and good health is a common desire for all, especially among the older generation. But what do you do to stay young and healthy? Are you spending money on exercise machines, health club memberships, and workout-videos? Have you thought about drinking a potion made of deer and elk antlers and bird-nest soup, like many Asians do?
Though unknown to most Americans, traditional Chinese medical doctors have been using bird-nests for centuries to treat respiratory ailments such as asthma and bronchitis, to rejuvenate skin, and to boost energy for both young and old. Bird nests have been a most “wanted” gift for centuries among older the generation in Asia.
The birds known as chimney swifts here in North America have famous cousins known as swiftlets in the southeastern Asian countries. They live in deep caves or under the roofs of coves along the seashores of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Burma, Malaysia, and the Philippines and their nests have been well-loved by Chinese for 1,500 years. They measure about the size of common sparrows, except they have shorter bills, a slender body, and longer tails. They could fly about 80-100 mph, much faster than most average birds, and have a wide wingspan close to that of pigeons. They build nests with their glue-like saliva and cement them on cave walls or inside a tunnel, far away from their predators.
Bird nests are a multi-million dollar industry in Asia. Indonesia alone ships 80-100 tons of nests to Hong Kong, while Malaysia exports only ten tons of what they consider the “finest” on the market. Interestingly enough, the bird's nest industry is never threatened by a global economic crisis. In fact, during the past 30 years, the price of bird nest has sky rocketed. In 1975 a kilogram was sold for $10.00 in Hong Kong, but in 1995, it was $400.00, and then in 2002, it was $1,600. This is a huge profit for southeastern countries that depend on foreign exchange.
The Hong-Kong Chinese eat more than 100 tons of bird-nests each year, nearly 60% of the world’s supply. The Chinese communities in North America consume 30 plus tons, but the Mainland Chinese buy only 10 tons, 10% of what Hong Kong Chinese consume. [During Mao Ze-Dong’s regime between 1949-1976, bird-nest soup was considered a “luxury” and law prohibited buying and selling of nests. It was the dark era when living in an elegant home was considered “bourgeois mentality” and government allowed looters to burn and destroy countless homes.]
Today, a bowl of bird-nest soup in a Hong Kong restaurant sells for $60.00 or more. Most of the common nest soup is made with chicken bullion, but with a bit more money, one can get a fancier kind of soup known as “Phoenix Swallowing the Swallow,” clear consommé extracted from a chicken impregnated with bird nests and served in a porcelain pot.
There are three kinds of bird nests— white, orange-yellow, and black. “White Nests” are more expensive, purer in quality, and have higher nutritional value than the other two kinds, which contain color pigments from the iron oxide of cave-walls and are believed to give an impure taste.
According to Yun-Cheung Kong, professor of biochemistry in the Chinese University in Hong-Kong, the trade of swiftlets’ nests began in China during the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) Some time during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), an admiral named Cheng He introduced foreign nests to the Imperial court of China. He traveled throughout Southeast Asia one year and brought back samples of many different kinds of nests and presented them to the Imperial Court. Dr. Kong believes that the supply in China had been exhausted before foreign nests were imported. In the late 17th century, four million nests (125,000 pounds) passed through the port of Batavia, now Jakarta.
Nest-harvesting isn’t an easy job for anyone. It takes skills and experience. During the peak season between February and May each year, they clamber up trellises of bamboo and vines at sunrise, only descending at sundown. To keep their hands firmly on the trellises or bamboo scaffoldings, some times as high as 200-300 feet from the cave floor, they balance torchlight between their teeth to look for what they call “White Gold.” Their only tool is the three-pronged instrument called rada, which they believe that gods of the cave approved of and anointed. No harvesters would attempt to touch nests without rada.
One harvester can collect as many as 50 or 60 nests a day. Sometimes, like mountain climbers, the harvesters hammer metal poles into rocks and boulders to attach themselves to the cave walls. Many have died when a rotted bamboo pole or a boulder gave in under their weight, but such accidents never discouraged the surviving harvesters.
There are taboos among the nest-gatherers: One must not make noises when he is on the job, for noises disturb the cave-spirits and they would punish him; he should never sit on the knot of lianas where the scaffolding is secured, for it is a sacred spot held together by the gods; uttering such words as “blood” or “falling” or “death” or “fear” is the same as cursing the cave-spirits.
Swiftlets lose their homes three times a season. When their first nests are stolen, they rebuild them quickly on the same spots, only to lose them again even before they can produce their eggs. But when the third nests are built, most harvesters wait until the young birds are raised and gone, but some ruthless ones destroy them anyway, spilling eggs and sending the fledglings to the floor.
Many scientists, including Dr. Kong, are worried about rapidly disappearing swiftlets. The walls in some caves are completely abandoned; only the rotted bamboo scaffoldings remind nest-harvesters of what they have destroyed. But such reminder doesn’t stop the harvesters from following the birds to their new homes, for “White Gold” is too precious for them.
As Zoologist Kang Nee of the National University of Singapore believes, the harvest cycles of swiftlets’ nests must coordinate with the birds breeding patterns before they become extinct. Until this is done, the number of swiftlets will rapidly shrink while the price of nests will keep soaring.
For the sake of swiftlets, I hope the general American public wouldn’t discover Bird-nest Soup at any time soon.

Inchon Landing Remembered
Historians acknowledge that the United Nations Forces’ landing at Inchon Harbor on September 15, 1950, was one of the most successful operations in modern military history. Twenty-five thousand tons of supplies, 6600 vehicles, 260 vessels, and 74,000 men were mobilized to capture the enemy-occupied harbor.
Then a nine-year-old growing up in a war-torn country, I thought General MacArthur was God’s angel who turned a losing battle into a winning one overnight, with a simple stroke of a magic baton. But recently I met an Overland Park (Kansas) resident, and my perception of the Inchon Landing and the most admired general or all American generals changed. Although it was MacArthur who engineered and executed the massive plan with precision, men like Corporal Clyde Koch stepped into enemy territory, sweated, bled, and even died in order to retake the harbor.
Veteran Koch claims that he was only a small cog in a big war-machine. But for “a small cog,” he showed much pride as he began to talk about that September day fifty-four years ago.
Then 20, Koch watched a barrage of fire on the distant shore from a landing-ship-tank (LST). “This is for real,” he said to himself. He was nervous, but not that much, he says. He had been a Marine for three years. After six months training on Guam Island he served in the US garrison troops in Tsing-Tao, a large beer-producing port city in the northern province of Shantung, China. [After World War II ended the US troops were in China, mainly to support the Chinese government and to disarm the Japanese troops who had occupied China since 1937. During the following years, while Chian Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang and Mao Ze-Dong’s Communists fought bloody murder, the US troops remained in China, this time, to discourage communism from spreading. With Mao’s Communists taking over throughout Mainland China in 1949, all US troops returned to the United States.]
Koch’s unit, Charlie Battery, (1st Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division) had been aboard a landing-ship-tank (LST) since they had left Pusan on September 7th, and everyone was anxious for landing. The sea had been so choppy that motion sickness was a common ailment among the Marines. As morning wore on, enemy resistance seemed weakening, and finally, in mid-afternoon, orders came to abandon the LST and board a smaller landing craft loaded with 105mm howitzers.
As the boat carried them to the shore during the high tide, Koch was surprised to discover that the communists were nowhere to be found.
"The Navy pilots have done a wonderful job of clearing the shore with their bombardment,” Koch says. “It was an easy landing for us.”
The beach was littered with dead bodies, driftwood, and abandoned military equipment. In one area, behind a blood smeared chain-link fence, about 60 young North Korean prisoners, barely 16 or 17 years of age, sat in a group, stark naked, except loin cloths, hands bound behind them. It bothered Koch that one’s victory meant another’s defeat. But he had no time to be sentimental about it: his artillery unit was ready to move again.
While air-fighters dropped bombs and napalm onto the town of Inchon, and the Infantry marched toward the capital, Charlie Battery crossed the Han River on pontoon boats to secure the area for the advancing troops. They blasted enemy equipment and its defenders along the shoreline. By the evening of the third day, they were at the edge of Kimpo airfield on the outskirts of Seoul, and within hours, the 6,000-foot runway was captured. The UN suffered fewer than 300 casualties, but the enemy lost ten times more.
On September 25th, Seoul was officially liberated from the enemy, although it took another three days for the UN troops to drive the fanatical North Koreans out of the area. On September 28th, General MacArthur escorted South Korea’s 74-year-old president, Syng-man Rhee, back to his presidential seat at the partially damaged National Assembly Hall.
Surrounded by smartly dressed U.S. soldiers imported from the Occupation Force in Japan for the occasion, General MacArthur solemnly declared the city liberated in God’s name, before leading the teary audience into the Lord’s prayer.
The old Korean president couldn't hide his overwhelming emotion as he expressed his “undying gratitude” to MacArthur and the American military for restoring the capital’s lost dignity. Afterwards, from the front lawn of the presidential mansion, the general and the president watched South Korea’s military band parading triumphantly through the ruined streets.
Koch wasn’t at the ceremony but he heard about it. He was with his fellow marines on Inchon Beach, waiting for orders to embark on a new sea-journey to Wonsan, one of the major harbors in North Korea. A month later, he and his unit would march to the Chosin Reservoir, where the Chinese Volunteer Corp ambushed them mercilessly. On December 2nd that year, Koch was wounded severely when an enemy bullet entered into his abdomen and lodged in his hip, which he would carry with him for years afterwards. After a lengthy treatment and recuperation, first in Yakasuka Japan and then in Hawaii, he was discharged from the Marine Corps on August 18th 1951.
Today, Inchon is a vibrant harbor boasting a giant bronze statue of General MacArthur overlooking the beaches and its modern international airport where tourists pour in every year from all over the world to get a glimpse of a historical harbor. Four years ago, Veteran Koch was one of them.
“It was great going back,” he says with a smile.
Although the Korean War was known as the Forgotten War and the American soldiers didn’t return with glory and shining images as victors at the war’s end, to Inchon and to those who lived through a long period of fear and destruction, it was unforgettable.

School On the Mountain
(August 1950)

Wearing his glasses, my father studied the map attached to the letter announcing the new location of the school and when classes would begin. "It's near the Buddhist temple," he said. "Do you know how to find it?" he asked my younger brother Kwon and me.
“Yes,” we replied.
The ancient, colossal temple with a pagoda in the front was easily visible from anywhere in the neighborhood, including the playground at Crystal Elementary School. The retreating South Korean Army had taken over our school building last July to shelter injured soldiers, almost immediately after the communists had invaded the South. After eight weeks of long summer vacation, the logest we had had, we were going back to school, this time, to a mountain slope. Other than visiting the wounded soldiers at various school buildings and entertaining them with songs and dances, we didn’t have much to do for eight weeks. I was ready for school.
"The new school is outdoors," Father said. "It's nothing like your old school. Don't be disappointed that you don't have desks and chairs or a blackboard. Considering that many people have lost their homes, family, and all their possessions, you're lucky to have a school to go to. You can learn anywhere, indoors or outdoors, standing up or sitting down."
"Yes, Father."
"One other thing," he went on. "Hiking is good exercise. People pay money to go hiking, but you're doing it without spending a coin. You're lucky that way, too."
"I'm ready for school," I confessed. “I miss my friends.”
"Good. Until next Monday, you have five days to review what you've learned before your school closed. And don’t forget to ask your mother to get you some new clothes and socks."
"We won’t."
Father dismissed us with a nod, as he always did, and I went to my room. It seemed like years since my last day of school. Ammong all my friends, I missed Yoja the most. She was the shortest kid in our class who lived in a village that didn’t have a public school. Her train-conductor father dropped her off at the station every morning, like a package, on his way to the main station downtown, and she walked to my house to fetch me. After school, she would follow me home like a stray puppy and wait for the five-thirty train, eating everything I ate and doing homework with me. Sometimes I was tired of being with her so many hours a day, but unlike my younger brother Kwon who thought I wasn't worth much, Yoja respected me and regarded me as her bodyguard.
The street gangs were always looking for a tiny thing like Yoja walking alone, who might have a coin or two in her pocket. Once, when I had been sick and missed school, Yoja was attacked and came away with bruises on her face and empty pockets. "It wouldn't have happened if you were with me," she said to me when I returned to school. I hadn't been too sympathetic for her, because the neighborhood boys never bothered me. They knew I could scream like a siren. Once I had tagged along with the cook to the market, and while she was bargaining with a fish vendor, I wandered alone. As I idly admired the intoxicating smell of roasted chestnut at one corner, a hand suddenly snatched me and began dragging me away. I screamed just as I knew how. My assailant, a boy about fifteen, let go of me and vanished like the wind. I had an unexpected feast afterwards as many vendors felt sorry for me and gave me roasted chestnuts, boiled corn, and sticky taffy to take home.
I had so many things I wanted to tell Yoja, about the refugees who had lived with us, especially the little boy who had died in our own home, and five days seemed too long to wait. But like always, time flew before I knew it.
At seven-thirty on Monday morning, I heard Yoja singing "Jong-ahhhhhhh" at the top of her lungs, and I rushed to the door with my book bag in my hand.
"I missed you, Jong-ah!" Yoja shrieked the moment she saw me, and I said, "Me too. The vacation was awfully long without you."
She giggled. I always felt taller, older, and smarter when I was with her. She showed me her new book bag--a red one with leather straps--and I showed her my new black and white canvas shoes. I wished I had a new book bag, too, like hers, but Mother had said mine was only a year old and that a book bag should last for several years.
The air was crisp and the sky clear blue as Yoja and I headed for school. Many school kids walked along with us, chattering nonstop, each with a book bag in hand. For a while, walking was easy because the dirt road was wide and leveled, but when it changed into a narrow trail, we began to sweat. I helped Yoja whenever she slipped on the loose gravel and fell to her knees, and she did the same for me. By the time we reached the Buddhist temple, we were exhausted.
A wooden post bearing Chinese letters that said "Temporary Crystal Elementary School" stood on the front lawn of the temple. From there, the view of the town was almost surreal. In the early morning haze, our neighborhood looked like a toy village in a cartoon movie. Army trucks wormed through the streets. Houses puffed wisps of smoke through chimneys. The vendors at market were ants setting up their tiny booths. A cluster of clouds hung so low that I thought I could touch it with a long stick. At the seashore beyond, American ships glided through the calm blue water, each with a flag on its mast, blaring horns as if promising victory. We were in a different world now, broader and loftier than the one I had known all my nine years.
As Father had warned us, there was no schoolhouse or jungle gyms or swing set that I could see. Instead, overgrown weeds brushed against my legs and cow paddies dried in the brilliant sunlight here and there amid rocks of all sizes and shapes. I missed our old school that had jungle gyms, seesaws, a room-size sandbox, and several monkey bars.
More kids showed up, wiping their foreheads and panting like dogs. Two boys next to me had crew cuts and spoke in a Seoul dialect. For some reason, they looked smarter and more mature than the local boys whose heads were shaven like temple monks. One of the two boys saw me staring and snarled, "What are you looking at, girl?"
"Nothing," I said, turning away.
"Do you like me, country girl? Tell me. You were staring at me!"
Country girl? I was furious, yet I felt intimidated. I should have paid no attention to them, I thought.
The other boy, the shorter one, said, "She wants you to kiss her, dummy," and sniggered.
My face was on fire. I pretended I didn't hear what he said and moved closer to Yoja. The local boys would never use the word "kiss" to us girls. They would tease us, calling, "fatso” or "squash flowers", but they knew better than saying such a bad word as "kiss" at school.
Yoja suddenly nudged my elbow. "Mia's parents died during vacation!"
"What?" I wasn't sure if I heard her right.
"Nam-hee just told me. Mia is an orphan now. Her father died during a guerrilla attack on Chiri Mountain some weeks ago and her mother was killed just last week. Can you believe it?"
I couldn't believe it. "How does Nam-hee know?"
"Why wouldn't she?" said Yoja, in all knowing manner. "She lives on the same block as Mia does."
Poor Mia. I wasn't too surprised to hear that her father had died some weeks earlier. He was a soldier. Everyday the radio announced how many soldiers were killed and how many wounded and how many captured. But Mia's mother wasn't a soldier.
"How did she die?" I asked.
"She was on her way to church last Sunday morning, Nam-hee said, and her long chima got caught in the wheels of an American truck racing by. You know how those Yankees drive, don’t you? She died instantly."
Mia was the first girl I knew who lost both of her parents. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like not having both of my parents. What’s going to happen to her? I asked, and Yoja said that her grandparents took her and her younger sister to Kim-hae, a town some distance north of Pusan.
It saddened me that I would never see her again. Mia had many warts on her hands, which she hated. During class, she used to poke them with her nails until they bled. Still, she could do many things with her wart-covered hands that I couldn't do. She could knit with two bamboo-needles and some old yarn. She could scribble some Chinese letters I was unfamiliar with. She even made a doll with tall grass blades, using a stick to make it stand up. I couldn't believe that she would no longer be with us.
Everyone had something to talk about. I overheard that our music teacher and some others teachers joined the military and were now fighting somewhere south of Taejon. Mr. Lee had a rich tenor voice and taught us sing choir. For some reason, he used to make me sing in front of the kids, which I didn't like. I hoped that he wouldn’t die.
The principal appeared, wearing large, dark-rimmed glasses that made him look like an owl wearing a man's suit. Positioning himself on a huge flat rock, Mr. Owl began speaking, but we could barely hear him. Worse yet, whenever an American airplane passed overhead, we only saw his lips moving.
He went on and on, and then suddenly he began shouting, throwing his arms upward. Everyone shouted, too, lifting his or her arms like the principal.
"Destroy communism!"
“Demolish Kim Il Sung and his Red soldiers!"
"Down with Stalin and the Soviet Union!"
"Down with Mao Tse-tung and Red China!”
"Victory, United Nations!"
"Long live President Rhee and South Korea!"
"Long live President Truman and every American soldier in our country!"
The shouting abruptly ended, and he stepped down. Teacher Kim gathered us and led us to a spot directly
behind the temple.
It was quiet. The cool breeze was delightful in our lungs. We could see the back of the ancient structure and two stone Buddhist gods smiling serenely. While Miss Kim organized her books and papers for the class, we sat on the bare dirt and looked around. Some hens and chicks paraded through our classroom, pecking on our pencils, erasers, and notebooks, as if tasting them. A dozen pigs in a pen showed no interest in anything except eating, their heads buried in feed, but the cows tied to the posts in the corner welcomed us with friendly moos, bells ringing.
Everywhere I looked, there was something entertaining. A colorful funeral procession followed the mountain trail, the chanter's voice shrilling through the fields and valleys. The monks walked along the curvy trail, each with a begging-sack attached to his side. Several women at a silvery brook down below were busy, beating their laundry with wooden sticks and talking at the same time.
An old, stooped monk approached Miss Kim and they chatted for a moment. Teacher Kim turned to us.
"Children, Master Chang would like to have a word with you. He's the headmaster here at the temple. Please welcome him!" She began clapping and we all clapped.
"Good morning, children," he said in unhurried words. "Welcome to the Temple of Heaven and Earth. I'm glad I have this chance to meet you and talk to you about these mountains. When I was your age some fifty years ago, we were afraid to climb here because there was a thick forest and tigers, bears, and wolves roamed everywhere."
How amazing, I thought. How did we lose the trees and animals?
"In the beginning of the century, the Japanese came and chopped down all of the trees and destroyed the homes of wildlife. Do you know what they did with the lumber? They made battleships, airplanes, and weapons to destroy people and civilization. It's sad, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"There's something I want you to remember while you're here. This temple is a sacred place. These two statues you're looking at are gods who watch over the mountains. Twice we found them weeping. I'm serious, children. The first time was in the early forties when the specially trained Japanese policemen butchered many Korean activists, and the second time was last June, after the North Koreans invaded South Korea."
I had never heard of Buddhist gods crying. I knew the Virgin Mary appeared to some children in Europe and told them to pray the rosary. I felt uneasy because I didn't know how to pray to Buddhist gods.
Master Change was still talking. "Do not destroy any living things here on the mountain--trees, flowers, bugs, squirrels, frogs, anything that's alive and breathing. If you do, Lord Buddha will weep again. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"If we take care of what we have on this earth, the heavens god will bless us, and someday these hills and valleys will be covered with thick foliage again. The god of nature will replenish what was lost if he sees that we deserve it. Keep the place clean, too, children. Do not throw away any paper or candy wrappers. I want you to enjoy the clean and fresh mountain air and peaceful surroundings, while you share this temple of gods with us. Well, that's all I have to say for now. Have a good day and be good to your teacher." His hands folded, Master Chang bowed to us and then to Teacher Kim.
Teacher Kim bowed back, and the old monk headed off toward the boys' class beneath us, the end of his ashen coat catching the gentle wind.
That first day on the mountain, we learned a valuable lesson: not having desks and chairs or blackboards wasn't a serious problem for school kids, but not having bathrooms was. We girls complained to Teacher Kim about it.
"I don't know what to tell you," she said, showing wrinkles on her forehead. "I can ask Master Chang to let you girls use their outhouse, but I doubt he'd say yes. Hauling away human waste is very expensive here on the mountains. Why don't you go under big rocks or behind bushes? Know what I mean?"
It wasn't easy finding a safe and private spot under the bright sun in an open meadow. A boy or two would suddenly appear and yell, "Look, the girls are peeing over there!" and then a bunch of them would rush toward us like mischievous puppies, yelping and giggling. We used secret codes and messages among ourselves to indicate when and where to go, but the boys always knew exactly where to find us. We had no choice but to train ourselves to delay the urge until we were safely home.
Besides not having bathrooms, we had no textbooks either. The first few days Teacher Kim had us write letters to the soldiers on the front, and we wrote many of them. But on the fifth day, when the books still had not arrived, she taught us a song called “To Father with Love.“

Primroses and balsams bloomed, Father,
Along the fence we planted together,
Reminding me of the day you left
Turning back and back again as I waved.

You promised you'd be back with gifts
When the flowers bloom and I'm taller.
I wait by the window, my ears open
Hurry, before the flowers fade away.

I enjoyed singing toward the open air, looking at the layers of the distant mountains ahead. The song made me wonder what it would be like if my father was fighting somewhere and I couldn’t see him any more. The melody stayed with me all day, along with an image of a young girl waiting for her father.
On weekends, we visited our old school building, not to study there but to entertain wounded soldiers with songs and some gifts we made with our own hands. Every room smelled of alcohol. Soldiers lay side by side on military cots, like sardines in a can. They seemed glad to see us when we filed in and sang for them. Whenever we finished a song, they applauded loudly, and we sang every song we knew. When we left, many of them said, "Thank you, girls. Please come back!" We responded to them by smiling and waving our hands.
One afternoon, our teacher told us that we would entertain American soldiers the following Sunday. We couldn't believe it.
"Music is an international language," she said. "It's a powerful way to say thank you to the American soldiers fighting for us. You'll each make a thank-you card tomorrow, and the parents' association will prepare some gifts for them, too, which you're going to deliver to the soldiers on Sunday."
"They can't read what we write," the class leader pointed out.
"That's okay,” Teacher Kim answered. “They will know what you mean, because the language of the heart is the same everywhere. They'll be happy to hear any song, but I think it will be nice if we can sing some American songs for them, don't you think?"
"Yes!"
Until late that afternoon, she taught us an American song titled "Danny Boy" translated into Korean. We felt grand as we sang "Danny Boy" over and over until we memorized it.
The night before our grand appearance before the American soldiers, Mother ironed my red-white Korean dress and told me to try it on. I did and stood before the mirror in the front room. Although the fabric was stiff and scratchy against my neck, I loved the dress with roomy, rainbow-colored sleeves. When I lifted my arms, I resembled a huge tropical bird soaring in the sky. When I stood erect, arms at my sides, I was a young bride in a storybook, waiting for my groom to arrive. And when I stretched my skirt wide open and whirled around the room, I was a folk dancer. Sunday couldn’t come fast enough for me.
Mother said, "Make sure not to rip the hem. You're too clumsy sometimes."

On Sunday afternoon around two, we waited in front of the three-story building surrounded by a red brick fence. A long line of schoolchildren our age was there too. Two American sentries, one on each side of the black iron-gate, allowed only one group in at a time, and when our turn came, a Korean man wearing an American army uniform appeared and motioned us to follow him. In the corridor many American soldiers with long legs and big noses passed by us, smiling. We saw no Koreans, except the one leading us. The walls on both sides were white and clean. We entered a large room where many gaunt soldiers sat on benches and watched some dancers on the stage, smoking.
Soon, it was our turn. Facing the soldiers, under Teacher Kim's baton, we sang one song after another. When we sang "Danny Boy," the soldiers applauded loudly; some even whistled with fingers in their mouths. With Teacher Kim's quick nod and broad smile, we sang "Danny Boy" again as an encore. More applause followed.
The same Korean soldier came and ushered us to another building connected by a long corridor that had many windows on both sides. In front of a large room, we stopped.
"These men are wounded," the Korean man informed us. "Be careful not to touch any devices in the room as you go in. And don't make too much noise.”
Our teacher gave each of us a white silk handkerchief embroidered with delicate hibiscus, our national flower, and we filed into the room. Teacher Kim didn't follow. She stood and watched us from a window.
Awkwardly, I moved to a bed next to a wall where a soldier with a crew cut lay, his face ghostly pale. He didn't seem much older than my oldest brother. I bowed to him and he smiled. I handed him the handkerchief and the thank-you note I had written on rice paper with an ink brush that said, “Thank you for fighting for us and God bless you!”
The soldier babbled something in English. I just stared at him, uncomfortable. He inspected the handkerchief, flipping it twice, before he laid it on his pillow. He then opened my note. He smiled as if he understood what I wrote. Then, he did something strange: He took my note to his lips and kissed it.
I quickly bowed to him and left his side, feeling my cheeks burning. I don't remember how I came out of the room, but I saw Teacher Kim smiling. "Very good," she said, nodding slowly. What was very good? I wanted to know, but I didn't ask. After everyone came out we followed the Korean soldier to the gate.
Riding the bus home, I kept thinking about that pale-looking soldier. I wondered if he had a sister or a niece or a cousin my age in America and he missed her. I also wished that he wouldn’t die so that he could go back to his country.

One day on the mountain the sky suddenly darkened and raindrops as large as American marbles began falling on our heads. Teacher Kim dismissed us immediately and we packed our bags in a hurry. Grabbing Yoja's hand, I headed for the narrow trail like everyone else. In the mad dash, I fell, dragging Yoja to the ground with me. Before I could worry about my new shoes, a bright light blinded my eyes and ear-shattering thunder followed. Pulling myself up, I helped Yoja to her feet, and together we joined others. Some men I had never seen before waited for us where the dirt trail ended and the gravel road began. "Hurry, children!" they yelled, waving us on. "The creek is rising fast."
A fierce light flashed and vanished. Thunder roared louder than ever. I imagined that bombs were exploding on our heads. We ran faster. At the silvery brook, we jumped over together without falling, and we kept running.
Mother, holding a large bamboo umbrella, met us at the door. "Where's Kwon?" she demanded.
I had no breath left to tell her I had no idea where my younger brother was. I only blinked.
"You don't know?"
I shook my head.
"Why don't you know?"
I clamped my mouth shut. After falling and getting soaked like a mouse rescued from a drain hole, I didn’t want to hear her say, "Where's Kwon?" I hoped to hear, "I'm glad you made it, Jong-ah," but ”Where’s Kwon”? I was of no importance to her, only another mouth she had to feed at mealtime. Angry tears burned my eyes.
"On a day like this," she lectured me, "you must pay attention to your little brother. I'm glad you remembered to bring your friend home, but next time, bring your brother, too."
"Do you want me to go back and bring him home?” I asked her angrily. “Do you care if I die in the rain?"
"What a silly thing to say," Mother said, her tone of voice mellowing a little now. "Let's go inside," she said, pushing Yoja and me toward the enclosed porch.
Grabbing a towel, she began to dry my hair, but I pushed her hand away.
She paused, then asked, "Do you want some barley tea and rice cakes, girls?"
"Keep them for Kwon," I muttered.
"Jong-ah!"
I took Yoja's hand and dragged her to my room.
"Why can't we have some tea and rice cake, Jong-ah?" Yoja asked but I told her to shut up. Burying my face in my pillow I let tears to come. I couldn't stop feeling sorry for myself and I sobbed and sobbed.
Kwon came home within minutes. I heard him tell Mother that the narrow creek, which Yoja and I jumped over earlier, had swelled so much that the third-grade teachers and the neighbors had to carry each child on their backs to the other side of the creek.
The rain didn't stop for days. The wind was so strong that the gingko tree in the corner of the courtyard danced wildly, losing many of its fan-shaped leaves, and the roof tiles rattled like the teeth of giant skeletons. There was nothing wonderful about watching huge raindrops exploding in the courtyard. It was spooky.
The rain finally stopped after five days and school resumed. The mountain was ever so beautiful after a rain. Everything sparkled with renewed vitality: the hills and valleys looked greener, the sky clear blue and bottomless, and boulders whiter and luminous in the bright sunlight. The ground was still wet and soggy, so Miss Kim told us to find two large rocks each, one to sit on and one to put our notebooks on. It took an hour to find all of us the rocks flat enough as desks and chairs.
Miss Kim said we still had no textbooks. "We've been waiting for them to get here, but they're not coming after all," she said. "Everything was lost during an air raid." "Is that supposed to be bad news?" a girl behind me whispered and giggled, but I didn't laugh. The words "air raid" didn't sound funny at all to me.
Teacher Kim lifted a thick bundle of papers from her bag and said, "You're going to copy Korean Literature with your own hands, girls. I borrowed five copies from the other teachers and divided each of them into five sections. When you're done copying one section, exchange it with those who’ve finished another section of the book. You have three weeks to copy all ten chapters."
Coming home, Yoja and I sat at the desk and began to copy the first chapter. It was painstakingly slow, but I enjoyed watching my own handwriting fill the entire notebook page. I said, "I don't mind being a writer when I grow up."
Yoja snorted in my face. "Writers don't make money."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Everyone knows it."
"What do you want to be when you're older?" I asked.
"Me? A fashion designer! I want to make lots and lots of money making western dresses."

A Lost Friend
Wilbert (Shorty) Estabrook, now 73, lived 37 months in a prison along the scenic Yalu River during the Korean War. Over all, the most devastating facts about his captivity, including the 110-mile long “Death March” in 30 degree below freezing temperature on a snow-covered mountain road, was losing his buddy, Jack Samms. To Shorty, every soldier left beside the road during the march is Jack. His poem says it all.
I lost my friend along the way
To this place I recall now
I didn’t want to lose him
But I did and don’t know how.

I remember the way he looked at me
As I laid him down to rest
He said to me, “I can’t go on Old Pal,
You’ve seen my very best.

So leave me now and go your way
And when your journey ends
Remember me beside this road
Your buddy, your friend.”

Shorty met Jack at the prisoners’ camp in Pyongyang. They both had been captured in mid-July, 1950, near Taejon--a town 70 miles south of Seoul--a few days apart from one another. They had been beaten at the time of capture, too, and lost their army boots, watches, rings, and wallets to the enemy soldiers. Jack was a “country boy” from Ashland Kentucky, and Shorty was from a potato farm near Oakland, Maine. They both had been in Japan for nearly two years in the U.S. Occupation Army, doing easy duties, before they arrived in Korea, and knew nothing about killing people with real rifles.
Life took a quick turn for them, and now they were prisoners in a school building on the outskirts of Pyongyang, where 735 soldiers and 79 civilians consisting of Catholic religious leaders, diplomats, engineers, businessmen, and families with children all lived in the same building. The communists fed them thin cabbage soup and millet, maize, and a very small amount of rice mixed together. Everyone was hungry even right after a meal, but Jack craved sweets. He’d say, "If I were back in Japan now I would go to the snack bar and get me 2 chocolate Eclaires with the cream on the top and some ice cream to boot.” In Shorty’s account, you could almost taste the Eclaire melting in your mouth just by listening to him. Jack also talked about his home in Kentucky with longing, including his mother’s cooking, until everyone was “crazy with homesickness.”
The injured prisoners suffered the most. Without medical doctors or supplies, their wounds became infected in the sweltering heat and attracted maggots and flies. The un-wounded soldiers helped them walk, but the severely wounded ones had to be carried on makeshift stretchers.
On the train to Pyongyang, the guards wearing red stars on their uniforms had been brutal. Like many other prisoners, Shorty had received a heavy blow on the back of his head, which fractured his skull and knocked him unconscious. Even after a half century, Shorty says, it still gives him a severe migraine headache from time to time. For this wound, he received a Purple Heart Medal at the war’s end.
Through the windows of the school building in Pyongyang, Shorty and Jack watched the U.S. planes dropping bombs nearby. They hoped that their American colleagues would soon find and liberate them from the enemy, but at the same time, they knew what those bombs could do to them.
On September 5th, they boarded a train again, not knowing their destination. They traveled at night to avoid the American bombers, and during the day, the prisoners were forced to leave the train and hide in wooded areas on a hillside until dark, while the severely wounded soldiers remained in the cars.
A week later they arrived in the frontier town Manpo-jin along the Yalu River. An old Japanese army barracks became their home for the following six weeks, where they cooked their own food with the grain, vegetables, and occasional meat provided for them. While here, the guards weren’t as brutal as before. Compared to what they had been accustomed to, their stay in Manpo was most endurable.
But in early October, they were on the move again. By now the UN troops had a successful amphibious landing on Inchon, a port city near the 38th parallel on the west coast, trapping the enemy between two UN Forces-—one group pushing up from the Nakdong river area and the other pressing down from the newly captured Inchon and other cities. The South Korean army and the UN troops had already crossed the 38th parallel weeks earlier and were advancing farther north, and the communists were frantic about hiding the prisoners. After moving twice more, each time farther away from the approaching UN troops, on the last day of October, a new People’s army major took over.
The Lieutenant was tall for a Korean, and with a Genghis-Kahn frown, he displayed much cruelty. “The Tiger” became his nickname. During a nine-day “Death March” along a 110-mile snow-covered mountain terrain, the Tiger destroyed 98 lives, including two elderly women--a Catholic nun and the wife of a Russian diplomat--for not walking fast enough for him. The prisoners who couldn’t walk any more would drop on the side of the road, and with The Tiger’s instructions, the guards would shoot them and shove the lifeless bodies over the hill.
Shorty and Jack both survived the Death March, but another surprise awaited, which separated them permanently. One bitterly cold evening in mid-November, the prisoners were on foot again. Shivering and skidding on the snow-covered path, they reached a cluster of low buildings huddling together near the road. The guards packed them in, but the buildings were too small for all 700 soldiers. Shorty was shoved into one of the rooms with a hundred or more, squeezed like bean sprouts in a pan, but the guards kept pushing more men into the room. Seeing Jack still standing outside, Shorty and others tried to pull him in, but Jack couldn’t fit in the already packed room.
Swearing something in Korean, one of the guards began hitting Jack with his rifle-butt, and when Jack screamed, he pulled him outside, knocked him onto the ground, and pounded his head repeatedly. As Jack lay motionless, the guard walked away as if he had destroyed a fly. Three other prisoners died that night by the blows of the rifles.
“There was nothing we could do, except cry,” Shorty says. “We all knew what could happen to us if we tried to help our friends.”
Shorty lived in captivity another 33 months, during which time he witnessed 485 soldiers and 45 civilians deteriorating and dying, including elderly Catholic bishops, priests, and nuns. Most of them perished from complications of exhaustion, pneumonia, and dysentery, due to the Death March. In an effort to save the remaining sick and wounded, Shorty helped establish a “Hospital” where he and others cleaned the patients, killed lice for them, kept the place warm, and cooked and fed them, too, whatever was necessary to make them comfortable. Of all Shorty cared for, only one survived and is still living.
Shorty was recognized for his selfless service toward his “Brothers” and received a Bronze Star Medal at the war’s end. When asked how he made it through such a long and horrid ordeal that claimed so many lives, Shorty ponders a moment and replies, “That question will haunt me until I lay in my grave.”

[Wilbert “Shorty” Estabrook is the founder and the leader of the Tiger Survivors. www.tigersurvivors.org]

Prelude to a Cold War
My rooster Sunriser died the day the North Koreans launched a surprise attack on the South in June 1950. He was slaughtered early that morning for crowing in the middle of the night and turned into a pot of soup for breakfast. As I sat before my steaming bowl that morning, I vaguely remembered hearing a frantic cluck and flutter of wings from my bedroom, but I had never imagined that he was in danger. Had I known about it, I'd have run outside and rescued him. Instead, all I could do was pick up his bloody feathers scattered in the well area and shed a few tears.

As if Sunriser had never existed, my brothers and sisters said nothing as they ate, slurping soup, lips smacking, spoons clattering. Only my mother seemed uneasy, watching me stare at my bowl. I could feel her glance penetrating the side of my face, which I ignored. Finally she said, "Your rooster must have gone mad, Jong-ah, blowing his horn in the middle of the night."

I didn't respond.

"There was nothing I could do," she said. "You know what the neighbors might have done if we didn't get rid of him. A mad rooster brings nothing but ill-fortunes."

I secretly wished that Sunriser had never come to us. Had he stayed at Uncle Hong's spacious farm surrounded by thick cornfields, he would be still alive, chasing hens or striding proudly in the yard, boasting his colorful feathers.

It was the previous summer when Sunriser had joined our family. My mother's cousin farmed in a nearby village that had neither a train station nor a post office, and all summer long, he made weekly trips to the local market on his three-wheel motorcycle that had a trailer attached to it.

Once in a while, he stopped by to see us on the way to the market, his trailer loaded with baskets of yellow corn, tomatoes, cabbages, and huge watermelons glistening with morning dew. That morning Uncle Hong was a celebrity. As soon as his three-wheeler pulled in, we gathered around him, asking, "What's that noise, Uncle Hong?"

Smiling, he parked his motorcycle, walked to the trailer, and lifted a bird the size of a football with colorful, fluffy feathers.

Everyone exclaimed, "A rooster!"

"I thought you kids might want to raise him," he said, untying the straw rope around the rooster's feet.

"We do!"

"This kind is rare," he explained. "The Chinese use them mostly for cockfighting because they're Mongolian and Siberian, the toughest you can find."

The next moment everyone gasped as the rooster liberated himself from Uncle Hong's hands and rose effortlessly toward the roof, cackling.

"Rascal," Uncle Hong muttered, his eyes following the bird, his chin tilted to the sky.
The rooster landed safely on the tile roof, flapped his wings, and crowed, Cockodecockoooo...
Uncle Hong grabbed the broom standing in the corner and swung at the roof, but the broom didn't reach the rooster.

He flew off again, his wings wide open, and came down on the brick fence, only a few feet from his assailant. As he flapped his wings, Uncle Hong swung the broom, and the rooster dropped to the ground like a duck shot out of the sky. Dust rose.

Uncle Hong snatched him up, smiling. "Keep him in a box today," he ordered Eldest Brother, handing him the bird. "By tomorrow morning, he'll calm down and behave as if he's lived here all his life." Uncle Hong patted the rooster for the last time with his calloused hand and headed to the three-wheeler. "See you all soon, if it doesn't rain."

"Thank you, Uncle Hong," we chorused.

Shifting his glassy eyes, the rooster was eager to escape again, and I got nervous. "He'll get away," I warned Eldest Brother, but he didn't seem worried. He gently lowered him to the ground, and the rooster began walking toward the fence, his head lifted, inspecting his new home.

I followed him everywhere, the woodpile along the fence, the back of the house, passing the grain storage room and kitchen on the way, and the front again. I offered him food, too. When he paid no attention to a fistful of rice I had sprinkled in front of him, I chopped green lettuce and served him on a chipped ceramic plate. He still showed no interest, so I gave him sesame seed mixed with rice-cake crumbs. He only pecked at the plate briefly and walked away, clucking. Just as I was about to give up, the rooster stopped before the wooden tub collecting rainwater from the gutter above the kitchen, picked up a water bug, and swallowed it, without even blinking.

All that afternoon, I chased flies with a flyswatter.

Mother was happy. "Why don't you take care of the rooster?" she asked me. "You seem to know what to do with him."

Excited, I said, "I'll do my best."

"It's about time you had some responsibilities, Jong-ah. You'll soon be ten," she said.

I slept little that night, occupied with my responsibility and the rooster's well-being. As I lay awake at dawn, looking at the dark ceiling, I wondered what name would be appropriate for him: Feathered Prince? Conqueror? Plumed Warrior? I couldn't think of a good name because I had never owned a rooster before. Then I heard him crowing loudly. Minutes later the rice-papered screen door became lit with grayish sunlight, and a name popped in my head. "You're Sunriser!"

"Why aren't you eating?" Mother asked.

"I'm not hungry."

"Not hungry? Are you upset because... "

"Yes!" I cut her off.

She laughed. "It's just a chicken, Jong-ah."

"He's not just a chicken," I blurted out. "He is my..."

"When's the funeral?” Eldest Brother teased. “Can I come?"

I stewed in silence.

Second Brother moaned in delight, "Mmmm, good soup!" as my two older sisters laughed in unison.

Bolting from the table, I ran to the room I shared with my older sisters.

"Jong-ah," I heard Mother saying, but I didn't turn around. It was more than I could take in one day.

I don't remember how long I had been lying on my mat, an hour or two perhaps, when I heard voices in our courtyard. I listened.

"Is it true? Are we at war with North Korea?" a man said.

My father replied, "The radio said that it's a border attack at the 38th parallel. Come in, come in! The twelve o'clock news will be on at any moment."

Another man said, "I hope you're right, Mr. Suh. My sons are in Seoul and I'm worried sick!"

I figured our neighbors came to listen to our Zenith radio again. None of them owned a radio. Whenever they heard rumors, they filed into our courtyard to confirm what they had heard. Five years earlier, they learned of Korea's liberation from Japan through the radio, and some time after that, the division of our peninsula was also announced on the air–-with the news that the Russians were occupying the northern half and the Americans the southern half.

Pressing my ear against the thin wall facing the front room, I could hear a faint voice murmuring.

"Raise the volume," someone said, and the announcer's voice came across loudly: "...this morning, the North Korean army launched a surprise attack on the South and is now advancing on Seoul. South Korean soldiers are no match for modern Russian tanks and weapons...." The announcer paused a moment to control his emotion, then continued, speaking faster. "Our soldiers don't have helmets or army boots to wear, and their only weapons are the German rifles abandoned by the Japanese at the end of World War II. Some soldiers are fighting with farm tools--axes, shovels, hoes--and even bamboo poles." He went on to say that many South Korean army officials had been away from their posts during the weekend and that even those on duty could do nothing before ninety thousand communists mowing down everything with Russian tanks and well-equipped infantry.
The room became quiet as someone turned the radio off. Then I heard Father say, "Tea, anyone?" but no one replied. I heard them putting their shoes on and then stepping onto the porch. They didn't even say Thank you or Good-bye to my parents as they hurried away.

While my parents seemed to be quietly talking, I grew frightened as the radio announcer's words repeated in fragments in my ears again: North Koreans...Russian tanks...38th parallel...the South Korean infantry without helmets or boots.... And then my mother's voice similarly repeated in bits and pieces too: "Your rooster... a mad rooster ... ill-fortunes."

I had a dream that night. Sunriser was alive! He was flying again, his wings spread wide. He didn't land on the roof this time but flew over it and soared into the blue expanse above, higher and higher. Then, to my amazement, he turned into an airplane, a huge American airplane, the one that had dropped five years earlier thousands of leaflets about Korea's liberation from Japan. But this one didn't drop anything. It's wings reflecting sunlight and roaring powerfully, it disappeared into a patch of lacy white cloud.

"Time for school," Mother's voice awakened me, and I sprang up. I was confused. Are we really at war? Or was it a dream? And why did Sunrise turn into an airplane, an American airplane?

At eight that morning, our fourth-grade teacher walked into the classroom, as usual, a black folder under her arm and her heels making noises on the hardwood floor. Something was different about her: she looked as though she had been crying.

"Children, I have bad news," she said in a congested voice as soon as she stood before us, holding a white handkerchief. "Yesterday morning, the North Korean communists invaded the South, and they're advancing to Seoul at this very moment. The Department of Defense announced today that all schools in Pusan must vacate their buildings immediately, because the South Korean military needs space to accommodate their injured personnel. Those of you who take trains home may leave now, but don't come to school tomorrow. We'll notify you when school resumes. The rest of you please stay and help the teachers and parents vacate the building. We don't have much time. Clear the walls immediately and empty your drawers."

We ripped off our artwork--drawings, poems, posters-- from the walls, feeling sad. We then cleared out desks and moved desks and chairs out of the room and lined them up in the hallway. The teachers ran in all directions, moving boxes and giving orders at the same time. Some grownups we had never seen before shuttled back and forth in the hallway, carrying furniture or large boxes.

Early the next morning, the work continued. While some of my classmates labeled boxes, swept the floor with bristle brooms, and wiped the windows with newspapers, a few of us sat on the floor, waxing the floorboards with broken candlesticks.

Around nine, a short, round soldier wearing a white armband walked in and planted himself in the middle of the classroom. “Well!" he said, shaking his head in disappointment. "You should have finished it yesterday."

We all looked at him, not knowing what authority he had over us.

"Hey, you over there, why are you sitting on the floor?” he asked, pointing in our direction.
Teacher Kim replied nervously, "They're waxing the floor, sir."

"Waxing the floor? What for? Who told you to wax the floor?"

"We always wax the floor, sir," our teacher said.

"Miss, do you know men are dying out there at this moment?" the soldier said, pointing his finger to the window. "They're dying because the military hospitals have no rooms for them. Tell the kids to move this podium to the hallway and get out! That's all you need to do. We'll take care of the rest!”

"Children, you heard him!" Teacher Kim clapped.

Our group rose and moved toward the podium.

"I said, we have no time!" the soldier yelled, without lifting a finger to help. How bold he is, I thought. As if he'd read my mind, he yelled at me. “You! What are you staring at? Didn't you hear what I said? Quick! Move that damn podium and get out of here!" He stamped the floor with his dirty boots, dropping tiny dirt clods around him.

A loud siren erupted outside, and the soldier left the room in a hurry. The drumming footsteps in the corridor intensified my fear and I looked at Teacher Kim. She moved to the window, and everyone followed her, like chicks following a hen.

A long parade of dust-covered army trucks and ambulances was crawling into our playground, sirens wailing. As we watched, the whole place turned into what seemed like army headquarters. Soldiers with armbands and men and women in white gowns emerged from the ambulances and began unloading men on stretchers and wheelchairs. Voices shouted, "Doctor, this man needs help!" "Nurse, over here! He needs transfusion!" "Water! Water..." Whistles blew. Booted feet ran. Bells buzzed.

Some men on stretchers seemed to be crying, covering their faces with their arms; some raised their feeble hands into the air in an effort to signal something to someone; and some lay lifelessly, too weak to even cry or call for help.

It was like watching a movie. Or is this a dream? I wasn't sure.

"Children," Teacher Kim awakened me. "This is the face of war. The men you are looking at could be your father or brother or uncle. What happened to them can happen to anyone, even to you. This is what the communists did to us."

We just stood there, scared.

The same soldier who had yelled at us earlier walked in again. "Miss," he said in a raspy voice, "we need some kids to give water to the soldiers."

"Follow me, children!"

Behind the building shaded by a spreading gingko tree, a sixth-grade teacher with graying hair was pumping water from the well, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Around his feet, many wooden buckets brimming with clear water stood in line. Teacher Kim handed each of us a bucket and a gourd dipper. "Follow the soldier. Do as he tells you to!" she ordered.

The soldier led us to a far corner of the playground where a large group of soldiers sat under the old oak--some smoking, some resting their heads on their raised knees, and others staring faraway.

"These men are very thirsty," the soldier informed us. He didn't seem rude any more. "Give each of them a dipperful, and if you run out of water, go back to the well and get more."

He assigned me to a row of men sitting on the ground, and I nervously handed water to the first soldier. He emptied the dipper instantly and said, "More, please!" As I poured more water into the dipper, some men in the back yelled to hurry up, but I couldn't move to the next one because Mother had told me again and again that I should never be impolite to grownups. I waited patiently until he had three dipperfuls before moving to the next soldier. How much they each drank, and how exhausted they looked! The water ran out after five or six soldiers, and I raced back to the well for another bucketful.

On the way back, I heard some men singing. I couldn't see them, but I heard them over a loud speaker.

March, Korean boys, blowing bugles!
Lift your heads and fear no one.
Glory is your aim, descendants of Tangun.
Fight courageously, Korean boys!

March, Korean boys, singing our anthem!
Jump over rivers and climb hills.
Unity is our aim, sons of warriors.
Fight courageously, Korean Boys!

The Art of Growing Old

A 17-century Korean scholar Wu Tahk wrote a shijo (ancient Korean poetry) about old age.
A stick in one hand, a branch in another
I guarded my youth with all my might
Alas, white hair ambushed me overnight.

In this day and age who's worried about one's white hair, one might say. True, with a few drops of hair coloring solution, white vanishes and you can be blond or brunette or platinum silver or ink black in a matter of minutes. Still, Mr. Wu's words comfort me: like him, I dislike getting old.

While my birthday was approaching a few weeks earlier, I was in a worst mood I had ever been in my life. I didn't want to be a year older. I finally was comfortable with my 60+ years, and without an advance notice, it was time to add another number to it. I toyed with the idea of slipping out of my nest and vanishing (temporarily), but where could I go? Even if I could find a place to hide away from the world, I would still get older. There was no escape: it was foolish to even imagine that I could hide from aging, like a child might from his or her dictator parent.

Still, on the morning of my birthday, I was determined not to surrender to my new age. But I knew better than looking for a stick or a branch to beat away my invisible foe, so I turned my phone off, removed the calendar, my family picture, and the mirror, and anything that would hint my new age from the walls. Sitting on my bed surrounded by bare walls, I was finally safe.

While pondering on the good days and bad days of my past, I remembered that I never enjoyed my age even when I was in the first grade. Growing up in a large family in Korea, surrounded by four brothers and three sisters, I was always too young for the fun things that my older siblings enjoyed and too old for the goodies and toys my two younger brothers were occasionally showered with. I often complained to God, "Why didn't you at least make me the youngest child in the family, if you couldn't make me a boy?" God never responded to me. How could he, when he himself was a man?

How did Mother felt about getting old? All the years I was under her care, she often used the word woonmyong, fate, in her every day vocabulary. To her, it was my fate that I was born a girl surrounded by my brothers and sisters. It was my fate, too, that I was a middle child and couldn't be the center of attention. Even when I broke my leg in my third year in elementary school, she thought it was my woonmyong that caused it. I remember arguing with her that an older boy yanked me down from the gym set, only to scare me a little, that it was all his fault that I broke my leg.

Mother wouldn't hear of it. "What's the difference?" she said. "Would you feel better if it was a girl who did it? Your pain doesn't care who caused it. You just have to deal with it.”
In my second year of middle school I had another incident with Mother. That morning, our PE teacher, who was also in charge of the students' manners and conduct, clipped one end of my hair with a pair of scissors, because that side slightly touched the collar of my school uniform. Many girls had been the victims of his brutal act, but it was first time for me and I was crying when I tried to tell her what had happened.

She listened without a word. Then, searching her skirt pocket, she handed me a bill. “It's time for a haircut,” she said. “If I were you, I won't say anything to anyone about what happened. You should have noticed how long your hair was when you combed it this morning.”

Here again, I defended myself. “Mine wasn't long at all, Mother. My collar stood up more than others' because you used too much starch on it. It was so unfair, the way he came over, pulled me out of the line, and clipped it, for everyone to see.”
“You don't need to say another word about it,” she said. “Go and get a haircut.”
It took me more that fifty years to realize that her word woonmyong implied "make peace with yourself" or “go with the flow.” I haven't changed much over the years: I still tend to argue whenever I can.

I remembered Victor Hugo's poem titled “The Preludes,” which I had read long ago, without knowing I would some day be old. I found it and read it.

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring's in my heart.
I breathe… the fragrance of the lilacs, violets, and roses, as at twenty years ago.
The nearer I approach to the end, the plainer I hear
The immortal symphonies of the world that invite me.
Each word grasped me with new meaning. Afterwards, I didn't feel bad about my new age at all. Actually, this was close to what my mother always believed. She could easily have said, “Go with the flow of life and feel the eternal spring in your heart. Or, “Make peace with yourself, before you try to smell roses, lilacs, violets.”
We could feel sorry for all the problems we are dealing with today--drugs, terrorism, anthrax, war in Iraq, the upcoming election. Or we could accept the solemn fact that we are alive today and go with the rhythm of time, reminding ourselves that life on earth had never been perfect for any living beings.

That night I had a dialogue with the unknown:

When you knock my door, Death
I'll be awake.
When you extend your hand toward me,
I'll shake it warmly.
When you whisper, "Shall we go?"
I'll say, "I've been waiting."

A Gift of the Emperor
“Valuable addition to WWII literature”

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When a Rooster Crows at Night: A Child’s Experience of the Korean War
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The Korean Church, Church of Martyrs
published 1985/October issue of Our Family Magazine (Canada)

The True Doctrine of God, by Matteo Ricci, attracted many Korean scholars in the late 18th century. It provided them freedom from the turmoil of the factional wrangling of politics and the social struggles of poverty and revolt. Their search for faith began with the prayer meetings and worship services...