70
Appendix V
Korean
Travel Diary, 1953
By Frank Engel
Arrival in Korea
At nine thousand
feet we broke through the clouds that were keeping Tokyo grey and soon saw the
entrancingly beautiful snow-covered cone of Mt. Fuji rising another three thousand
feet into the brilliant sunshine. A couple of hours later we were out over the
straits and clear of all cloud. Something on the horizon began to take form.
Yes, they were mountains - the mountains of South Kyung Sang in whose shadow I
had been born. I found the sight intensely moving. I had not thought I would
see them again and here I was flying "home". For the next forty-eight
hours, I spent every spare moment just gazing at the mountains, the harbor, the
people, the houses, the mission compound in which I had grown up - gazing in
wonder that I was there, gazing with happy but turbulent feelings, a stranger
and yet at home; the exile returned but only as a visitor.
The plane seemed
determined to spin its wheels on this hilltop or the next. Then we were down
taxiing among the military aircraft of K9 airfield. The Korean customs officer
held my declaration form and looked at me. Ominous? No, he was nudging his companion,
pointing at the paper, and glancing at me with curiosity. He had noticed my
place of birth was Pusanjin - only a few miles away. The next minute I was
through and being welcomed by an Australian SCMer turned missionary, Dick
Kenyon, and the fraternal Student Secretary of the YMCA, Bill Costen of the United States.
I had expected to
find Pusan still full of
refugee universities from Seoul, as it had been
for three years; but they had all returned to Seoul soon after the
truce had been signed. In Pusan was the Pusan National University with 1,600 of its
own students (and 750 others who were unable to go to Seoul for financial
or family reasons),
From Student World, Second Quarter, 1954
71
a branch of Chosen Christian University, and the Methodist
Seminary. The first and possibly the second of these will remain in Pusan. A national
University is a government one. There are five in Korea – Seoul, Pusan, Kyung – puk, Chun
– nam and Chun – puk. Seoul, with about 8,000
students, was originally the Japanese Imperial University and so have solid
brick buildings, an air of permanence and a certain prestige. It escaped major
war damage. The others were only founded after liberation in 1945. Pusan and Kyung – puk,
for example, consists of bare wooden buildings, serviceable but inevitably
temporary. The United Nations Korean Relief Agency provided the timber. It was
in a small room of plain pine boards that I first met the Korean SCM, in Pusan University. This group was a
newly formed one and its membership doubled to forty in a week. We sat in the
unheated room listening to an elderly but lively Korean pastor who had suffered
much, as the fading light of a winter’s afternoon wrapped us in the intimacy of
twilight. A few days later, I spoke in the broad light of midday to a full assembly hall of 400 or so students – unlined
walls and ceiling again, but this time a tape recorder also! Question: Is it
polite to stop speaking when the recorder runs out of tape? Answer: I still
don’t know; but I didn’t because the interpreter had used half the time.
Incidentally, he was Min – ha Cho whom I had known as a student in Melbourne.
Korea and Japan
In the grounds of
the university, I saw a tall wooden post inscribed with characters. It had just
been given to the history department by the Korean navy, who had removed it
from a disputed island when the Japanese had erected it there after removing a
stone, which claimed the island for Korea! Later I learned
that as many as 600 Japanese fishermen were in Korean prisons for infringement
of fishing grounds claimed by Korea. Negotiations over
this and Japanese claims to their former property in Korea had been
"Token off. In this and other ways, Japanese tyranny has left its legacy
of fear and suspicion, which is not easily removed. "Other Jays"
include the disruption and recrimination within the church between those who
stood firm against Japanese persecution and those who wavered or submitted.
When I had passed through Tokyo, Kiyo Takeda had
spoken of the legacy of hate left by thirty-five years' occupation and asked me
to say to Korean students, “Japanese Christian students are very sorry for the
past bad relationship between our two countries and hope for a better one in
the future.
72
We should like to
do something to help you at the present time. Would you please tell us in what
ways we might help?” When I mentioned this message to a student leader, I
received the reply, "I don't know that Korean students are ready yet to
receive help from Japan." I was not
surprised - one could hardly expect anything else. I suddenly remembered what I
had seen one morning as a small boy before I had been snatched back from the
window - three pairs of police boots sinking into the prostrate form of a
Korean, who had only gathered with other unarmed people to shout independence
slogans. I had to agree that eight years of independence is not long in which
to distill the hurts in the accumulated memories of thirty-five years of
Japanese rule.
However, I had been
given a message and it must be delivered, whatever the repercussions. Soon the
opportunity came with a representative group of student Christian
office-bearers. Without hesitation and without equivocation there came the
reply, "If Japanese students feel sorry about the past that is enough. We
would like to correspond with them. Please ask them to pray for us in this
great distress." The group then went on to give details of other help they
would like to receive - Japanese textbooks, periodicals and religious books.
Later, I was given the names and addresses of twelve students in another group
who desired to correspond with Japanese students. Later still, when back in Tokyo, I was able to
give the reply, not only to Kiyo Takeda, but also to a group of thirty-six men
and women student representatives of the YMCA and YWCA in all the Tokyo universities. That
also was a thrilling moment. As I handed over the twelve names and addresses,
there was a sense that here, under God, was the beginning of reconciliation.
Another message for
abroad was from the YM-YW groups in Taegu whom I had been
giving some news of various Movements in the Federation. When I finished, they
said, "We are moved to hear news of students in East Germany and would send
them our greetings and assurance of our prayers." This message I passed
on to Kyaw Than, who delivered it personally. So the links of personal concern
and Christian love are welded, and the fellowship which is the Federation takes
on flesh for South Koreans and East Germans - and an Australian.
73
The state of the
nation
Pusan and Taegu were both within
the small area, which was never overrun by the northern armies; but both have
been overrun with refugees. In Pusan, they have built
their six by eight foot or six by twelve foot matchwood shacks on every spare
spot - up the hillsides, over drains, even on top of one another. Roofs are of
light timber, cardboard, a discarded canvas camp-stretcher, or flattened-out
army beer cans. I wandered over a hillside that was covered with these hakabangs,
which are joined end to end almost endlessly. In between them are narrow,
twisting footpaths. One of them seemed a dead-end. I turned back, but looked
again. That woman had shut her door and I saw that the path ran on. Following
it, I stumbled on a primary school, housed in wooden huts and tents. A teacher
told me there were 2,000 children. Perhaps he meant 200 - numbers are tricky
things to translate. Yet there must have been many more that 200. How
industrious they appeared. How bleak and cold (or hot and wet) on this hilltop.
Then there was a hakabang with a door open - a glimpse of a tiny,
spotless room, covered with a fresh looking straw mat, the family's bedding
stowed neatly away in a corner. Apart from this little room, there was just
enough space for the wife to squat and prepare the food, which is cooked
outside, on the edge of the path, on a brazier. Three weeks later, a brazier
like that was kicked over accidentally on a very windy night. In a few hours,
25,000 people were homeless. A large part of the city, including the post
office and railway station, was destroyed.
In spite of such wartime
conditions and the general poverty, poverty is not the caste-ridden,
deep-rooted, desperate, beggar-breeding thing it is in some of the cities of India. Surprising also
is the fact that refugees from North Korea have built themselves
refugee churches - some of them big, well-placed buildings. One of them still
stands high above the centre of Pusan, although singed
by the fire.
Seoul, on the other
hand, is a war-smashed city. The train moved slowly across the long Han River Bridge. We looked out in
the early morning light at the shattered pylons of another bridge - one of them
split to the bottom. We passed through damaged railway yards, past disabled
locomotives and drew into the battered remains of what was once a large, modern
concrete station. Great areas, especially of the southern and western sections
of the city, are laid waste - about eighty-five percent they say. Casualties
include the Bible House (no sign of it), YMCA (only walls). Severance Union Medical College and Hospital
(eighty-five percent destroyed),
74
Chung Dong
Methodist Church (where Syngman Rhee worships -only sixty percent in use), Ewha
Women's University minus a top storey, and Chosen Christian University minus
several, while the Russian consulate lifts gaunt white walls from a shambles on
a hilltop. Most of the damage occurred during the retaking of Seoul by United Nations
Forces and the communist retreat.
Taejon, where I
spent a most interesting day at the triennial YMCA conference, was almost
totally destroyed except for a handful of buildings; but this is not at first
obvious, because the area has been covered again with timber shacks and
mud-walled houses. So also, many other places; but these southern towns were
damaged three years ago. My mind reeled at the effort of trying to picture Pyongyang, and other places
I know in the north, after three years of almost continuous bombing. It reeled
also at such figures about the south as - 125,000 orphans and unaccompanied
children; 280 orphanages cannot cope with more than a quarter of the orphans;
50,000 school classrooms are required; one million of the three million
children of elementary school age are not in school; 267 churches are
completely destroyed, 706 "half-destroyed" but still used; "half
a nation on relief, a whole nation in dire poverty". "If forty-five
percent of the population of the United States were on relief, we
would still be better off, for the United States has vastly more in
resources and services." Very true. Remember that forty-five percent means
over ten million people who are refugees, or have lost the breadwinner of the
family, or their bread-winning hands or feet, as a result of the war, or are
destitute. There are 294,000 widows with 517,000 children.
Yet there is
another side. There are the calm, dignified, serene faces of people who make no
display of their poverty. There are large numbers of remarkably healthy-looking
children. I am told that the amazing healthiness is probably due to the relief
feeding which has come in from overseas - a statement borne out by the fact
that children in country villages do not look as well as those in cities. The
agencies that are making important contributions to immediate need are Korean
Civil Assistance Command of the UN, the Ministry of Social Welfare of the Republic of Korea and the Christian
missions. All the missions handle large quantities of clothing, food,
medicines and money. The money alone amounted to about three-quarters of a
million U.S. dollars in 1952. UNKRA is concerned with long-term reconstruction
and is still largely involved in planning and negotiation,
75
but its Educational
Section, for example, has given 39,000 volumes to libraries of nine
universities and 2,000 tons of paper to the Ministry of Education for printing
text-books. Then army units have given substantial help to orphanages and
others -some remarkable generosity, but liable to disappear with the transfer
of a unit. During the truce, the Eighth Army launched a big program of
assistance of projects which Korean towns or institutions will be able to
carry on themselves. World University Service is also
making a contribution. I attended a meeting of the Committee at the YWCA called
to consider the use of $15,000 of an eventual $100,000 promised by the American
Committee of World University Service. The committee is well set up with four
representatives each from the YMCA, YWCA, Korean Student Christian Federation,
the Roman Catholic student organization, and one representative each from
UNKRA, Church World Service, CARE and the Ministry of Education. It reaffirmed
its earlier decision that the order of priority of student need is housing,
health and scholarships, and decided on immediate steps towards establishing a
hostel on the strength of encouraging news from Bill Kitchen, WUS Secretary in
the United States.
After speaking at Chung Ang University in Seoul, I had lunch with
its remarkable owner and president. Miss Louise Im (or Yim), who is a member of
the National Assembly. I asked, "What is the most urgent need in Korea?" Her one
word reply was, "Employment." A sound economic structure is a
desperate need. It is also extremely difficult to achieve, for Korea is an economic
unit, and most of the mineral resources and electricity are in the north. It is
said, however, that there are similar resources awaiting development in the
south. On the other hand, the Korean economy needs a relationship to China or Japan, neither of which
is desired politically at present. In the meantime, soldiers, railway-men and
other government employees are grossly underpaid. Hence, there is a lively
black market in train tickets and a vast range of commodities. This economic
chaos inevitably means that the political and administrative institutions are
subject to great strains. When the overriding necessities of war or the
unifying political power of Syngman Rhee is no longer there, what will happen?
Will Korea then become another Persia, trying desperately to cope with threats
of anarchy, playing with democracy, because she lacks "a more or less
honest, more or less reliable and more or less capable administration"?1
76
The university world
Statistics are not
particularly easy things to collect in Korea and they usually
come in round numbers. I was given various figures, for the total number of
university and college students, ranging from 30/000 to 40,000, plus 7,000 who
would be students if they were not in the army. As far as I could ascertain
there are about 35,000. (In November, 1952, there were about 32,000.) These
consist of about 20,000 university students and 15,000 college students. In addition,
there are about 1,500 junior college students and several seminaries with about
750 students. There are eight major universities which are made up of five
national (that is, state) and three private universities.
The private
universities, all of which are in Seoul, consist of Chosen Christian University (now known as
Yonsei), Ewha Women's University and Korea University. The last of these
is secular, while the first two were originally mission foundations, which are
now under self-governing boards but still closely related to missionary
societies. CCU has about 1,600 students, the great majority of which are men,
but it has recently become co-educational. Ewha has over 2/000,300 of them in
residence, which means that it has more that half the total enrollment of women
students in Korea. CCU and Ewha are
names to be conjured with in Korea. They have real
standing and their graduates are making a considerable impression in national
life. They both have good, modem, stone buildings and beautiful campuses. The
buildings have been damaged by military action, but it has been possible to
restore them. I was impressed by the contribution of these two Christian
institutions (along with the now non-existent Union Christian College in Pyongyang) have made through
their graduates.
There are about
twenty-four colleges of various kinds. These include some medical colleges not
affiliated with a university, colleges with several faculties, which are not
yet fully recognized as universities, and some liberal arts colleges. Many of
these are privately owned institutions. They include the well-known Severance Union Medical College in Seoul - a leading
missionary foundation - and Chung Ang, already mentioned, which has a Christian
“bias”, and real standing in the community.
77
In this field,
there are three Christian organizations at work – the Student YMCA, the Student
YWCA, and the Korean Student Christian Federation. There is no radical or
essential difference between them. The Federation came into existence in the
period of rapid changes and development from 1945-48, when the YMCA had not vet
been able to resume its full work in the student field. Now some universities
have KSCF and some the YM or YWCA. There is a ^go-inning towards greater
cooperation and coordination between the three bodies to promote the maximum
evangelistic effort. This is very important, because there is a very real
religious opportunity among the Korean students today.
India has to be secular
because it has several lively religions. Korea is secular because
it has little living religion. Buddhism has been the chief religion for many
centuries, but is now very much merely a part of the traditional background of
life. Confucian teaching had a great influence once, but seems to have very
little now. Ancestor worship, however, is still practiced, especially in the
country. There is, in other words, a considerable spiritual vacuum in Korea, as also in Japan. The aspirants for
the job of filling the vacuum are Christianity, nationalism and communism. I
have put them in that order because communism is not an immediate live option
in South Korea, except by
military conquest. Nationalism has no religious form as it has in Japan in Shintoism, but
it is a real force and a rather narrow and bitter one. Christianity is
definitely a force in the life of Korea. Christian
missions made remarkable progress there in the first fifty years of their work.
There is a considerably higher percentage of the population, which is
Christian, than is the case in Japan. Also a number of
Christians are in positions of real leadership in public life. On the other
hand, there are some definite weaknesses.
These weaknesses within
Christianity consist partly of a too-ready identification of the Christian way
and hope with the national way and hope. There is also some danger in the fact
that Christianity has come to Korea largely from the United States. There have been
small Canadian, Australian and English missions, but obviously the general
pattern of church life, worship and institutions comes from ^e United States.
In view of what happened in China, and in view of
the growing anti-American feeling in Asia, this is unfortunate.
Saying this does not, of course, reflect in any way adversely on tremendous good,
which American missions and missionaries have done, but simply on the element
of danger residing in the state of unbalance.
78
Sundry impressions and memories
Syngman Rhee,
disliked and feared in Australia as a "dictator" or a firebrand who might ignite the third world
war, has tremendous popular prestige and support in Korea. He is seen as the
grand old man who devoted a lifetime to winning the thing dearest to a Korean
heart - national independence - and united the majority in the south against
the minority in the north, and fights for the rights of Korea against the
foreign helpers when necessary. Albeit, ruthless at times. "We don't
approve of all he does, but he's a good man," said several.
The Republic of
Korea (ROK) armed forces are the only ones in Asia with chaplaincy
service - a strategic field for the church in which there is a considerable
response.
Three thousand
people worship in the great stone Yong Nak church in Seoul every Sunday
morning. They do so in two shifts. This church survived an attempt to burn it
down. It was here that I had the pleasure of being present at Hyun Ja Kirn's
marriage to Mr. Oh. Hyun Ja, the only Korean delegate at Nasrapur, is Student
Secretary of the YWCA.
One Sunday morning
I worshipped with a small (200) congregation, which meets in a cold classroom
that looks out over the ruins of part of Seoul. The windows had
only recently been reglazed. It announced that owing to the winter weather the
early Morning Prayer meeting during the week would not be until 5.30 a.m.! However, the congregation was urged to come earlier
for silent meditation beforehand. They take their religion seriously in Korea.
UNKRA is doing good
work in face of great obstacles; but there is a need for its relationship to
the Korean people to be rethought thoroughly. It tends to be an impersonal
foreign agency doing well without any real interest in, or understanding of,
the people concerned. Its staff lives on a scale that separates them even more
than is necessary from the people. It seems high even by Western standards.
Its programs need to be ones in which Koreans are participants at all levels,
and not simply recipients.
I shall not soon
forget the enthusiastic welcome I received from an audience of 500 organized by
the KSCF at Seoul University; no^ the few snowflakes drifting across the
open-air amphitheatre as spoke at CCU, nor the girls there holding their cold
noses in mittened hands. At Chung Ang, I was told the audience would be a
general one, and therefore it would be well to speak on a subject of general
interest. So I tried not to be "too Christian"! Then to my complete
surprise, I was asked to give the benediction before I left. It has rarely had
more meaning for me.
79
Nor shall I soon
forget the journey to CCU, which is on the other side of a hill from the city.
An Englishman told the Korean taxi driver where to take me. It soon became
clear that the driver had not listened or the Englishman's Korean could have
been better. It also rapidly became clear that neither the Korean civil nor
military police in the area could help us - nor the bookshops. I struggled to
remember the Korean name of CCU, but none of my guesses hit the mark. Then we cruised
aimlessly past the Russian Orthodox Church. I dashed in desperately and found a
Greek army chaplain who spoke little English but seemed to know where CCU was.
We bundled into the taxi, but he directed it to the headquarters of an American
military unit. It soon transpired that we were looking for an American-Greek
who could act as an interpreter! Eventually we found him sick and in bed. He
hadn't heard of CCU. Frantic inquiries of other Americans and Koreans in the
building yielded nothing. By this time, it was very late. At last, a Korean
sergeant was found who spoke English and knew the answer. After all these
international involvements, I arrived late to speak on forgiveness!
Reconciliation is
one of the major tasks that confront Christians in Korea - as in Australia. Reconciliation
with Japan, with the north,
with those who collaborated with the Japanese and those who collaborated with
the Chinese communists. Reconciliation between fundamentalist" and
"modernist", between this political or religious group and that. And
the key to all this is forgiveness. There is no hope without it - acceptance of
God's forgiveness of us and the forgiving of one another. Christianity is
terribly and uncomfortably relevant in Korea - and wherever we
allow ourselves to see ourselves and our situation as it actually is.
In Pusan, I used a map one
night when telling students of the Federation. Afterwards one who had to
struggle with his English said, “You made a gracious meeting at the map, but
now we must go to our own living ground and there is disappointment”. There's
the rub. And there's the glory - to be a part of the forgiven and '"giving
community, the beloved community, in a world of faction, tension and violence.”Let
your light so shine...,” sounds nice when read in a comfortable and well-lit
church; but it hurts to shine in darkness, trying to push back the great
blackness. Yet that is the only place light is of use. Nor is it a vain
struggle, if our flickering light is in fact a reflection of that life which is
the light of men, which shines in darkness and which the darkness has not
extinguished.
80
Departure
All too quickly,
there came the day of farewell. Dick Kenyon drove me out to K9, or as far as the
jeep deigned to go. An American air force jeep then kindly obliged, leaving
Dick to await help by the roadside. I had been welcomed at this airport by
foreigners. Now I was fare-welled by Koreans. President Yun of Pusan University, a fine Christian
and a notable resister of Japanese oppression had graciously come out all that
distance. Min-ha Cho and "John" Yang student president of KSCF were
among those there. It was good to have them all there as my final minutes in
the land of mountains and rivers and among a great and lovable people ticked
away. It was good to take with me photos they had so hurriedly developed of
yesterday's meeting at the university, and Pictorial Korea with their
best wishes.
Then, so suddenly,
it was all over. The plane headed east over the water. The mountains, which I
had found so intensely moving a month before, grew dim. I stained to see the
last ridge and peak, and then sat back in my seat overwhelmed with sadness. But
it was profound thankfulness that I had been privileged to be with a people who
have in such a remarkable way accepted the incredible sufferings of the last
three years and remained uncrushed, who go calmly ahead as if life were normal,
who hold high a proud head with a twinkling eye, who laugh and are resolute. I
thought of their past and their destiny. Beneath me, the ships of Hideyoshi had
sailed in 1952 to ravage Korea. And in their
wake, 300 years later, had sailed other ships of war from Japan to drive first the
Chinese and then the Russians out of Korea. Now there had
come from afar, ships of the sea and the air to do the same thing again but in
the name of many nations. Korea - bridge,
crossroads, cockpit. Fought over, but never subdued. Strategically significant
to others yet always herself. A geographical position akin to ancient Israel's. And the same
destiny? A suffering servant till the knowledge of God covers the earth as the
waters of the sea? A bridge for the Church as for the nations? What is
the meaning of such great suffering, in the providence of God? Is there a light
to illumine it other than the radiance from a tomb?
The answers can
only be given in Korean; but the faithful prayers, consecrated insights,
sacrificial gifts, and humble student volunteers of that sustaining and sharing
fellowship, which is the WSCF, can help in the formulation of answers that are
lively and true, and which declare and set forward God's holy and loving
purpose.
Back to Table of Contents
Main Page