The Philippines!
Catching up on my spring: back in March, my second Southeast Asia stop was the Philippines, where I visited the three campuses of Brent International School. It was fascinating to experience the differences between the schools, from Subic’s 200 students (80% Korean) in a building on a former U.S. military base, to Baguio’s hillside cluster of buildings with 300 students (60% Korean), to Manila’s student body of more-than-1000 diverse students from all over the world.
And I got to travel and experience wonders of the Philippines, from Subic Bay on the western coast… starting with breakfast by the bay, and fruit bats in one protected area.
and students were very excited by autographing.
Then back down the mountain and across the plain, driving through Manila and to the southern suburbs…
to the main campus of Brent Manila.
Throughout, I was accompanied by librarian extraordinaire Debbie Kienzle, and welcomed so warmly and graciously by her library staff, the schools’ personnel and students, and the Filipinos I met everywhere we traveled.
Read MoreThe Reason…
I haven’t been blogging lately:
Taemin Anthony Keough, born April 3 to our daughter Yunhee and her husband Josh.
I’m a grandmother – and besotted!
Considering North Korea
Here’s my latest piece at Korean American Story, about my relationship to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and the process of learning more about it as I’ve developed my young adult novel-in-progress, In the Shadow of the Sun, which is set there:
“Despite having lived within two hundred or fewer miles of the dividing border for much of my childhood, I only thought of the northern half of the Korean peninsula on occasion. My earliest associations were of spooky, dramatic names like ‘No Man’s Land’ and the ‘Bridge of No Return,’ from our family’s visit to the DMZ soon after our 1960 arrival in Seoul. Several years later, living in Daegu where my father worked in the mission hospital, I scared my 10-year-old self by imagining that my parents were wearing masks, underneath which they were actually North Korean spies. The residents of the other half of a divided Korea were my childhood version of the boogeyman.
“Like most South Koreans, we foreigners got used to the bellicose threats and posturing of the DPRK. I was in high school at Seoul Foreign School the day in 1968 when thirty-one North Korean commandos came across the DMZ on a mission to assassinate President Park Chung-Hee. They got within half a mile of the Blue House before they were apprehended. The whole city was on alert and there was a charged atmosphere at school, knowing that the infiltrators had been moving through the city within three miles of us. Afterwards, we shared rumors with that excited sense of having been on the edge of the action. One story claimed that when the soldiers came over the mountain range they were disoriented by the brilliant lights of Seoul; they’d been told South Korea had no electricity.”
The piece includes recommendations of books and videos on contemporary North Korea – though there’s nothing yet for young people. I hope to change that.
Read MoreHomecoming
My latest essay for KoreanAmericanStory, “Homecoming,” is an account of our June trip to Korea and a retrospective of our family’s life there:
“Kojedo in the late 1960s – especially the northern township of Ha-chung which issued the invitation to the Project to use it as a demonstration site – was one of the poorest areas of South Korea, a place of fierce beauty and physical challenge. When we arrived in 1969 at the Project site (a 7-acre peninsula), there were no paved roads, no telephones and no electricity. We lived the first summer in tents while constructing clinic buildings, staff homes and dormitories of adobe-like bricks, which were occupied by autumn. Heated floors and heavy quilts kept us toasty while sleeping in winter, but the air was sometimes so cold that water in a glass on my parents’ dresser would freeze overnight.
“Forty years later, the island is a poster child for the economic miracle that transformed the nation, boasting Korea’s highest per capita income. The host committee – Baik Hospital, the city of Geoje, and former staff members – puts us up in a gleaming resort hotel on a hillside over a bay, our rooms overlooking one of the shipyards that are the source of much of Kojedo’s current prosperity.”
Back to Camp
I shared a book I illustrated, What Will You Be, Sara Mee? by Kate Aver Avraham, about the tol, the first birthday celebration.
but instead of rice cakes, candy, jujubes or beans, we built the towers with strips of paper in the traditional colors seen in sek dong, the rainbow stripes typically used for children’s clothing.
Some used pictures and symbols as well, and one girl even drew her complete fashion history – including hairstyles – from infancy!Already looking forward to next year’s camp, with the theme of Contemporary Korean Culture, including K-pop and Korean drama. In writing we’ll be creating man-wha, or comics.
Read MoreThe INNERview
During my June trip to Korea, I was invited to be the subject of “The INNERview” on Arirang TV. The hour-long program, #71, aired the week of July 8. It can be viewed on YouTube here.
Arirang TV (livestream here) broadcasts 24/7 news, culture and all things Korean, in English, for overseas Koreans and the English language community in South Korea. The INNERview includes a wide range of interesting subjects – Koreans, Korean Americans, and a few foreigners like me who’ve made deep connections with Korea.
Here are a few behind-the-scenes pictures of the taping:
Kim Cha Ryung – or “Paige” – my liaison with Arirang TV, with my friend Yoo Myung Ja, who made the connection for me.
Host Susan Lee MacDonald, makeup artist, cameraman and producer reacting to my book,
The Legend of Hong Kil Dong.
The shoot, in a traditional house at Nam-San-Gol Han-ok folk village in downtown Seoul
Umbrellas over the cameras during a rain shower.
The entire experience was an honor and a delight and I’m very pleased with the program that Arirang produced.
Read MoreTeaching Korean Students
The first group was a class of 6th graders from Daejeon on an overnight retreat near Sejong City, run by the Humanity Recovery Movement Council (Huremo) a nonprofit focusing on personal development through the use of journals – called “love diaries” – to “help children think and plan for themselves and make their dreams come true.”
I talked about my own childhood dream of becoming an artist, and of how growing up in Korea gave me a vision of the common humanity of all people. Then I shared a little of the process of creating my graphic novel, The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea, and some tricks for enhancing the elements of story when composing comics, such as zoom-in (character), zoom-out (setting), and using diagonals to convey a sense of movement.
What a sweet treat to spend time with such a small group of kids!
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