Korean Contours: Circling Back, Shaping The Future

"Believe in the holy contour of life."

Jack Kerouac 

The contours of Korea have carried me across and beyond four decades. Like the twin loops of a figure eight, I have twice come full circle in Korea. At the time of my arrival in November of 1973, Gerald Ford was being voted in by the U.S. Senate to replace Richard Nixon. That month the headlines were featuring the infamous Watergate Scandal. As I prepared to depart Korea in 2017 completing another cycle there, Korea was reeling from its own presidential scandal.

The Korea of 1973 was a developing country, with a per capita income equal to that of the country that shares its peninsula, North Korea. Today, Korea's economy is the 13th strongest in the world, ranked between Australia and Spain, and ahead of The Netherlands (17), Turkey (18), and Saudi Arabia (19). As an observer, it is hard to believe how significantly this country has transformed itself in such a relatively short period of time.

I have attempted to capture reflections of these changes in both words and pictures in my more than ninety posts here on the Korean Bookends blog. But headlines and statistics aside, the contours of Korea will remain with me forever. 

An old woman leans on a piece of styrofoam to make
her way in downtown Daegu 

A Seoul sculpture reflects the youthful "hurry-hurry" culture of modern Korea

Red peppers drying in the September sun

Hand-made steamed buns offered up in an old shop in Seoul

The shapes of things to come: a new mall in southeastern Seoul

Daegu East Station makes room for the city's newest mall

New arts complex in Seoul

"I'm Korean:" Young Seoul artist leaves his imprint

Wooden stairs at Yeungnam University in Gyeongsan

Recently, I've made plans to return to Korea to complete yet another circle. I will be joining a group of former volunteers 
-teachers and health professionals-folks, who decades ago came to work with, and assist, Korean citizens. In rediscovering the past, we often sharpen our sense of the present and the future. In doing so, writer Jack Kerouac noted, perhaps we can find the holy contours of life.