Lost in Time: Returning to Places of the Heart

Only thirteen years had passed.  Returning to Korea to witness the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics was no ordinary adventure. My good friend, Soon Chul, had picked us up at the airport and the drive to his apartment was an eye-opener. Mile after mile we saw huge apartment buildings, walls of lights narrating a story of almost inexplicable change. Personal cars, subways, video billboards, countless new bridges; the unmistakable signage of a vibrant, new middle class. The trip was already spell-binding and we hadn't even arrived at his apartment.

After thoroughly enjoying the Olympic Games held at dozens of newly constructed venues, we headed south by train to visit Daegu, the city I had lived in for nearly two years as an English instructor while in the Peace Corps.  My wife, Marsha, visiting Korea for the first time, escorted me to the campus and I happily gave her a tour of the place, pointing out the buildings which housed my classes, the dignified old administration building, the campus amphitheater, and the red brick building which housed my office on its second floor.

Standing outside my office building at
Keimyung Christian College in Daegu (1974)

Students walking toward the administrative building on campus

We wound our way down a short hill and came to the school's rear gate. I knew that just a short distance from there I'd be able to show Marsha my old neighborhood including everything from the local dry cleaners and little convenience store to, more importantly, the modest rooming house (yeogwan) where I lived for over a year and a half in a small room on the 2nd floor.

The courtyard of our Korean rooming house. Sign says "Yeo-gwan," Korean for inn.

We turned the corner and I was stunned. The old neighborhood was gone! In its place were new stores, buildings and paved roads. The entire neighborhood had been razed and replaced in the intervening 13 years since I had left Korea. I began to feel dizzy and lose my bearings. I sat down to regroup and to deal with the lump of emotions that was growing in my throat. There was no going home.

Trying to return to a place once called "home" can be an
emotional roller coaster.

Apparently, this was not a rare experience in Korea. A number of Korean friends and students have told me about similar experiences when they returned to their villages or old neighborhoods; this sense of home-loss dissonance accompanied by feelings of confusion, loss and disorientation.

This highly emotional experience is timely as this week marks the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps service in South Korea. The first batch of volunteers arrived here in Korea in September of 1966. That group was quickly followed by well over two-thousand other volunteers who served in Korea from 1966 through 1981. Each group was designated in numerical order preceded by the letter "K." My group, K-30, focused on English education at the university level. My nearly fifty colleagues served in universities scattered across the country.

This week many veteran Peace Corps Volunteers will be returning to this country for the first time since their days of service here. In all likelihood it will prove to be nothing less an amazing adventure; at once deeply personal and meaningful. I suspect for most it will also prove to be a breathtaking experience as well. Returning to familiar places and old haunts can be a challenging emotional roller coaster ride. To them I say, may all your journeys conclude in the safe embrace of warm memories knowing that your efforts here were indeed well done.

Aged-Out Korean Style

For an outsider, living here in the 1970s, it was hard to miss the pedestal they were placed upon. The elderly in Korea had earned their stripes; surviving the often brutal and dehumanizing Japanese occupation. Then came the unforgiving horror of the Korean War. If you made it to sixty you earned the privileges that society gladly bestowed on you: the respectful bows; the honorific language; for men, the long wispy beards; and for women, the convivial smoking in groups. People routinely fought to give up their seats in public buses for society's grandparents. But that was then...

…Having received the highest student evaluation scores, the three expat professors were invited to the Director's office. In a brief exchange, they received certificates of accomplishment,  a handshake from the Director and a few perfunctory words of congratulation. "I hope to see you three back here again next year," he said, "Continue with your great teaching." For one of the three professors, the author, those comments felt a bit insensitive and incongruous. Having just earned the highest evaluation scores from students, I was being aged-out, forcibly retired. I wouldn't be teaching at his university next year. I was turning sixty-five.

In today's Korea, forced retirement based on age is systemic. As a result, just 3.7% of regular employees at medium and large companies are 55 or older. This, in a country where the life expectancy is pushing 82, one of the highest in the world.

Older Koreans on a public bus in 1974. Being "aged-out" is as common as kimchi and rice.

Being aged-out here is as common as kimchi and rice. A former colleague in the English Department, very popular with students, was recently let go because he had turned sixty-five. "It was awful," he said. "My popularity ratings were over 95% for nine years. I did extra work for the university, the school, and the department, all for 
no compensation. And, I have to leave?" he asked rhetorically.

Relatively, few folks who are aged-out take it personally. Most expats know the cultural expectations when they come to Korea and quickly learn how the guidelines are interpreted and implemented at their places of employment, usually universities. Korean natives are treated no differently, so it's not a matter of being treated inconsistently; age discrimination is institutionalized. To many though, it's more than frustrating or infuriating--it's hurting the economy and the society. In the light of day, it simply doesn't make much sense. The cultural context is unambiguous; Koreans are sent into retirement at age 50, 55, 60 or 65. In fact, new figures put the average retirement age at about 53. Younger workers are ushered into companies where they earn less, are willing to take orders, and are allegedly more flexible and more productive. But are most of these operating assumptions true?

Certainly young, fresh recruits are paid less. In South Korean firms, pay and position rise with seniority. But nearly all employers operate from the belief that productivity decreases with seniority. Over 57% of them cite “low adaptability to change” as a reason for not keeping older workers, according to the Korea Labor Institute, a government-funded think-tank. 

According to Thomas Klaassen of York University in Toronto, 

"Internationally, there is little evidence to suggest that older workers are less productive than younger ones,  Their underperformance in South Korea, if real, may be a self-fulfilling prophecy," he argues. "It could be the prospect of premature retirement that discourages older Koreans from investing in skills."

Two older gentlemen ride the subway.
Questioning their value in today's Korea?

Korean society is rapidly aging and its birthrate is in steep decline. In the late 1950s, Korean families averaged 5 children. Today, families average about 1 child. Additionally, and this should come as good news, as of 2013, the life expectancy for Koreans reached 81.9 years. A man or woman retiring at 53 still offers their country almost thirty years of productive life. But how Korea puts those still productive years to use, to fuel its once vibrant economy, is yet another question. 

Wall painting in Busan, Korea's 2nd largest city

There is much talk that new laws and guidelines will be implemented to change Korea's current "early retirement" practices. Time will tell if and when those promises result in real, systemic change. In the meantime, kicked off their pedestal, older Koreans, the very people whose blood, sweat and tears built their modern country, are sent off into the setting sun, neglected, forgotten and unrewarded.

My Lunch With Ms. Jung

From a short distance the stand of trees all look similar. The wind stirs and the young spring leaves all rustle in unison. It seems like one voice. But get closer. You can make out a lilac tree hidden from view. It has those lovely purple flowers. And that unique scent finds its way to you. It causes you to say, "My goodness, you are lovely aren't you?"

Somehow Jung Su Min's* presence in the Daegu area found its way to me. She had briefly been a student at an area English academy. Then, another area professor told me about her and he helped me track her down.

Su Min, 30, recently escaped from North Korea. She told no one about her plans. She left a note for her mother. Her father, working for an administrative branch of the DRPK army, died shortly after her departure. I had many questions, but I knew I had to put them aside for the moment.

She agreed to meet me for lunch. Students were coming and going, strutting their latest styles, distracted by their smart phones. I did notice one woman sitting alone off to the side on a bench under some trees. She was wearing a long billowy white dress and red heels looking a bit like she stepped out of the 1980s. In a sense, she had.

We walked together through a forested area near her campus. We went to a restaurant off the beaten path, one where we could talk without the jarring din of Korean music.

Her face held many stories. It spoke too, of beautiful simplicity. Her make-up was minimal. Her face was round, like many of the faces I saw during my visit to North Korea last summer. As the side dishes were brought to us, she moved the small bowls and plates around the table. Her hands looked strong, her fingers plain and rough, utilitarian, almost ignored--far different from the manicured, attention-seeking fingers of most female Korean students.

Cosmopolitan women of Pyongyang

Su Min, in her steady but basic English, told me that the route of her escape took her through China, Laos, and then, into Thailand. There she found access to South Korea. I imagined that she had gone through a lengthy screening and interrogation process here, but she said it only consisted of completing forms for several hours. Where do you live I asked? How do you survive financially? What do you do? Questions asked in rapid succession.

Thailand is generally the next-to-last destination of North Koreans escaping through China. Many Koreans surrender themselves to the Thai police soon after they across the border. Over the past ten years the number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea has averaged 2,170 a year, 70% of them women.

I quickly realized I wasn't "just" sitting with a North Korean defector. I was having lunch with a woman of clarity, of strong convictions. She is a woman fully 10 years older than most of my students. Unlike those students, she is not distracted by the lure of commercials, the incessant marketing and the expensive brands that intoxicate most young Koreans. She was here to learn, to gain knowledge, fully appreciative of her opportunities, of her new found freedom.

Woman walking with friend in Pyongyang

Su Min lives alone, she told me. She earns her income. The South Korean government pays her to speak, to tell her story at gatherings of soldiers and at prisons. While the government has helped her find her way to her university, she lacks many of the resources her South Korean counterparts typically use to jumpstart their careers.

South Koreans traditionally rely on three sets of "connections" to get access to jobs and secure their careers: Hyak yun (학연), school contacts, Jee yun (지연), social and geographical contacts, and Hyul yun (혈연), family and generational contacts. Su Min, having left her family in North Korea, by definition, starts at a severe disadvantage in terms of all three types of connections. So, she wants to focus on her studies at the university and to gain as much knowledge as possible as she begins her career and life journey in South Korea.

She is able to be in occasional touch with her mother; a complicated process involving Chinese cell phone connections. Surprisingly, she is able to provide her mother with financial support. She saves up money she earns and though secretive and expensive connections through China, her cash finds its way to her mom. The process, however, is very expensive. She pays a 30% fee for each transaction.

I asked Su Min about her future plans. I expected to hear some vague ideas about "fitting in" and quietly assimilating into society here in South Korea. But Su Min looked at me confidently and told me she has both 5 and 10 year plans. "I want to be a politician here in South Korea," she told me proudly. I was impressed with her assertiveness, but surely, her courage and mettle is what helped her to find her way safely out of North Korea, across China and ultimately, to the seat across the table from me here in South Korea.

I had one last question, one that has gnawed at me through the many books and articles I have read about North Korea. It had puzzled me during my conversations with both North Koreans and the people who do business there. I asked Su Min if most North Koreans know the basic truth, that their leaders are fabricating reality, and that there is a wider world of freedom existing just past their border. "Yes, they know," she said. "But it's too dangerous to speak about it."

As we walked back to her campus it became clear to me just how special this young woman was. There are indeed many trees in the forest all rustling in unison. But this young lady, I thought, answers to a breeze all her own. This one, I said to myself, is going to make history. 

Author's note: *Jung Su Min is not her real name. Her name was changed to protect her privacy. Other aspects of her story, for example her major and her university, have been omitted to help preserve her anonymity.