The Long Road Back to Korea

It's gotten to the point where there are way too many "formers" on my Facebook bio: former associate professor, former consultant, former facilitator at a conflict-resolution camp. One "former," in that long parade, was an early one, my stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Korea.

Recently, I was reminiscing about the feelings I had more than four decades ago as I was preparing to depart the U.S. and head to Korea for the very first time. I didn't have much to go on. I had a sense it was far away from everything I knew growing up in the suburbs of New York City. But I knew nothing about the food, the culture, its history, only a few general things about a war we had fought there in the early 1950s.

Once again, I'm getting ready to go to Korea. In a few months I hope to return and I'm awash in feelings of excitement and reminiscence. This time, I have a million hooks to hang my emotions onto. I can picture the many places I yearn to return to in Seoul, Daegu and Gyeungsan, the latter two, locations where I taught English to Korean college students. I recall the smells that wafted along side alleys, redolent in garlic, kimchi and silkworms steaming in the pots of street vendors. The vague, implausible excitement of my youth is far different from the impatience of returning home to a familiar place.

One of my university students rests his hands on my shoulder, as
we pose with high school students in their uniforms (Spring, 1974)

Korea has filled seven years of my life to the brim. I did my first real teaching there in a heatless classroom with poor lighting, filled with students hungry to improve their English. Living in Korea I delved into my earliest understanding of another culture, one with 5,000 years of history behind it. Here I was, a naive 22-year old recent college graduate, replete with my American history major, then only a 200-year old story. Yet, due to my role as a college instructor, I was the beneficiary of almost automatic respect.

Korean village (1974)

Korea is no longer the country of dirt roads and meandering village lanes that I once explored. Its old-school tea rooms of a past era have morphed into Starbucks and popular Korean coffee shop chains. Today, Korea has the eleventh strongest economy in the world--this from a country that is the size of the U.S. state of Indiana. Korea's Internet is the world's fastest. Its literacy rate is at 98%. Korea, a country with few natural resources, other than its remarkable people, has leveraged generations of hard work, and a near unified vision of middle-class success, to become the Korea that exports its cultural, industrial and high-tech proficiencies throughout the world.

Daegu's monorail, launched in 2015, combines Korea's transportation
and high-tech prowess. The driver-less system slices through the
heart of the city connecting riders with the three older subway lines.

Koreans rarely, if ever, forget a good deed. The Korean government, in a singular show of appreciation, graciously hosts former Peace Corps Volunteers who served there. I plan to return to Korea in October for a reunion program in Seoul, and the chance to visit the campuses where I once taught English. I gaze ahead with excitement and the humbling realization that the very road that leads me to Korea circles back to where my wanderlust first took hold.

With a Yeungnam University student, Gyeongsan, Korea (2014)

A Healing Place: The Kim Ki-ho Clinic

Heo Jun 
(1537-1615)
Considered the Father of Korean traditional medicine,
Heo Jun is still highly regarded throughout East Asia
 from China and Vietnam, to Japan.  He is famous for making treatment 
accessible and understandable to common people.

Expats coming to Korea often revel in its cultural gifts ranging from kimchi to bibimbap, from its temples to old Korean villages, from traditional garb to its rich holidays, such as Chuseok. Yet when something ails us, or we encounter back pain, we usually overlook the benefits of Korean traditional medicine. Typically, we turn to what's familiar: the western medicine experience that is too often both impersonal and over-reliant on prescription drugs. Dr. Kim Ki-ho's clinic, nestled between the Suseong Office and Manchon subway stops on the Green Line, offers a refreshing healing alternative.

Over the last several decades chiropractic has acquired legitimacy and prominence in the U.S. It's no wonder. Eighty percent of Americans are affected by lower back or neck pain. Even though patients consistently express more satisfaction with chiropractic care than other forms of treatment, these positive reports often fly beneath the radar.

I know Dr. Kim as Peter. I first discovered his huge smile and welcoming personality last spring having been referred to his practice by a colleague. I quickly benefitted from his expertise in chiropractic, acupuncture, and muscle relaxation. The latter, provided by a staff member, became the highlight of my visits. As she massaged my back, I mistook the office's treatment room for a highway stop in heaven.

Dr. Kim, who also goes by "Peter," helping a patient with
lower back pain

For more esoteric treatments, Peter is also expertly trained in body mapping, magnetic pen treatment, sound therapy, spinal adjustments and detoxification programs. Based on his training in traditional medicine, Peter believes that each patient has a unique body type. His treatments provide improved circulation, increased energy and pain cessation.

Natural herbal ingredients marked in Chinese characters

Both Peter and his capable assistant, Stella, speak English and are extremely warm and helpful. As with other medical services provided here in Korea, I was pleasantly surprised by the reasonable fees for treatment. Being an American, I am, of course, used to exorbitant prices for both medical care and prescription drugs. How refreshing it was to be seen as a whole person and, at the same time, avoid what often proves to be unnecessary medication.

Dr. Kim in his office explaining the 
meridians on a human sculpture

If wellness, pain reduction or healing are conditions you seek, I encourage you to consider Peter and his clinic. Traditional Korean medicine, like an old Korean village, can be a place of comfort and soothing hospitality. Dr. Kim's clinic is that, and much, much more.

Details
Kim Kee Ho Traditional Korean Clinic
Daegu City, Suseong-gu, Beomeo 4 District 197-2
Tel: 053-746-0074
Email: kh1578@hanmail.net

Su Yeung Jang: Swimming Pool

Her diagnosis threw a wet woolen blanket over my spirit. "That will be it for running. You'll probably be able to continue with biking and walking. But, I'm afraid running is out," she said. The next time I saw my doctor she was draining two huge syringes worth of Coor's-like liquid from my right knee. This was indeed looking serious.

Yep, this was looking serious. Sucking
what looked like Coors Lite from my knee

To be sure, running has been much more than a sideline interest in my life. I started running as an 8-year old Cub Scout in New York City, winning silver and bronze medals which I still have stashed away somewhere at home. Just last November here in Korea, I ran my best 10-K in years. I envisioned myself as one of those ageless wonders, running forever, pocketing awards in my age group, until I moseyed-off into that last glorious sunset.

Coors imaging notwithstanding, I am not one to sulk in my own beer. Good thing. A 500-mike walk across northern Spain, known as the Camino de Santiago, is in my not-too-distant future. I don't have much time to turn this lemon of a predicament into a lubricating lemonade. Speaking of solutions, and back to my doctor, I had three rounds of what must be the world's most viscous solution injected into my knee. That concoction, brand named, Euflexxa, is part of my recovery strategy for being able to walk that pilgrimage from the village of St. Jean Pied De Port, on the French side of the Pyrenees, 800 kilometers southwesterly to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela.

But biking and walking alone won't get me there. Swimming, that other low-impact exercise, is well known as an almost magical physical therapy. I'm exhaling now. I hate swimming indoors: the roof, the vibrating sounds, the moist changing rooms, the slippery floors. Nothing could be further afield from the things that sustained me as a runner: the one-on-one communing with nature, the sound of my running shoes meeting the pavement, the ability to run anywhere in the world at almost any time.

The public Korean swimming pool I go to is about a 2-mile bike ride from our apartment. I am the only male expat sharing the lanes of this high-school affiliated facility. Of course, I had to undergo initiation rites of passage. During each of my first several visits there, the attendant came up to me and admonished me for not showering before entering the pool. (I had.) Guys in the locker room sent grimacing daggers my way for dripping water on the floor. Small prices to pay for the much needed benefits that swimming affords.

The Gyeungsan public swimming pool

The venue occupies an industrial-like site in a tired, but dignified, old part of Gyeungsan, a rapidly growing suburb of Korea's 4th largest city, Daegu. As is the Korean custom, shoes are removed upon entering. I place 1500 won (about $1.30) in a vending machine, get a ticket and exchange it for a locker key on a rubber elastic cord. Minutes later, I am in another world--a soothing aquatic space. The lanes are filled with mostly Korean ajamas (married women) and grandmothers who, by turn, either completely ignore me like some annoying floating flotsam, or smile and say,"good morning" in Korean. Essentially, it's quite like any pool anywhere in the world.

At the entrance, you place you shoes in a wallside cubbie.

Swimming, as advertised, has proven to be the best thing going for my knee. My old running tactics of setting goals and punching my stop-watch function, apply nicely in these watery lanes. The before and after ritual of biking along the working class streets of my district, provides some solace too. I realize before long, this will all be a memory--flashbacks that will carry me from town to town across the Spanish countryside as I walk the Camino.

Accessories to my aspiration:
walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago

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.