XI. GOING HOME

Before I left for Korea, I had a feeling of apprehension, the first time so far from home in a strange land. And it's true, my first impressions of Korea were very much like looking at a picture in National Geographic. There were some places in the hills where I could really imagine Ghengis Khan riding across the horizon. But, strangely enough, when it came time to go home, I felt the same apprehension. Home was in a way now the unknown. I had not become a Korean. I had simply spent a year living in one of a group of little pieces of America scattered in many foreign countries. But it wasn't exactly the America from which I had come. It was an isolated island containing detached souls, detached in space, in time, in emotion, and in a sense of reality or a lack of that sense. I feared that perhaps I had changed so much that I could no longer attach myself to the real world in which I had once lived.
Also I wondered if home had changed. It had been a historical year from autumn of 1964 to autumn 1965. The Gulf of Tonken incident had occurred followed by the big build up of the army in Vietnam with a full scale war. In Korea it was just games, but I read in the Stars and Stripes (the military newspaper) about the war and about the protests at home. When I come home in my uniform will people stare at me? I thought to myself, "Why do you look at me that way? I wasn't in Vietnam? I was in Korea where there is no war. I'm a doctor. I was a preventive medicine officer over there. I inspected kitchens and toilets and visited venereal disease clinics in order to keep our soldiers, your sons and brothers, from getting sick. Well at least we did a good job with the toilets and kitchens. I never touched a gun the whole time I was there, not even on field maneuvers. The only gunshot wounds I ever saw were a guard who shot himself in the foot when he was placing a bullet in his rifle because he thought he heard a thief coming through the fence to steal an auto part from the motor pool and a lonely, depressed sergeant who shot himself in the head the day before Christmas."
I took the circuit around Southeast Asia on the way home. It was with mixed feelings. On the one hand I felt that I had to do it. Here I was on the other side of the world with leave time accumulated. I'd probably never get back again, so how could I miss the opportunity? Later, I would never forgive myself. On the other hand, it was a period of limbo. Leaving Korea was the end of a segment of my life. Coming home was not going to be just a return but rather the beginning of a new part of my life. Besides, sight seeing alone just isn't as much fun as with someone else, and I was anxious to see my family.
After spending one last night at the Green Door, I went off to Kimpo Airfield for the MATS flight to Japan. The lady at the Green Door offered to accompany me to the airport, but I declined. Somehow being sent off by the Green Door lady at the beginning of my trip and being picked up by my parents at the other end seemed inappropriate. Real life was beginning to set in.
I took a bus from the military air base in Japan to the civilian airport where I consulted a travel agent who booked me on a series of flights around Southeast Asia. I only spent a few days in each place. I wanted to see them, but I also wanted to go home. The first stop was Hong Kong. I saw all the regular sights like Tiger Balm Garden, the night clubs, and a hover craft ride across to Macau. There was a gambling casino on the boat, and there were Chinese ladies in fur coats hovered over the gambling tables who reminded me of fur coated ladies I had seen a decade earlier on a trip to Las Vegas with my family. I guess in those days fur coats were considered a sign of wealth and were worn even in hot weather. I had a suit made in Hong Kong. It was cheap compared to the U.S., but actually I had a suit made for me in a shop in Tongduchon in Korea that was half the price and lasted twice as long. The next stop was Bangkok, canals, glittery temples, spicy food, silk that didn't seem silky, a nice place to visit.
By the time I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I had seen a lot of interesting stuff, but I was thoroughly lonely. The airport was a modern marble or marble-like building. On the way into the city, the cab passed the civic center with very impressive modern buildings, then the downtown area, and then to a shabby street where the taxi abruptly stopped in front of my hotel. I had asked for second class hotels in order to save money. It had worked out OK in Bangkok where the hotel was simple but clean and comfortable, but not here. The lobby was dingy. There were large ceiling fans slowly turning. It looked like the setting for a B class 1940s movie. I expected to see Humphrey Bogart sitting with Peter Lorrie and Sidney Greenstreet in the corner. I asked the clerk at the desk, "You have air conditioning?"
"No. But we have a hotel next door which does."
"Let me stay there."
The hotel next door had an air conditioned room but was otherwise worse than the first. It was dingy, dirty, and had cockroaches in the bathroom. By now it had started to rain, so I decided to spend the night. The hotel clerk offered to obtain female companionship for me, "You want woman? Malay woman most beautiful. I bring room." But I declined. Early in the morning, I moved to a simple but clean and comfortable hotel located in the railroad station.
That day I decided to take a city tour. I was sitting in the tour bus when three young Americans joined the tour. One was a blond fellow with blue eyes. Another was a blue eyed blond girl. The third was a tall black girl with a plain face but a rather shapely figure. By listening to their conversation, I ascertained that the two blonds were boyfriend and girlfriend, and the black girl was a friend of the blond girl. Also, it turned out that the fellow was an army lieutenant stationed in Korea and the two girls worked in the Army Special Services canteen in the very same Camp Casey from which I had just come.
Aha! My opportunity. Camp Casey would be my entree to the conversation and then to snare the black girl away from her friends. The conversation went well, but when I asked her to dinner, she said she had made plans with her friends, but I was welcome to join them. They were going to have dinner at their hotel and then go to the Saturday Night Sunday Market. Not exactly what I had in mind, but then again it was really what I did want, namely companionship.
After dinner while the lieutenant and I were relieving ourselves in the men's room, the girls were invited to a party by two Indian guys in the lobby who thought the girls were alone. When the lieutenant and I arrived in the lobby, the Indians realized that the situation was not exactly what they had in mind, but being polite they nonetheless invited us all to the party. The girls and I were enthusiastic about going to a local party with local people, but the lieutenant had some reservations. Anyway we all piled into the Indians' small car and off we went jammed together.
It was a great party. The location was a dimly lit courtyard. A record player provided the music. There were guys in turbans and girls in saris dancing the jitterbug and the twist. The two girls and I were enthralled by the whole event, but after about half an hour, the lieutenant suggested that we had better leave or we would miss the Saturday Night Sunday Market. Actually, the real reason for his suggestion was that he noticed some of the Indians looking hungrily at the shapely black girl. I don't know if his caution was warranted or not. Maybe he was misreading it. Anyway, the Indians who brought us to the party graciously drove us over to the Saturday Night Sunday Market, dropped us off, and returned to their party. We walked around the market for a while. It was a big flea market but nothing unusual.
The evening ended innocently. The taxi dropped the three of them off at their hotel and then continued on to mine. We were making the circuit in opposite directions. The next morning, they were off to Bangkok and I to Singapore. I have never seen them since then and do not remember their names, but for that one day they were my close friends.
Singapore reminded me of Hong Kong, Chinese people, British influence, modern tall buildings, commercial. It was once part of Malaysia, but apparently Malaysia kicked it out of their country because the majority of Singaporeans are Chinese, and the majority of Malaysians are Malay. The Malays did it to reduce the influence of the more middle class and wealthy Chinese in their country. It's an old story, the plight of middle class ethnic minorities around the world throughout history. Actually, Malaysia's novel approach was more benign than most.
The next stop on my itinerary was Manila, but in the airport when it was time to leave, a voice on the loud speaker announced that the flight was now boarding for Saigon and Manila. Saigon? That's in Vietnam! The travel agent in Tokyo didn't say anything about Saigon. Don't they know there is a war going on there? Well too late now. The plane's boarding.
I was only in Vietnam about one hour. Looking out the window as the plane landed, one could see tents, tanks, big guns, all kinds of military things all over the place. As we filed out across the runway to the terminal, we were greeted by a pretty little ground hostess in a traditional tight brightly colored Vietnamese dress and a big burly sun tanned U.S. marine with a helmet and a sub-machine gun. In the terminal, there were the usual amenities for tourists like us, a gift shop and a coffee shop. Also there were armed guards all over the place. When we boarded the plane again we added a group of U.S. soldiers going home after the completion of their year over there. They were a boisterous group, shouting, joking, deliriously happy to return alive. There was a lady correspondent with them, a tall bony angular woman wearing jungle fatigues and a big cowboy hat. She was joking, shouting, and drinking with the soldiers like one of the boys, but she looked like the toughest one in the group.
Manila and Taipei were nice, but I really didn't fully appreciate them because by this time I was anxious to get home. I am told that I seemed different when I first arrived home, more stiff and military, but the next day I was back to being my old self. I never noticed the difference. I spent the rest of my army tour at Fort Sheridan outside Chicago. It was in beautiful location on Lake Michigan with old trees and old buildings, a quiet place, but close enough to go home on weekends. Fishberg visited once on his way home to New York. My mother remarked that he seemed like a nice young man. He was.

So this ends my book, Memories of My Year in Korea. I hope you enjoyed it. It was a collection of fictional stories based on events that I heard about and in some cases experienced. I hope you enjoyed it.

Passover Wish

Passover, the Jewish holiday which is coming up next week, tells the story of the freeing of the Hebrews from ancient Egypt. Therefore it celebrates freedom. So in keeping with the spirit of Passover, I would like to wish freedom for my 4 young grandchildren. Fortunately they have been born in the United States of America and therefore have been given political freedom. But I am talking about a different kind of freedom, an inner freedom, a freedom which can not be given to them but which they must give to themselves if they are to have it.
So I wish for you , my grandchildren, freedom
to read, to study, to work, and thereby to become your own person.
to make mistakes and accept the mistakes of others
to be compassionate
to embrace people of various races, religions, and backgrounds.
to see the best in people.
to be an optimist.
to see through the muck of convention and think your own thoughts.
to be a good citizen of our country, but but one who questions.
to enjoy Judaism as a way to make sense of life.
to avoid envy.
to see the humor in life because life is either funny or tragic, and funny is the better choice.

The UCC Leaders and the Press

I hope and expect that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.
Last night leaders of the United Church of Christ appeared on television to respond to the recent flap concerning certain remarks of Rev Jeremiah Wright. Unlike Senator Obama who distanced himself graciously from Rev Wright's remarks which were diametrically opposed to the views of Senator Obama, the church leaders supported Rev Wright saying something to the effect that he is a very vigorous speaker. Instead they lashed out at the press. While it is true that the right wing of the press and some of the supporters of Hillary Clinton used Rev Wright's remarks, the mainstream press actually showed great restraint and balance. The church leaders are planning a "sacred discussion" (whatever that means) of the matter as opposed to the press's discussions. It sounds like they want to talk and the rest of us are supposed to listen quietly.
By fanning the flames, the church leaders are undermining Senator Obama to promote their own interests. They are Hillary Clinton's last hope.

Concerning Rev Jeremiah Wright

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I voted for Senator Obama in the Democratic primary and intend to vote for him in the election in November.
I am unhappy with the remarks of Rev Jeremiah Wright (the retired pastor of the church which Senator Obama attends) in which Rev Wright insulted America and claimed a justification of the 9-11 invasion of our country by terrorists. He condemned America's ally, the State of Israel, calling it racist, and urged an economic boycott of Israel. He has supported Louis Farrakhan, an avowed anti-Semite. He also insulted my fellow citizens of Italian descent.
I am first an American, second a Jew, and third a Zionist. On all three counts, it would seem that Rev Wright does not like me. So I don't have to like him. His ideas, at least the ones I have heard, are contrary to those of Senator Obama's, as the senator stated in his speech. I believe Senator Obama was too kind to Rev Wright in saying that there is more to him. Rev Wright has not reciprocated that kindness with an apology or explanation of what he has said.
I must speak out against Rev Wright's comments because of my admiration for Senator Obama, and because I want to see him as the next president of our country. As for the notion that Israel is racist, the Israeli people are much more racially diverse than the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has taken in and made Israeli citizens of thousands of refugees from Africa, not only the Black Jews of Ethiopia, but also hundreds of Black Moslem Darfurians who escaped persecution and genocide by the Sudanese Arabs.
I support Senator Obama because he is the most capable candidate to fight terrorism and to develop alternate energy sources to get us away from our dependence on foreign oil which supplies revenue for the terrorists. Perhaps the reason Rev Wright has not come out of hiding to explain himself is that he really does not want Senator Obama to become president. It would disprove what he has said and make him irrelevant.

A Zionist for Obama

I am a Zionist. I voted for Senator Obama in the Democratic primary, and if he is nominated, I will vote for him for president. He has stated that he values the relationship between the USA and Israel as plainly as any of the 3 serious candidates. As for his support by Farrakhan, he has repudiated that. If one is going to follow the logic of opposing him because of views of the church he attends and everyone who supports him, one might also mention that Senator Clinton's husband works for Dubai, a country which participates in an embargo of Israel. Senator Mc Cain has joined forces with president Bush who is particularly friendly toward the oil industry which depends on the Middle East oil producing countries which are unfriendly toward Israel. The reality is that all 3 candidates support the relationship between the USA and Israel and have similar views toward the Middle East and terrorism although perhaps with slightly different slants. I favor Obama for many reasons as an American, but as a Zionist I favor Obama because he has been the most articulate about weaning us away from dependence on oil which has been used by Israel's enemies as a lever against her. I also believe that Senator Obama is the one best able to make his ideas become realities.

Chapter 10. Mr. Professor

The University of Maryland had an extension school at Camp Casey which offered the soldiers some very nice courses. Fred Yamada, a few other guys, and I took a class in beginning Korean. After all, we were living in the country. It would be helpful to know something of the language. The class was surprisingly small. Most of the troops apparently found the study of Korean unimportant, unnecessary, or too intimidating. Mr. Kim, the teacher, taught English to children at the local elementary school during the day, and supplemented his income with night courses to us in Korean. He was a kind man who courageously tried to teach us the fundamentals of the real Korean language, which was quite different than the pidgin of the street that the locals and the G.I.s used for communication. During the course of the semester, the size of the class dwindled down to Fred, another guy, and me. As for continuing into the second semester, the three of us, the last of the scholars, decided that it was hopeless to expect that we would really master the language during the rest of our one year. Anyway, it took too much time away from the after supper activities at the officers' club, like drinking beer and singing "Stewball."
The head of the extension school was a short stocky man who looked very academic. He usually wore a tweedy jacket and bow tie. He lived down the hall from me in the B.O.Q. (Bachelor Officers Quarters). I don't remember his name, but we used to call him Mr. Professor. You couldn't miss him, darting around the post on his motor cycle wearing his motor cycle helmet, his tweedy jacket flowing behind him. Every Friday, he would drive down to Seoul. He had a house there and a girlfriend who lived in it. His was a strange story, strange to the outside world, although as time passed stories like his seemed to become less strange to me. Before World War II, he had majored in languages in college. His love was the study of languages and different cultures. He had always dreamed of traveling. He longed to sample foreign tastes, aromas, sounds, sights and any other stimulations his senses could encounter in foreign lands. To that end he became as fluent as possible in as many languages as possible. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the army and was made an intelligence officer because of his language abilities. One of his assignments took him to German occupied Warsaw where he befriended a Polish family that had become wealthy by siding with the Nazis. He pretended to be a rich German war profiteer who was not in the army because of a bad left leg and good connections. He was able to pull it off by speaking a perfectly accented fluent German and some broken Polish, and always walking with a limp. The family took him into their home and were delighted when he took an interest in their teenage daughter. They figured that the Germans would remain the winners and this would help cement their position with the winning side. They allowed him, in fact encouraged him, to sleep in her bed. After a brief courtship, they were married. He was twenty seven years old and she was fourteen. He remained in Warsaw until a few days before the Russians arrived when he and his teenage wife slipped through the lines to the Russian side. It was a surprise to the wife when she found out that her German profiteer husband was really an American spy with no limp. She accepted it. She grew up in those times when nothing was sincere, and all that mattered was survival at anyone's expense. She had never known anything else. The rest of the family was never heard from again. After the war, the couple went back to Warsaw to look for them but found nothing. Some people thought they were killed by their neighbors. Some thought they were taken off by the Russians, but no one really knew with any certainty.
After the war, Mr. Professor went to graduate school at the University of Maryland and then ultimately became a teacher there. The couple settled into a small comfortable home in a suburb of Washington, D.C. But after a number of years, the urge to travel overtook him again. A ten year stretch of American suburban life was all he could take before becoming restless. When the Korean War ended, an opportunity to teach at the university's extension at Camp Casey in Korea appeared. He grabbed it, and off he went leaving his wife in Maryland with their small daughter. They would see him once a year when he would return to spend Christmas with them.
When Mr. Professor arrived in Korea, he found an impoverished country just beginning to pick up the pieces of a society smashed by years of war. Many people would look at grinding poverty and all the ills that follow it, crime, filth, delapidation, lack of basic facilities, and run away. Others see in it opportunity. They thrive on it. An average man among suppressed people becomes an exceptional man, a superman. One could get by on a college teacher's salary in the States, but in Korea in those days an American with any income was a tycoon. As for the locals, poverty, of course could have an opposite effect. When the stomach calls out for food and there is none, the unthinkable becomes thinkable. That was the case with a woman and her daughter whom Mr. Professor encountered standing together and crying in front of the Lone Star Bar on a narrow crowded street in Seoul one evening. The woman looked very old, hunched over with wrinkled, weather beaten skin and greying hair. Her traditional Korean short jacket and full skirt were frayed and had lost their original whiteness. The daughter looked like a little girl, a ragamuffin with an angelic face. Actually, the woman was not as old as she looked. She was in her forties. And the daughter was not quite as young as she appeared. She was a teenager.
Although Mr. Professor had only recently arrived in the country, he already knew enough Korean to converse reasonably well and used his newly acquired language skills to try to comfort the woman and her daughter. The woman told him that she was a widow. Her husband had been a soldier in the South Korean Army during the war and had been killed, leaving her with five children and no means of support. She had left her village and come to the city in hope of finding work, but there was little to find. The proprietor of the Lone Star Bar had seen the daughter in the street, admired her beauty, saw her potential, and offered the mother a small sum of money to have her daughter as a bar girl. It was a deal too difficult to accept because it meant the unthinkable, selling her daughter into a life of sin. On the other hand it seemed impossible to refuse. It would mean one less mouth to feed and money to buy food for the other four. And so, the two were standing in front of the Lone Star Bar, saying goodbye, as the mother was about to sell her child for survival.
But Mr. Professor had an alternate plan. The beautiful daughter would come to live with him, and he would give the mother a small stipend each month which would allow her and her other four children to live comfortably. In other times, selling her daughter to an American would not have set well, but given the alternative, it was a last minute miracle.
And so, Mr. Professor rented two adjacent houses in Yong Dong Po, a suburb of Seoul, one for him and his fourteen year old mistress, Lee, and the other for his "in-laws." During the week he lived in a room in the bachelor officers quarters at Camp Casey where he worked, and on Friday evenings he would drive his motorcycle down to Seoul to spend the weekends with Lee. Lee turned out to be not only beautiful but also intelligent. Mr. Professor saw to it that she had a proper education. He sent her to the best school he could find. She learned to speak English fluently, even mastering Mr. Professor's Maryland accent. Those were happy years for the two of them. They spent every weekend together, except for the two weeks around Christmas when he went to visit his Polish wife in the U.S. They would visit the palaces, museums, and gardens in Seoul. At times they would take week long trips to Cheggido Island, to Japan, to Hong Kong. She grew from a teenage waif into a beautiful educated young woman. And then she was ready for college. She wanted to study in America. Although Mr. Professor was sad to see her go, he knew it had to be. It was in her best interest. Her mother opposed it, but he encouraged it. He decided that she would study at his school, the University of Maryland, and so he sent her to live with his wife and daughter while she went to school. They accepted her, and the three of them got along well. Nothing was ever said. Outwardly, she was just an exchange student whom Mr. Professor sponsored because he was a friend of her family. I don't know if his wife and daughter ever actually knew what his relationship with her had been, but I suspect that deep down they really did know.
Meanwhile, back in Korea, Mr. Professor quickly became lonely without Lee. He tried to start up with her younger sister who was now in her teens, but that was too much for her mother to take. By this time she had saved up enough money by being creative with Mr. Professor's stipend to move out with her four children and go back to her home village. Mr. Professor never heard from them again. Lee finished college, went on to medical school, married one of her class mates, and became a pediatrician. She now lives with her husband in California. The last I heard about Mr. Professor, he had picked up another Korean teenager and was living with her on the weekends.

Obama and the Middle East

Recently, Senator Obama said that the Palestinians have suffered more than anyone. Actually there are many people in this world who have suffered at least as much as they have. The Israeli people certainly have also suffered much. I don't think it should be necessary to have a suffering contest as to who has suffered the most. Anyway, Senator Obama clarified his statement by saying that the suffering of the Palestinian people has been because of the unwillingness of their leaders to make peace with Israel. One might also add the surrounding Arab countries that invaded Israel in 1948 and have used the Palestinians to deflect their public opinion from their own failings, keeping many of the Palestinians in "refugee camps" instead of settling them into their communities as Israel did with the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries.
Since Senator Obama's clarification, a number of anti-Israel bloggers have denounced him. Apparently they mistakenly thought he was one of them. I would like to thank those anti-semitic bloggers for confirming my faith in Senator Obama. I believe all 3 of the serious candidates still standing, Obama, Clinton, and Mc Cain have similar foreign policy objectives toward the Middle East (with slightly different tilts), namely to protect America from terrorism post 9/11 and to stand by our true allies like Israel. I believe Senator Obama is the most effective leader to do it.