Background

Korea-6 Peace Corps Volunteers in 2011

I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV, Korea-6 Rural Health Program), and I am looking forward to an official government sponsored "revisit" in October, 2012. These revisits are coordinated by Friends of Korea, The Korea Foundation, and the government of The Republic of Korea (ROK). They are financed by the ROK to thank us RPCVs for our service. This revisit will be combined with a visit to my son Geoffrey who is working in Changwon. This first blog post is to serve as background to that visit.

Korea-6 RPCVs at a Korean restaurant

Forty-three years ago I served in the Peace Corps, working in TB control in Gongju, during which time I courted and married Kyung-Sook, a marriage that lasted 14 years and resulted in the birth of our son Geoffrey. For a narrative of my Peace Corps experience see my Korea web page. 

I started thinking of another visit at a reunion of Korea-6 volunteers held in Tennessee last summer when several RPCVs spoke highly of being on revisits, but at that point it was mere fantasizing as I saw no way to pull it off. 

In the top picture (click on pictures to enlarge - there are more pictures at Picasa) I am third from the right with my hand on Pat's (my dear wife's) shoulder. I expect Elliot Brumberger (far right) and Joe Balconi (kneeling, front row) with their wives, as well as several others from my group, to join me on this revisit.

On April 1st of this year (2012) I was having dinner with Geoffrey at a favorite Asian fusion restaurant in Exton, Pennsylvania, midway between his home and mine. We often met there and then would catch a movie nearby. On this occasion he told me he would have to make a call to his uncle Duke after we ordered. Duke was paying most of Geoffrey's bills at Drexel University and it could have been related to that. At the appointed time he took his cellular phone outside and called. When he got back in he was a combination of excited and stunned. He had been offered a job with Ducom as a logistician  in Changwon, Korea. I had a feeling the call might be a job offer but hadn't thought of a job in Korea, and hadn't said anything; if I was wrong I'd have looked silly. When I told Pat, after I got home, she encouraged me to visit him there, and it was at this point the fantasising turned into planning.

Geoffrey outside security at Dulles

On May 8th Geoffrey rented a van and we took his things down to Silver Spring, Maryland for storage in his uncle's old house. We met his aunt there and she let us in. Geoffrey and I then went to a Korean buffet (Gah-Rham) in Beltsville, for lunch before driving back. That Sunday, on the 13th, we drove to Dulles airport in his Saab. I went in with him, and after he was checked in we had a poignant conversation in a coffee shop just outside security. I took the Saab home (which I will take care of while he is gone), and again had lunch at Gah-Rham on the way back. I have an empty feeling knowing he is out of the country for anywhere from four months to a year.

Wayne (engineer), Duke, and Geoffrey

We do have e-mail and Skype so we are in contact. When I was in Korea in the 1960s it took about a week to get mail each way, and I had to make the occasional phone call from the post office, sometimes waiting hours for a connection. Geoffrey's mother and I did make a visit to her family in 1976 (pictures at Picasa), but that was my last time there. I didn't think I'd be able to get back to Korea again. Between Geoffrey and the Korean government, my in-country expenses are covered, and I'm getting help on air fare as well. 

Geoffrey (right) on outing with co-workers

I have booked a flight on Delta Airlines to Seoul and then Korean Airlines (KAL) to Busan (Gimhae), arriving October 9th, and will have ten days in Changwon staying with Geoffrey before going to Seoul. Changwon is now an industrial city and provincial capitol with a population of over a million. It was hardly a city when I was in Korea; just a suburb of Masan, which it has now absorbed, and I never had cause to go there. I'll then take the train to Seoul for a week for the "official revisit" part of the trip. We are being put up at the Somerset Palace while revisiting Seoul and I expect to be taken back to Gongju where I lived and worked. Before I leave I'll rejoin Geoffrey in Changwon so we can celebrate our birthdays together (October 26th and 28th) before I fly home on the 31st (KAL to Tokyo then Delta).

I am also looking forward to worshiping with Friends (Quakers) in Seoul while there, and visiting with and breaking bread (sharing rice) with isolated Friends in the southern part of the country, as way opens.

I don't plan any more entries until October.

Sijo (시조)

I have tried my hand at sijo (in English). It is a structured poetic form of  three lines of 14-16 syllables each. I didn't know where to publish these, but as my attempt at sijo is inspired by the prospect of my trip to Korea in October, and by a book of Korean Zen poetry ("Because of the Rain") I am including them in this blog.

I admit to being predominately left brain (analytical) and aesthetically challenged. Even so I offer a few that I have recently written.

The Wave                         (July 10)
  

I look out over the ocean; 
    awed by its immensity.    

A huge wave rolls in from the distance; 
    striking fear in my belly.

Now near, it tumbles over itself; 
    tickles my toes, and is gone.

The Pasture                 (July 15)

The summer pasture bathed in sunlight;  
    cows rest in the shade.

Walking through the field the grass parts; 
    I break off a piece and suck it. 

I step in a cow pie, flies buzz; 
    My shoe is covered in shit.

Bubbles                         (July 15)

God created the cosmos; 
    a child plays, blowing bubbles. 

The bubbles are beautiful; 
    rainbows sparkle on their surface. 

Then POP! and they are gone; 
    but they live on in the child's mind.           

  
I may add to this page until October 8th, but any sijo that come to me once I am in Korea I will record in my daily post.  I will try to resist any other digressions. On to Korea!        

 Plover               (September 12, 2012)

On the beach at Chincoteague,
    small birds chase the receding wave,
grab a morsel to small to see, 
    scurry back as the next wave comes,
little legs pumping madly;
    ebb and flow, yin and yang, tai-chi.* 


*Tai-chi is great ultimate symbolized in the diagram of the yin and yang, as well as the martial art based on this principle.

Sparrows           (October 4, 2012)

Sidewalk cafe on the parkway; 
    eating lunch, watching girls.
A sparrow hovers near, alights;
    steals a bread crumb off the table.
More come, watch, wait, flutter about; 
    Frances of Assisi.