By Sah Dong-seok
Deputy Managing Editor
A couple of weeks ago, I did what I had wanted to do for a long time; I looked around places where I had spent my childhood and adolescence. I woke up early in the morning on a Sunday and pedaled my bicycle to trace back to my past.
Indeed, without a bike, I wouldn't have thought of attempting my predawn adventure because my childhood homes were located in the hilly ``moon village'' in suburban Seoul where roads are not wide enough for a single car. Now I can add another line to my list of the benefits of cycling.
Actually, it was not a tough journey. I often ride along the Han River by the neighborhood of my upbringing. What was needed was my final decision to go there. I made up my mind that morning.
To my surprise, the elementary school I had attended still was in the same location, although there had been some changes. The swimming pool had become an athletic facility for the lower grades and new buildings had been constructed. The playground was smaller due to the new construction; I recall it being a massive wonderland ― probably because everything looks big through the eyes of a little boy.
During my elementary school days, I traveled down narrow and winding lanes from home to school and vice versa. The lanes were narrower than what I remembered. I recall that there were two long staircases on my way to school and I feel that the stairs remain the same. Furthermore, the shabby homes that had been built alongside the stairs were still intact.
My heart was racing while I rode; sometimes I had to get off and push my bike along the narrow lanes to my former homes, my first visit in nearly four decades. I lived in two different houses in the village before moving to one in the flatlands, when I was in my second year of middle school. As expected, I didn't see the two houses.
What perplexed me most was that I couldn't locate the exact spots. To be sure, there was a small vacant lot in front of one of my houses but it was gone. I used to look down on houses, forests and some buildings, standing on the corner of the vacant lot. I figured that multiplex houses must have pushed aside the houses occupied by low-income families. My houses must have met the same fate.
Whenever I think of the village, I never forget how poor we were. At the time, schools handed out cornbread to children to help relieve them of their hunger even though more than 10 years had passed since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. I remember hearing that the corn came from the United States under its post-war aid scheme. Later, the cornbread was replaced by flour bread, which was less palatable to children.
I also remember that there was a mom-and-pop store called the ``Actress Shop'' in my neighborhood. Rumors had it that Hwang Jeong-sun, a top star in the late 1960s and 1970s, once lived there, selling sweets and gum. I logged on to Naver to search how she was doing and learned that she still lives a healthy life despite being 84.
Poverty was common to most people in Korea then and few were ashamed of being poor. Most South Koreans have devoted themselves to educating their children ― the prime engine behind the country's rapid economic development.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will close its office in Seoul at the end of this month as South Korea joins the OECD club of benefactors, the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Instead, the UNDP will open a new office to look for ways to help developing countries. Of the 30 OECD members, only 23 countries belong to the DAC. South Korea joined the OECD in 1996 but its ascent to the DAC will mean that it has become a genuine member of the club of rich countries.
The change reflects a shift in South Korea's international status from a developing country to a donor nation. South Korea, now the world's 15th largest economy, is the only nation in the world that has transformed itself from an aid recipient to a donor, setting a good example in the international community. Now we can be proud of what we have done over the past decades.
We often feel frustrated when we hear that all members of a family committed suicide due to economic distress or politicians and government officials were arrested for taking bribes. Nonetheless, we have every reason to be hopeful because we can expect our future to be better.