Autobiographical reflections on journey to Korea

By Chung Ah-young

Sent by the Society of Jesus’ Wisconsin Province in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, American Jesuit missionary John L. Mitchell came to Korea to help establish Sogang College (now Sogang University), which first opened in 1960.

He remembers the first day he stepped onto Korean soil in 1959 as a Jesuit scholar. The nation was recovering from the horrors and destruction of the Korean War (1950-53) and still in a depressing condition.

In the new foreign landscape, culture, and environment, he didn’t know the Korean language and was thrown into a “strange but fascinating country.”

He recalls himself as “a mountain rabbit” that was on a journey to the war-stricken

nation which was foreign and exotic to him in his book “Mountain Rabbit: Whither Goest Thou?”

His 15-year “journey” to Korea had three dimensions — the obvious geographical one from America to Korea; an educational one from learning the Korean culture and language to becoming a university professor; and a spiritual one from being a religious missionary to becoming a Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus and finally, becoming a Catholic layman through his reflections on his early experiences in shaping his world view and moral foundation.

His journey through Korea and other Asian nations in the 1960s and 1970s includes adventuresome, educational, easy, difficult and mundane aspects of life as noted in his collection of articles “Thoughts of the Times.” These were posted for The Korea Times and other publications during his more than 15 years of travel in Korea and other Asian countries as well as works penned in the United States.

His writings capture not only his personal insights into Korea, but its people and its culture through his philosophical and autobiographical reflections.

These concentrate on his key experiences in Korea such as the opening of Sogang College, which he helped found and where he taught and eventually established the Department of Mass Communications just before Sogang became a university.

April, 1960, was one of the most memorable moments for him when Sogang College opened. When Sogang College first opened its classroom doors to students on Monday, April 18, the pioneering faculty members were just 14. “What we lacked in experience at this level of academic achievement, we more than made up for in excitement, dedication, and above all, drive and determination,” he said.

His memories are vivid on the remembrance of April Revolution in 1960 as a witness to such an electrifying and polarizing event in Korean contemporary history. The author described the day’s events in a letter to his parents as well as he could remember.

“Outside South Gate (Namdaemun), the sounds of army rifles and rumbling tanks split the deadly silence as policemen and the Republic of Korea soldiers try to suppress the beginnings of what appears to be a major political student uprising. Surely, I will remember this day as another one of those new and memorable experiences I have had almost every day I live here. Nothing compares with it. Selfishly, and now safely in our Jesuit home, I’m glad to be here to have witnessed these events because they are so unbelievable. At the same time, I feel certain helplessness as a foreigner in that I cannot be a positive force in bringing about a resolution or in ending the hostilities,” he writes.

The author looked back on the Korean journey writing in his acknowledgement and said he was throughout this journey just “a bouncing rabbit, who delighted in enjoying South Korea’s incomparable hospitality and extraordinary landscape,” which will live in his heart and mind forever.

Mitchell also writes his experiences and feelings when he had difficulty in adapting himself into the exotic and strange new Korean culture. He writes “Daily Personal Dialogue — Main Attraction of The Korea Times” about his special relation with the nation’s first English newspaper. As a foreigner, he relied on the paper for information about Korea. “At that time, Korean newspapers and magazines concealed news and information from me about which I eagerly wanted to know, indeed, and were essential for me to know as I attempted to acclimate myself into the Korean society. I felt like a child who had grown out of the picture reading and coloring period and now wanted to delve into the purely print medium where words opened my mind to daily events, exotic places and mountains of information. I was most gratified and thankful, then, to find a newspaper, The Korea Times, which I could read,” he writes. He added he likes the personality of the paper — its smallness that actually allows it to be personal. “A personal dialogue goes on between Koreans and foreigners each day,” he said.

Mitchell was a founding member of Sogang College and also a faculty member of the Department of English in 1960-61. He returned to the United States to continue his studies for advanced degrees. After returning to Sogang, he established the Department of Mass Communications in 1968, a year before the college officially became a university and served as a chairman of the department from 1968 to 1973. He now lives in Salt Lake City and helps the elderly at home care facilities.