Contribution to motherland

By Kim Jin-hyeon

There are various fruits, including imported ones, at every local convenience store. The tangerine is one of them and it is so cheap that everyone can easily buy and eat it. However, in the early 1970s, the fruit was so rare and expensive that I couldn't afford it.

My hometown was located on the southern coastal area of South Jeolla Province. Every winter, my neighbors visited the tangerine farmlands in Seogwipo on Jeju Island to work there. They came back home with a box of the fruit. Then one of them would give two or three to my family. The memory of its delicious taste reminds me of the past.

In those days, people said that farmers who had a few tangerine trees could educate their children through college. It meant that tangerines guaranteed a high income. In fact, the trees on Jeju Island have a long history, but their enhanced strains were imported from Japan in 1913. After 1955, cultivation areas for the trees increased a little, but from 1965 to 1970 they jumped almost thirty-fold.

One of those who helped increase production was Kang Kae-jung, a representative of the Korean Japanese people living in Osaka, Japan, in 1966. This man, thinking that advanced agricultural technology would lead his mother country to become rich, invited Korean farmers on two occasions to learn Japan's agricultural techniques.

Judging that the climate where tangerine trees grow in Japan was similar to that on Jeju Island, he helped a few farmers from Seogwipo learn to cultivate the trees and purchased them early ripening tangerine trees. In 1970, with his help the Korean Japanese in Osaka contributed 600,000 trees to citizens on Jeju Island and helped to increase the farmland for tangerines.

Moreover, in Japan after World War Ⅱ, for many years Kang carried out various activities as a representative of the Korean-Japanese people in Osaka. These activities included improving the Korean-Japanese legal position, arranging homecomings for poor workers to their mother country, and serving as a vanguard for the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan.

For a long time he also donated money to philanthropic causes to help with installing electrical equipment, buying vehicles and managing a scholarship foundation in his hometown, Suncheon, South Jeolla Province.

In the background of his contributions to South Korea were his painful memories and patriotic mind. Kang was born in Suncheon in 1914, but he was so poor that he worked as a servant in his childhood. Then, in 1943, he was sent to Hokkaido, Japan, to do forced labor during Japan's colonial era. He escaped from the labor camp because he could not endure the cruelty.

After the war, he stayed in Japan and made his fortune through his own efforts. A scholar who wrote Kang's life story said that the reason he could practice benevolence and dedicated activities was that he had experienced the grief of losing his country. In addition, though he grew up without a formal education, he had a righteous spirit from his ancestors.

Kae-jung had a merciful life by realizing past lives. For example, he guided citizens in Suncheon to a better life and helped improve human rights for the Korean-Japanese people. He used his power of execution to help solve Suncheon citizens' pending issues that especially touched their heart.

The man passed away from disease in 1983 at the age of 69. In 1999, Suncheon erected a statue of him in a park called Jukdobong to memorize him for the benevolent acts he practiced throughout his life.

The writer is an English teacher at Chung-mu High School in South Jeolla Province.