Teaching is tough but enormously gratifying: Part 1

By Yi Woo-won

I started teaching when I was a junior in college. I taught English at a night high school in Daegu not far from home. It was shortly after my three-year active service in the Korean War. Everybody was poor and found living difficult in the war-torn, devastated country. I was blessed with the timely job because my father passed away suddenly just before the war and I had to support my mother and two younger brothers who were still going to school. Moreover, I had to pay for my own expenses to finish college. But I had never really pursued a teaching career.

My earliest dream was to become an artist. I loved drawing and was good at it, winning quite a few prizes, although they were about war propaganda and kamikaze warplanes. My elementary school teacher encouraged me earnestly to go to the prestigious Ueno Gakuin (now University) in Japan. But as I grew older and more mature my artistic dream gradually dimmed. Instead, I later aspired to be a doctor or a diplomat. My conservatively-minded father was resolutely against me becoming an artist, saying he had never seen a successful artist, either financially or professionally. He wanted me to be a banker and sent me to a commercial high school.

When I finished college, I was still teaching English at the high school. My B.A. diploma in political science was irrelevant and worthless for teaching English. I tried hard to find another job elsewhere but the opportunity never came along. Then in 1965, almost a decade later, quite unexpectedly, I was offered to teach the Korean language to military personnel at Camp Carroll Education Center in Waegwan. I was absolutely delighted but I wondered if I could teach the college course of the University of Maryland with my B.A. degree. Even worse and shamefully, I didn't know much about Korean grammar for a Korean.

There were two interviews for the job with professors of Yonsei University which had an affiliation with the University of Maryland on Korean language programs. A female Korean language professor gave me a written examination with six questions on Korean grammar, of which I could answer five. Luckily, I came across a few age-old grammar books while searching for them in the attic and opportunely gave myself a crash course just before the test.

The other professor who interviewed me in the afternoon was an American who I later learned to be Dr. Horace Grant Underwood III, a prominent scholar and educator of the university. After a brief exchange of greetings, he suddenly asked me to show him a demonstration of teaching a Korean language class. He caught me completely off guard, but I took a deep breath and walked towards the board. Then I started teaching a Korean language class in English, looking at him as an imaginary student just as I had been doing so many years. I thought I had talked not more than 15 minutes, when he stopped me with a smile, telling me it was ”fabulous.” I was relieved infinitely and also flattered by his nice remark.

I came down from the podium to sit back at my seat, when I was stunned by what the professor said to me in fluent Korean. He said, “Mr. Yi, I came to Korea before you did.” Then he said that he had always felt the blood running in his veins was that of Korea, not of America. For over an hour, he continued to tell me enthusiastically about his childhood and things about ancient Korea that I hadn't heard about. He was more Korean than I was in a number of aspects. He said that he loved Korea more than his own country, particularly, its beautiful culture and traditions.

He was a grandson of Horace Grant Underwood I, the founder of now Yonsei University. Dr. Horace Grant Underwood III, died on Jan 15, 2004, at the age of 87. He now lies in the earth of his adopted country, for which he had dedicated his life to the education and welfare of its people. He was truly an extraordinary person. It was the greatest honor to meet him.

Yi Woo-won (yiwoowon1988@gmail.com) lives in Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province, and has been writing since 1986.