[Korea Encounters] Peace Corps' 1966 arrival in Korea

Peace Corps Volunteers in Korea, published in The Korea Times Dec. 4, 1966. / Korea Times Archive

By Matt VanVolkenburg

On Sept. 16, 1966, the first contingent of American Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) arrived in Korea. Four days later, in "Thoughts of the Times," John C. Stickler reflected on an encounter months earlier with a small boy who had wanted to practice his English.

"One question he kept repeating was, 'Yoo biscoh?' As the 'Yoo' was accompanied by a pointing finger, I assumed that he was speaking English, but the 'biscoh' had me stumped for a while. Finally I guessed that he was referring to the Peace Corps."

He added, "Korea represents a rather special case for the volunteers coming here. No other country to which PCVs have been invited has such a huge number of Americans already in residence."

A year earlier, James Wade had published a satirical article about just this topic, describing a meeting in Seoul at which the various heads of American aid agencies responded to the PCVs coming by arguing that it was "entirely unnecessary, in view of the work that all of our associated agencies are doing here already."

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed one of those present. "Heavens yes!" another replied. "There are too many Americans here already. The country can't support them all."

In early March 1966 it was reported that around 95 volunteers would be sent to Korea that September to work as teachers. In late May, U.S. Peace Corps Korea director Kevin O'Donnell arrived for a five-week stay to consult with the Korean government and prepare for the PCVs' arrival.

Expectations varied. In March, The Korea Times argued that PCV operations in Korea would be "advantageous to the local development in a variety of projects" and would "contribute greatly to the development of mutual productive friendship between the Korean and American peoples."

South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Kim Kyun-chul also highlighted friendship as a goal. In Nashville in late June, he spoke to 50 PCVs planning to go to Korea. "Bureaucratic attitudes among American ambassadors to foreign countries make it difficult to convince others of the good intentions of the American people… But you may be the ones to change all this," he told them. "If you act, behave and eat like Koreans, then your mission will be successful."

Peace Corps Volunteers in Korea, published in The Korea Times Sept. 16, 1967. / Korea Times Archive

PCV trainees hoping to go to Korea underwent a 12-week training program in Hilo, Hawaii, directed by Arthur Kinsler, who was born to missionary parents in Pyongyang and who had studied at Yonsei University.

As Kim Kak, a former Korea Times staffer who took part in the training, described it, "The original group of 120 trainees came to the Peace Corps training center in Hilo on June 20 to receive intensive instruction in the Korean language, together with acculturation and skill training. In the course of the past 3 months, about 20 trainees have either voluntarily resigned or were 'deselected.'"

In many ways, Hawaii, which was unfamiliar to many of the trainees, was a good halfway point between the mainland U.S. and Korea. As Edward Baker, a member of the K-1 Peace Corps group, described it, Hawaii was "very different from South Korea, but the total change of scenery was useful conditioning for living in South Korea where the change would be even more extreme."

Greeted by a Korean flag hanging in the training center lobby, Kim noted that trainees could eat rice daily in the cafeteria and were "often seen sampling kimchi on low tables while sitting cross-legged" beneath a notice that read "Only Korean Spoken Here."

One problem to overcome was the fact that there was little written in English about Korea at the time. As historian Edward J. Shultz, another K-1 member, remembered it, "Prior to our arrival, the Peace Corps had sent us two books, 'The Martyred' by Richard Kim and 'Korean Works and Days' by Richard Rutt."

Training focused on six areas ― Korean language study, "Asia-America studies," teaching skills and practice, environmental adaptation, food and health and community development ― but studying Korean took up the bulk of the time: four to five hours, six days a week. Considering the different levels of politeness in spoken Korean, "it was recommended that they always stick to the honorific form."

In addition, according to Shultz, "To hone our teaching skills, the Peace Corps sent us over to the Kona (west) coast of the Hawaii Island to practice teaching in the public schools and engage in cross-cultural learning, through teaching indigenous Hawaiian as well as third-generation immigrant children."

Kim also described how trainees spent a week at a Peace Corps training camp designed in the style of an "Asian village," where they "slept on the floor, cooked their own food, used non-flush toilets, washed their own clothes in the river, and were introduced to farming, village style. The second phase of the adaptation training was living for three weeks with families of Oriental backgrounds."

Peace Corps Volunteers in Korea, published in The Korea Times June 8, 1967. / Korea Times Archive

"Cutting across all these training programs," Kim wrote, was "a new concept of sensitivity training that includes many do's and don'ts necessary for minimizing any possible emotional conflicts between the volunteers and Korean nationals."

Some of the discussions included "How would a Korean housewife react if a man, especially a foreigner, would go into the kitchen to help her out?" and "Will it be proper for female Peace Corps volunteers to go out with American GIs?"

On Sept. 14 it was reported that of the 101 volunteers, 38 were women, including "several wives who are going with their fellow volunteer husbands." That day, the Ministry of Education and Peace Corps Korea signed a 14-item agreement, and agreed that the K-1 volunteers would stay 21 months.

Two days later, 98 members of K-1 arrived in Korea. Upon arrival they attended an orientation program offered by the U.S. embassy in Seoul where "they heard lectures on Korea and Korea-U.S. relations" given by embassy and U.S. Operations Mission (USOM) people. The next day they paid a courtesy call on Education Minister Kwon O-byong, who hosted a reception for them at Korea House in the evening before they began a three-day orientation program by the ministry. After that, the volunteers were sent off to one of the 43 towns they had been assigned to.

Peace Corps Volunteers in Korea, published in The Korea Times Sept. 3, 1967. / Korea Times Archive

PCVs arriving in Naju, South Jeolla Province, for the first time a year later wrote that "our mere stepping out of the microbus caused the most dumfounded of stares among all the passers-by (who quickly became standers-by)," while children playing in the streets "were completely astonished at seeing us, their bodies temporarily paralyzed and their mouths agape."

By the time their first day ended, they had been treated to dinner, taken to jail ― Mr. Im, a man who had approached them to learn English, turned out to be a police officer who thought they might be interested in seeing the cells ― and led to a tea room, where a local English teacher expressed a desire to improve his English and asked if he could visit their inn at 8 a.m. the next morning ― a Sunday.

Reflecting in 1968 on his two years of service in Korea, PCV Charles Goldberg, who had helped set up a workshop to assist Korean teachers who had "a tendency to portray English as a 'mystic cryptogram' to their students," said, "the job tests you, it makes you use your imagination and gives you a great sense of responsibility and a tremendous insight into another culture."

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr.