[RAS KOREA] An American farmboy in 1970s Korea

Steven L. Shields poses with his Korean-language tutor at Bulguk Temple in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, 1976. Courtesy of Steven L. Shields

By Steven L. Shields

I arrived in Korea at the tender age of 19, a time in most young people's lives when they believe themselves impervious to disease, death and other calamities. Korea in the mid-1970s was a land on the cusp of an economic explosion, but it hadn't happened yet.

Many of the puzzle pieces were in place, though. In a short decade, the small, impoverished, war-torn and oppressed former kingdom, former empire and former colony would roar onto the world stage and soon be known as the "Miracle on the Han River."

A newsstand offers various publications, including The Korea Times, in 1976. The once-ubiquitous newsstands have largely disappeared, replaced by more permanent stalls in the busy areas of the city or by convenience stores elsewhere. Courtesy of Steven L. Shields

For many in the 1970s, prosperity was still a distant dream. Most people then lived outside the bustle and traffic snarls of a city that had grown so quickly that infrastructure lagged terribly. Then-President Park Chung-hee commanded legions of "bulldozers" ― some figurative and some literal. So much of Korea's rich heritage was lost in that era. Still, the city desperately needed wider streets to make way for the increased motor traffic: buses, trucks, taxis and the endless parade of construction equipment. I watched as huge swaths of downtown Seoul ― Jongno, Cheonggyero and Euljiro ― were widened by cutting back existing buildings and erecting new outside walls while leaving some original buildings standing.

Seen is an arch over Sejongno Intersection in 1976. It was a long-time fixture of the area, as the statue of Yi Sun-shin still is today. Visible in the distant background is the former Capitol building that was built by the Japanese, but used by the Korea well into the 1980s when it was converted to the National Museum of Korea. After much debate, the structure was demolished in the 1990s during the presidency of Kim Young-sam. Courtesy of Steven L. Shields

Armed with a new 35mm SLR camera and a couple of rolls of Kodachrome, I pursued my photography hobby ― albeit with a bit more miserliness than I would have preferred. Film and processing were both expensive, and I had a small budget. I could not take my camera every day during my early missionary service, so I missed more photos than I was ever able to take. I remember some scenes today and often say, "I wish I had a photo of that." Even so, my photos are neither artistic, well-focused nor framed, and colors faded over time before I could digitize my precious negatives.

I spent only a few months in Seoul on my arrival. Then I went south to Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, where I tried to learn the language. I am grateful to my patient teacher, who spent countless hours drilling me on vocabulary and sentence structure.

Cheongju was more to my liking than the big city. It was still an agricultural, rural capital, with a small footprint for the city itself (even in the mid-1970s, the heart of the city was still confined by the area within the long-destroyed city walls. Street names went according to the gates in the wall. The new train station (now gone, replaced by towering office and apartment buildings) was outside the historical city. The old 1920s train station is now a heritage site, and it was in the center of the old town. An even newer train station well outside the historical area (built in the 1980s) gets little traffic these days since the main line and KTX all bypass Cheongju, favoring outlying suburbs instead.

In that agricultural mecca, I felt at home.

My ancestors have been farmers for as many centuries as we can trace the family heritage in Scotland, England and Germany. My first years as a child were in a small house on land that had been my great-great-grandfather's farm. At age 10, I drove the combine harvester (which we used to harvest almost 1,000 acres of wheat) to and from the fields. I was tall enough to reach the pedals, and it didn't go much faster than 10 kilometers per hour. I didn't yet have the skill to keep it on a straight path in the field, but the country lane between the fields and my grandfather's house, where we kept all the equipment, was easy to navigate.

It should be no surprise that I have more than enough photos of the farms around Cheongju. Those fields are long gone, replaced by roads, apartments and commercial buildings as the city grew and grew and grew over the past almost 50 years since I first lived there.

The loading dock at the former Korea Times building at Gwanghwamun features a fleet of delivery trucks in 1977. The building was destroyed in 2007. Courtesy of Steven L. Shields

Someone asked me recently what was different about Korea in the mid-1970s compared with my hometown in the U.S. The answer is "everything." Major culture shock met me at every turn during my first months in Korea. I miss many things about the old times and many more I wouldn't wish to experience again.

I will share some of my old photos and memories at the next Royal Asiatic Society Korea lecture, starting at 7:30 p.m. on July 25 at Insadong KOTE in central Seoul. Entry costs 10,000 won, or is free for RAS Korea members and students presenting their school ID.

Rev. Steven L. Shields is president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea and columnist for The Korea Times. Visit raskb.com or email royalasiatickorea@gmail.com for more information about the Society or to register your attendance at the lecture.