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Opinion

Columnists

Mon, January 27, 2020 | 13:22

Hyon OBrien

Age is just a number

I will be turning 73 in two months. The notion of becoming 73 is somewhat daunting. I feel as if somebody is playing a joke on me. The fact that my parents-in-law both left this world at age 69 makes my age even more unreal. I remember vividly meeting them for the first time in Korea in 1969 when they flew in to meet my parents. They were in their 50s then. My first impression of them was that they looked distinguished and graciously aged. Now, if I meet someone in their 50s, I never think of them as old at all. My father-in-law used to say that a sure sign of getting old is when the policem...

2019-12-27 16:37

What are you grateful for?

About three years ago, one of my Peace Corps friends in Vermont, Frances, began a daily Facebook posting of three things she was grateful for, and invited her friends to join. I immediately joined the group and almost without fail I have posted three things I was grateful for each day. Most of the group in this “gratitude” daily posting are quilting friends of Frances, and when I began I knew no one except her. After three years, I have come to know some of them from their gratitude listings.

2019-11-29 16:34

World Kindness Day

Recently I discovered that there is a World Kindness Day, celebrated on Nov. 13. Of course, we all try to be kind to others on each of the 365 days of the year, but it is good to be reminded occasionally of the importance of being kind. We all know about Mother's Day, Father's Day and, in Korea, Parents' Day. They are well established traditions.

2019-11-01 17:22

Courage to change

I grew up in the 1950s and '60s in the provincial town of Wonju, the Boise of Korea (in that it was largely known for its potato production). During my 12 years of schooling in Wonju and four years in college, I was an excellent student, top of the class most of the time, except in college. I was quite confident about my academic standing.

2019-10-04 17:07

Our local library book club recently read “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens, which has led the New York Times fiction best seller list for most of 2019 and will soon be a film.

2019-09-08 15:29

Doing the kind thing

On Aug. 2, my husband Tim and I celebrated our engagement ceremony that happened 50 years ago in 1969. Tim's parents flew 6,921 miles from New York to Seoul to meet me and my family for the first time.

2019-08-09 17:18

Recently I have been reading a rather unusual book called “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating” by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. Bedridden and immobilized by an unspecified disease, the author receives a plant from a friend and is intrigued by a common woodland snail that peeps over the rim of the pot and becomes, in effect, her rescue animal. She reads everything that can illuminate her curiosity about this snail, and the research keeps her focused and comforted in the stillness of her room. She forgets about her immobilized state and her sickness as she shifts her attention to her companion snail.

2019-07-12 17:31

My global family

I spent the first week of June this year among 25,000 Rotarians from 160 countries who were attending the Rotary International Convention (its 110th) in Hamburg, Germany. There are 1.2 million Rotarians in 200 countries, so this represented only two percent of our organization. It was my very first Rotary Convention, and an exciting and moving experience. I had never been surrounded by people from 160 countries. The most diversity I had ever experienced previously was among the 45 or so nationalities at the Union Church in Hong Kong during our stay there 20 years ago.

2019-06-13 18:31

One son and four daughters

When I was engaged to be married to Tim in 1968, he casually mentioned that he would like to have 17 children. Of course, I ignored such a crazy idea and stopped after two daughters (they are now 45 and 42). But maybe he wasn't kidding - over the years I've noticed that Tim truly loves children. I have marveled at his enjoyment of his three grandchildren as a doting grandpa. If we walk down a street, I notice cute dogs, but he smiles sweetly at young children.

2019-05-19 17:29

Breathe in, breathe out

Our daughters gave me an Apple watch last Christmas; I am still learning how to use it. Every day from time to time, this watch vibrates and tells me to stand and breathe. I used to ignore its instructions but now I tend to obey. I recognize the importance of standing and breathing intellectually but I am somewhat self-conscious doing it if I am with others. When my husband and I watch Korean dramas to keep up our modern Korean vocabulary (currently we are enjoying “Second to Last Love”), I don't hesitate to stand and breathe. He knows I am trying to comply with my watch's orders.

2019-04-21 17:40

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