[Oe List ...] ST OpEd Thursday from Jaime Korea-focused colleagues

Wed Apr 18 00:08:33 EDT 2012

j'aime la vie

-----Original Message-----
From: jrvergarajr2031 <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To: editor <editor at saipantribune.com>; Mark_Rabago <Mark_Rabago at saipantribune.com>; jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Wed, Apr 18, 2012 11:34 am
Subject: OpEd Thursday

A-ri-rang, Are We One?

The month of August is when Pyongyangopens its immigration gates to visitors from the West including the eagleembossed blue passport bearing ones.  Or,at least, that was what I was told two years ago when I visited Dandong on theChina side of the Yalu Jiang separating Zhongguo from what the western presslikes to derisively designate as the "Hermit Kingdom" of the young"dictator" Kim Jil Un.  

Dandong is only a few short miles fromthe site of the third rocket test that sent the west into a frenzy ofcalibrated fear in spite of the fact that this third primitive one could nothit a huge air balloon hovering the skies of the old Cotton Ball footballstadium in Dallas.

The old civilization initiated by theHan Lao Shi Kung Fu Zi (teacher Confucius to John and Mary) evolved into anobservance of form over function, and the occasional parade of rockets andarmaments, common in China and North Korea (also true in the old Japan beforeit lowered its sights on military displays, and South Korea under the heavyhand of restraint by its Pentagon mentors), is more an exercise in ceremonialspectacle for the national pride than anything else.

When we first visited Seoul in '72,Walker Hill was Uncle Sam's filthy rich military base while farmers drove theirpeach stalks to the ground and the ladies soured their cabbages into Kim Chee for the winter.  The hills around the city were militaryinstallations and foreign visitors were told in no uncertain terms that theywere to keep their fingers off the shutters of their cameras!

I asked a colleague why the fuzz and heanswered that half of the country was under American occupation.  Not unlike the teachers and missionaries thatfollowed the flannel shirted veterans of the Indian Wars into Roosevelt'sPhilippines, the US Infantry forces that saw action during the early 50'sturmoil in the Korean Peninsula were swiftly followed by the Presbyterians,Methodists, and Catholics with the US Chamber of Commerce in tow, convertingthe terrain into an extension of the Midwest. 

Almost 60 years later after theArmistice, South Korea has virtually become the 51st State of the Union, withUncle Sam lifting the visa requirements of SoKor citizens to US sovereign land,and a third of the population lit up with evangelical seal as they establishKorean congregations around the world.  Iknow of a couple of very active ones in Saipan who have made the old category"missionary" unusually high in number in the CNMI.

The old Korean Arirang was coopted as a marching music in the US Infantry.  We know of it in our youth when it becamepopular after 1953 when Filipino soldiers returned from the Koreanconflict.  When I ran into my old colleagueon my first visit to Seoul twenty years later and asked him how the old countrywas faring, he said with a straight face: it is still under Americanoccupation.

Ideology has been used to keep thePanmunjom 38th parallel line in being but one song sang on both sides is aboutthe old imaginary mountain pass towards an longed after hill entitled Arirang. We deign invite the wrath of HanggulSaram friends for giving their beloved tune new words.  Here goes our paean from Yanbian (Korea in China):

Are we one, are ye one, are we but two-o-o?
Are we one, are we two, in despair, too?

Kim Rhim Park Kwak
Kwan Han Rhee Yi Goh Soh
Kang Wang Choi Roi
Won Son and Doh Roh

Are we one, are ye one, or are ye two-o-o?
Are ye one, are ye two, old Kogoryo?

Amnok-gang Nakbong-gang
Duman-gang Han-gang
Baekdu-san Taebaek-san, we are one.

Are we one, are ye one, are we still two-o-o?
Are we one, are we two, Hanggul duo?

We do live in Nampo to Jeju do,
North in Musan, south in Busan, also.

We are one, sing as one, a-ra-ri-yo
To create the earth, we will all start anew.

There's a newness ar-i-sing in the East
Bind the earth around A-ri-rang feast.

We are one, we are one, we can all be, too.
A-ri-rang, Hangguk of the Hanggul duo.

There are folks determined to keeppeople apart by ideology, ethnicity, nationality, and/or economic class.  There are equally many who see the virtue ofa round table and the processes that sustain it, rather than be strait-jacketedin the neatly divided square table of debates and squabbles.  This choice is a matter of faith, fundamentalto one's view and, therefore, to one's behavior. Uncle Sam dines on a square table; mine is round with a lazy Susan!

A new earth calls.  What does your faith do?

I'd better make sure the old blue bookis current in case we get the chance to cross the Yalu this August.

 Jaime R Vergara

All of yesterday, thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it be!

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