KOREA: THE MISSIONARY COMPOUND

                                 

               

Before Mom and I had left for Korea in 1971, my grandmother from Iowa was convinced, that by taking me to live in east Asia, I would become an opium addict. There were legitimate concerns about living in a remote part of the world that included health issues and bad sanitation - which my parents tried to minimize with doing things like removing our shoes at the door and boiling our water and getting immunized - but besides being approached and touched by curious and friendly Koreans when we went out, where I might have been exposed, I never got more than the common cold, and lived in a protected world with structure and loving attention. 

My parents found a two-bedroom apartment with a small side yard to rent on an American Presbyterian Missionary compound on the edge of town. It overlooked red-tiled roof-tops and distant mountains and was up on a hill with nature paths to explore, and wildflowers to pick. It made no difference that we were not Presbyterians, the missionaries welcomed us and helped my parents arrange our new life there. They loaned us several items of furniture, including a crib for me and a bed for my parents. Everything else, my parents bought locally. Mom bought a large green and cream straw mat for the floor with an oriental scene of birds on it, and antique furniture such as a hundred-year-old Korean chest made of maple wood with iron hardware. I have this chest in my possession to this day. Mom paid the equivalent of ten dollars for it. 

                                 Mom and me in our yard on the mission in Kwangju

My mother also hired a woman named Miss Kwan to clean the house and baby-sit me. She and I became close companions. She did our food shopping, too, and cooked our family both American and Korean dishes. Years later, my mother taught me how to make Asian rice using the technique Miss Kwan had shown her, and I still remember fragments of a Korean folk song that my nanny had sung to me. The words are in Korean and I don’t know what they mean, but I can still hear the melody from a distant voice of years ago. 

                                                        Miss Kwan and Me                     

Mom dove into her new life in Kwangju with fervent focus and enthusiasm, as she approached all things related to foreign travel and living. She was not one to do things half-way or timidly. She hired a tutor to teach her Korean five days a week until she gradually learned to read and speak the language well enough to get around on her own. She also helped supervise the playroom in the children’s ward in a nearby hospital and taught English at a local girl’s high school. She had a natural affinity for being a foreigner, to adjusting to new environments. 

But within the mission walls, Miss Kwan, plus the other cleaning women, cooks, and gardeners, who worked for the missionaries, made a huge fuss over me, and so I never lacked attention. And, there were other children on the mission that I played with - American and Korean. My mother told me that if I had been old enough to retain memories of Korea, they would have been pleasant ones. I wish I could remember, but my memory of this time can neither be revered nor mourned. For me, it only exists in old photographs and other people’s accounts. 

But I was once there. 

                                                                                                                                             - Jennifer Artley