Pyongyang, North Korea - The Beginning

My Father was born in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. He was the youngest of four children: two brothers and one sister. As the fourth and youngest child in the family, he was considered something of an afterthought, particularly because his two older brothers, who were close in age, jointly held the family mantle and responsibility for carrying on the family name.

His family was heavily influenced by the Confucian philosophy that permeated Korean culture. Part of this philosophy involved a belief that a smoothly running society depended on the functioning of five key relationships: husband and wife; parent and child; ruler and subject; friend-to-friend; and elder brother and younger brother.

It is the last of these relationships that may have held particular significance for my Father. There is a Confucian exchange in which a disciple asks his master, "Should one immediately put into practice what one has heard?" The disciple's master responds, "As your father and elder brothers are still alive, you are hardly in a position immediately to put into practice what you have heard."

Being that my Father had two older brothers, he was particularly shit out of luck.

My Father once referred to his Father as a "remote authority," since he "didn't do a heck of a lot in terms of providing emotional support." Providing emotional support was his Mother's role.

My Father grew up in a typical middle-class household, in a five-room apartment in a building that also contained four other units. Of the five rooms, one was a kitchen; two were solely bedrooms; one served as a bedroom/dining room; and the last served as a living room/bedroom. The units were built in a circular fashion around a central courtyard that was shared by all the families in the structure. A heavy wooden gate served as a common entrance for all the families to enter the building.

My Father does not remember exactly what his Father did for a living, but vaguely recalls that it has something to do with a shoe factory he purchased with money he inherited from his parents who lived in Hawaii, before the Korean War began.

My Grandmother was a warm and caring woman, who devoted her entire life to her children. Allegedly, my Grandfather was quite the opposite. According to my Father, my Grandfather never really cared to have much to do with his family, apart from financially supporting it. While this was not uncommon behavior for Korean fathers, my Grandfather had been born and raised in Hawaii, and my Father could not quite understand why he had failed to inherit any Western ideals of parenthood.