 think-tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today my guest is Bruce Kim. Bruce is a Hawaii lawyer that I have known most of my life from probably the seventh grade. We were good friends in high school and we both returned to Hawaii to practice law after law school and we continued our friendship. I recently learned a few things about Bruce that I had never known before. I read an article Bruce wrote earlier this year for the Korean Times about his personal journey across the sea to Korea while he was in the Peace Corps. I've asked Bruce to share the story of his voyage with us. Bruce, welcome. Good to see you. Aloha. How are you? Same here, sir. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Yeah, I read this article. You wrote in earlier this year and it was based on your service in the Peace Corps as a volunteer and you went to Korea. I had never really known. I mean all the times you and I have been together talking and we never covered that and so it occurred to me that you wanted to tell this story and let me ask you why did you write the article? So the article was generated based on a contact between an organization that I'm currently on the board of called the Friends of Korea that was started by a return Korea volunteers Peace Corps volunteers as a way of fulfilling the third goal of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps has three basic goals. The third goal is to promote understanding of other people among Americans and so the Peace Corps volunteers who fulfill that mission when they come back to America are so close to foster relationships and cultural understanding and personal understanding between Americans and people of other cultures that they perhaps served in while they were Peace Corps volunteers and so that was the purpose of Friends of Korea. So long story short, Korean government has been very generous in the last 10-12 years to recognize Peace Corps volunteers who served in Korea just as they spend a lot of time recognizing Korean War veterans. They also are very generous in supporting and recognizing Korean Peace Corps volunteers or Peace Corps volunteers who served in Korea. So as part of their outreach they've actually sponsored except for this COVID period annual return meetings in Korea for Peace Corps volunteers who served in Korea and an outtake from that is the Korea Times became interested in all these stories because the volunteers served in very diverse and interesting fields while they were serving in Korea from mid-60s through the early 80s and they solicited the Friends of Korea to generate articles for them so that they could publish in the Korea Times which is the largest English language paper in Korea. So someone asked me to do the one that was supposed to be published in January and that's how it came up about. And I kind of got a feeling when reading the article that you were searching a little bit or telling a little bit about your own family and before we get into your Peace Corps tell us a little bit about your family. How did your Korean family get to Hawaii and what was your Korean background here in Hawaii? How did that work? So as I outline in the article briefly I'm third generation Korean American. My father was born here and he was born of immigrant parents who came directly from Korea at the turn of the century back in 19, between 1903 and 1910 when Korean immigration first opened up into America. And as you know at that time in Korea was a very turbulent period in their history. They were in the process of becoming colonized by the Japanese empire at that time so a lot of Koreans exited and left Korea. They went to various places you might describe it as a diaspora and one of the places they ended up with was to work on a plantation in Hawaii. Others went to Mexico. I don't think many of them went to the US mainland but they went to South America, Mexico, Hawaii, other places like that. They went to China and a lot of them were motivated by returning to their homeland one day regaining Korean independence. And so they came to Hawaii they worked in the plantation just as my grandmother did with her family. And eventually she ended up marrying and having children one of whom was my dad and that was on a plantation in Makaweli, Kauai. Eventually at some point in time they were allowed to leave the plantation after the fulfilling their work on tracks and she moved to Honolulu with their kids. And briefly after that my dad went to college here at UH. He had two other brothers and a younger sister and after graduating from UH he basically was just doing odd jobs. That was another sign of the times that he was raised in and they were just coming out of the depression. World War II broke out and he volunteered like many other people in Hawaii. He ended up in the US Army Air Corps as a navigator bombardier and flew about 60 combat missions mostly over Italy during the Italian campaign to liberate Italy. He returned to the US basically getting ready to launch the campaign against Japan. They were forming bomber crews all over the place. One of them was being formed I think here in the state of Hawaii to go to Japan and the war ended. So he took the GI Bill and he went to the University of Iowa and obtained his LLM or LL or his JD degree and after that the kids started he got married came home got married and all the kids came and one of them was me. Okay so you grew up here in Hawaii and okay what was that like I mean you had a Korean background that was that ever shared with you did your family ever talk about it or was that so that that was yeah as I articulated in the article I mentioned in the article I mean that was a missing piece for me. They really didn't dwell on anything about the family history where they had come from in Korea specifically. I think that was something they just wanted to leave in the rear view mirror and focus on the future and their family. Okay so that but you didn't want to do that I think I mean is that what prompted you to go into the Peace Corps and to Korea is that the basis or just tell me when and why did you decide to do that yeah. So after I graduated from college in 72 I didn't have any really strong feelings about what I wanted to do right at that point in time. I had always been interested in the Peace Corps having grown up as you did when John Kennedy was president when he asked everybody you know to think not what your country could do for you but what you can do for your country. In fact he proposed the piece the formation of the Peace Corps in his first campaign he arrived at the University of Michigan Student Union it's something like two o'clock in the morning he's greeted by 10 plus thousand students waited all night to listen to him and during that address to the students at that time he proposed the formation of an entity it wasn't called a Peace Corps at that time but some kind of international outreach organization where young Americans could volunteer and go to other countries and help provide help and assistance to them. So that was I think part of a large part of the motivation to at least sign up for the Peace Corps there's no guarantee you're going to get in but that was one of the options I had after graduating from school. I didn't want to go right back to school again. I had it. Yeah I imagine your dad might have said something about that but yeah how about you know so how did you end up in Korea I mean I think you aimed at that right I mean um actually the the the you know they asked you for what your preference is and they give you certain areas throughout the world where the Peace Corps at that time was was um functioning so I asked to go to Africa. In the summer late summer of 27 yeah 1972 I got a letter from the Peace Corps saying you need to go to this place which was Denver and you're being considered for Peace Corps Korea. So I thought that was ironic when I asked for Africa and I got free and and as I articulated in the article you know I have a lot of I had a lot of questions because by that time after graduating from college you know my family's background and where they came from and why they came and all those type of questions you know had not been answered although they had maintained close ties to the Korean community and um I wonder why you know you don't talk about this and it wasn't a big point of emphasis in anything. Well you know it's kind of funny that uh I mean how did these things happen you know very strange so so you ended up going to Korea and and where in Korea did you end up going where where where where did you go and what did you do? Okay so at that time in the early 70s Korea was doing pretty much focusing on middle school English programs um they also had a health program which is active in like TB tuberculosis control programs. They had a university level program that was I think teaching English as well. There may have been other programs but those are the three major ones and so I was selected to go to the middle school training program and that's where so we trained at a town called Chinchun which is sort of northeast of Seoul and at that time uh was in the country and it's a city but it was hard to get to from Seoul there's a long bus ride from Seoul um and we trained there for about two and a half months and then we were assigned to our our towns and cities and the town that they assigned me to is called Chinchun Pole. Okay we're going to put up on the screen some photos of that city that you you took these photos right? Okay let's go through them and tell us a little bit one at one at a time. Okay great Chinchun Pole okay. This this particular scene is rice fields which were immediately adjacent to the little town of Chinchun Pole. So Chinchun Pole is a fishing town primarily on the southern coast of Korea and on the outskirts of the town were largely agricultural pursuits like raising rice which is the largest one so these are a scene of rice patties not too far outside of Sumchun Pole making towards the southern sea and this next photo is a picture of the Sumchun Pole harbor not a big harbor but with at low tide and this is with the water in the in the harbor and it's a picture of a fishing boat that was in the harbor at that time it can from the breakwater which surrounded this the pretty pretty little beautiful kind of neat neat area yeah next photo what is okay so this is the school is in the background that I taught at it was a boy high school and middle school for the town and these are rice fields which were immediately adjacent to the to the school which you can picture in your mind right that as soon as you get out of the town area you were in the agriculture area farm areas and the school was located in the middle of a bunch of rice fields. So rice is a major product and the next photo is this rice farmers yeah so this would be planting rice rice planting season before the summer came and these ladies were out there planting rice and this is obviously before machines and mechanism or modern farming techniques they did this all by hand they planted and harvested by hand this is somewhere in the outskirts of Sumchun Pole in the mountains there are many villages in the mountains and these ladies were washing their clothes with their little kids uh babysitting their little kids in a mountain stream so it's not that long ago but that's how the country has changed from then to now as you know it's it's totally modern and industrialized country. Yeah and and you you were assigned to Chunpo Boys Middle School what was that like okay Sum Chunpo Middle School was um Boys Middle School there was a girls middle school too but in a separate school entirely um it was a concrete building with no heat photo of it right this is a photo of the middle school boys middle school in Sum Chunpo in 72 or 73 no heat whatsoever they sat at rough wooden desks and in the dead of winter that was it they had a charcoal stove in the back of the room that they didn't put much charcoal in there and I tell you when you went in there to teach you had to be prepared because it was cold very cold and those little those boys sat in there all day and didn't go home till and after sundown I think we have a photo of a couple of the boys next yeah these are two two middle school students I bumped into I think when in conjunction with those pictures they took of the rice planting they're helping their parents and how and how would you compare the school then to hawaii schools it's not comparable absolutely as you can see that that's their uniform for a winter the black uniforms and uh you're sitting at rough wooden desk and uh that's how they that was like that in the winter it was like that in the summer which is extremely hot okay let's let's take a look at the next photo then these are the they're just goofing off these are their summer uniforms and uh the goofing off between class because in classes in session did they just have to sit there and so as soon as the bell rang for the get out of class they all went running out the door and started you know goofing around the little off scheme they all look happy and let's take a look at the next photo which who else is goofing around there that's you right in the middle with a guitar and some yes it is is that right yes and uh these these particular students were very uh proficient in english I don't think it had anything to do with me it's just that they're very smart and they paid attention in class and picked up english very quickly so this this group here um I would socialize with some from time to time we do play ping-pong that day we went on a hike and um basically they got to practice their english you know with with me and you got to know each other and you know what what their ambitions were so how how how generally would you characterize your experience with the Peace Corps in in korea how what was it like so it was a um a very very uh big growing up experience um you know these conditions coming from the united states and going over there and then living as we all did mostly in the countryside areas of the of the republic of korea it was very difficult transition um for me the food wasn't the problem it was uh just getting used to a standard of living that was substantially below what we experienced here in america and so you had to make a lot of adjustments you had to really shrink down the size of your living space basically sleeping on a floor all the time which actually turned out to be a blessing because in korea at that time the floors were all heated so um it was very uh you got used to that in a in a short period of time and but it was like a very very big adjustment a very big adjustment for most of us some people left uh it was too much it was like overwhelming the transition was like overwhelming so some of them left and um the ones that stayed one degree and another or another right decided to give it a go and at the end of the two year or three year service whatever period they they stayed um they all came away with a profound appreciation for koreans and korean culture and uh grateful for having uh been allowed to experience that particularly at that period of time because korea was going through a major transition in the 70s from agricultural into industrial and and you know what was the did the peace corps make a positive contribution to korea is that something that that was good is that do you feel that you were part of something positive um you know absolutely and and uh I think the purpose of the peace corps is to do uh to build these relationships in this cross cultural uh exchanges on a person to person basis and the way the peace corps is run it very much emphasizes you know the the individual volunteer interacting with the host country and people ordinary people in the host country and uh working with them getting to know them living with them uh you know experiencing all the their culture uh appreciating learning to appreciate their cultural things and um it's very much a tremendous educational experience the other year if I could digress there there was the friends of korea recognized all the korean volunteers who had come back to america and ended up with phd's in korean studies and related uh fields and it was just amazing and their their whole uh all they could say was how grateful they were for having been given the opportunity to serve in the peace corps in korea because they had learned so much and basically had had launched them into this academic career that they would have never had had they not served in korea so it's it's like a two-way street koreans are very generous I mentioned you know at the beginning that he's still to this day uh could constantly you know make requests to the friends of korea and other organizations that have ties to the return peace corps volunteers to recognize the work of the peace corps volunteers in korea and we're we're just like this is too much it's like overwhelming to believe all these years after we left that they would still remember us and and remember us for making a positive contribution to their country even though it's hard to understand how you know working in a small rural middle school in korea you know influenced very much the outcome of the 20th century for the modern korean republic do you do you still keep in touch with any of your students or do you ever hear from them or unfortunately I haven't um I've lost touch with all of them I think I was back in korea I in the early this 2011 and we were there uh at the invitation of the korean government so they one of the things they they uh took me back to my school one of the people I met on that trip was a dentist who had gone to samchampol middle school and he had very vivid memories of me even though I don't remember this kid from you know anyone um but he was talking about these funny stories about learning how to pronounce r and l letters r and l and he said he never forgot that but um he's as an example of you know how how motivated these kids were he ended up going from that small school to Seoul National which was a big jump it's like the Harvard as you know the Harvard of korea and he got into Seoul National through various rigorous examination uh process and then um he went to Seoul National dental school as well and then elected to go back and practice dentures street in samchampol which was a wonderful you know story I thought now you know do you do you think if more people had this type of experience it would be better for the whole country that's so without getting too far off the other you know I think that um the program itself pp score it's not perfect I mean there's a lot of problems you know like I articulated some of them in my article um but to me if you're talking about a people-to-people program in the way the the premise of how it's set up I don't under I don't know a better program the United States has today or it has had since the early 70s or 60s whenever it stood up you know to to foster cross-cultural and people-to-people understanding I mean the whole goal of the program is to do that and then to come back to America and tell Americans you know about the people and cultures they had a live with and experienced on a day-to-day basis and to tell Americans that they're not devils they're not evil you know no matter what their religion might be their cultural practices might be these are just regular and normal people with basically the same goals and aspirations as Americans do you don't speak your language they don't look like you but if you get to know them you will not find better friends uh you know or co-workers anywhere and I to me that's the essence of the pscore program and it's something that I think it's unfortunate if the pscore one day was defunded or something like that which you know there's been attempts to defund the pscore to me a youngster growing up here you know couldn't do any better than giving themselves a year or two after college to go into the pscore and work and who knows you know you might learn something there that would trigger you getting into some kind of a field or academic endeavor because of what you learned there well I mean and is that what what helped you decide on law or what why did you you came back uh from Korea and I guess you're I'm sure your dad was telling you you should go into law but you must have been there he must have heard him but I mean is have you incorporated what you learned in the Korea in the pscore into the law and life or how has that affected you I think um you know I I know what lawyers did I I observed what you know my dad went through and his career before I went to law school so I wasn't that I wasn't familiar with it but after getting out of the pscore I thought that that would be a natural segue to the things I had learned and come to appreciate while I was a volunteer and by that I mean using this tool the law to be able to help ordinary people and again I don't want to make what I did any bigger than it was but I saw that as a segue into the law what I had done in Korea I could see it as a segue into the law and using the law to help people and that pretty much uh people may disagree out there that I've run across in my career but you know my my perspective as a lawyer my my hope as a lawyer is that I did some good for people in and help them in some way uh as a result of my work and that that was what I got out of Korea um so we're we use and we have we have about a minute left in our program uh were you searching for that and and is that what you were looking for in your Korean heritage maybe and and did you find it is that what you found I mean I like what you've said if you could include yeah I think that first of all it made it brought made the squared the circle so to speak because I I now had a better understanding of Korea its culture and how my grandparents who came directly from Korea what they must have gone through I mean understanding Korean history and learning about it while I was there um cultural you know how people think and understanding what it must have meant for them to leave Korea at that time and abandon you know their families their their their homes to their country basically on a you know in a heartbeat must have been very difficult for them and I gained a great appreciation for that and I think I have a better understanding of my family and myself as to who I am because of that experience definitely there's no question about it well Bruce I want to thank you for sharing your voyage with us across Korea and what it meant personally to you as a personal journey I appreciate that I kind of when I read your article I kind of had a deep feeling about it that there was that there was more to it and I appreciate you going into it and sharing with us so aloha kamsaham hida as we said I'll see you around absolutely my friend thank you very much for this opportunity