He is the Storyteller

All of a sudden, I found my senior from school and church appeared on a special TV documentary film. I had been unable to keep in touch with him for a long time, so it was a shock. I seldom watch TV but at the day I did and then saw him. I was scared a bit as I felt like God intended to let me know what he was doing as he was one of major influences in my life. 

He is working in Afghanistan as a kind of an important constitution leader. I could see him walking towards the special calling God gave him. He seems to learn there how to handle complicated situations heavily militarized and how to coordinate a number of inter-government organizations and aid organizations in chaotic. He is there for Afghanistan people now but also for our N & S Korean people in days to come. Nobody knows when the unification comes true and how it looks like though, I am guessing we may learn priceless lessons from the Afghanistan's experiences.

Recently UN officials were attacked by Afghans and their dead bodies were delivered in Kabul. Returned evil for good. It's the world where we live. I felt hopeless one day, I asked Him desperately what hopes I have to have. Then I had a sudden flash of Psalms, the chapter 84. (or God answered to my stupid question.) 

"How blessed all those in whom you, whose lives become roads you travel.. God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and at the last turn-Zion! God in full view! O God of Jacob, open your ears I'm praying. Look at our shields, glistening in the sun, our faces, shining with your gracious anointing. One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin. All sunshine and sovereign is God, generous in gifts and glory."

I am thankful to God for reminding me of God's unceasing work, and what I have to hope in. Sometimes I am afraid of being different from others, but then I can never live out a true life drawn by the creative Storyteller. I think I need to listen to the only one Master more than before.

[Article] Story of a 'Solitary Yellow in a White World' is Tale of Hope

A portrait of Yung Wing, Yale's first Asian alumnus, was alongside Law School Dean Harold Koh as he recounted Wing's life story in a recent talk.

When Chinese native Yung Wing came to campus in the mid-1800s, there were "precious few people of color, no women and virtually no non-Christians," said Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh in a recent talk. "As the only yellow in a white world, Yung Wing was at best a curiosity and at worst a freak," asserted Koh. Yet, Yung Wing's story is ultimately one of "accomplishment," he noted. "In a very real sense, he is the spiritual ancestor of every one of us of Asian heritage who studies or works here at Yale today."

The dean's talk was the first in a year-long series of campus events honoring Yung Wing, who became Yale's first Asian alumnus -- and likely the first Asian to earn a bachelor's degree from any Western institution -- when he graduated from the University 150 years ago. The event brought an overflow crowd to the Graduate School on Sept. 27.

Koh began his talk, titled "Yellow in a White World," by recounting Yung Wing's tale: His early education in China by Christian missionaries, including Yale alumnus the Reverend Samuel Robbins Brown; his journey to the United States and his matriculation at Yale, where he "made a sensation for bearing off repeated prizes for English composition" and first conceived the idea of bringing other Chinese youths to the West for education; and his return to his homeland, where he found that he had beenso changed by his experience in America that his countrymen could no longer understand his Chinese and he could barely understand theirs.

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Yung Wing spent most of his life traveling between the East and the West, never really at home in either place, Koh said, noting that "In America, he felt Asian; in Asia, he felt American." When Yung Wing volunteered to fight for the Union army during the Civil War, for example, he was turned down because "he was not really an American," added the dean.

In China, Yung Wing worked to promote the nation's modernization. In the 1870s, his earlier vision was realized when he convinced the Chinese government to send 120 youths to schools in the West, including Yale, "to promote mutual cultural understanding and to extend the reach of the Chinese empire," Koh said. Although the Chinese Educational Mission was abruptly ended after only nine years, those students went on to become China's "first generation of 20th-century railroad builders, engineers, medical doctors, naval admirals and diplomats," Koh noted.

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While leading the Chinese Educational Mission, Yung Wing received an honorary degree from the Law School, "which makes him, I'm almost sure, the first Asian ever to receive a degree from the school of which I am now dean," said Koh. Yung Wing married an American woman, who returned with him to China, where he later served in the provincial government and became a diplomat. The couple's two sons both went to Yale, and Yung Wing is buried alongside his wife in Hartford, Connecticut. "Perhaps in Yung Wing's story, you've heard echoes of your own life," said Koh to the audience, noting that it was certainly true in his own case.
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Koh's own parents came to the United States from Korea about 100 years after Yung Wing. His mother was a freshman studying sociology, and his father was one of the first Koreans, "if not the first," to earn a law degree in America, he told the audience. "Like Yung Wing, my parents came away from their educational experience determined to promote mutual understanding between the United States and their home country, Korea," he explained. His parents founded the East Rock Institute in New Haven to carry on that cause, and his father served as the Korean ambassador to the United Nations and as a minister at Korea's embassy in Washington, D.C. He was also an educator who taught courses on East Asian law and society at institutions throughout Connecticut, including Yale.

Like Yung Wing, Koh's parents helped hundreds of Korean students come to the United States to study, and they frequently invited those students to dinner in their home. "So many Korean students came to my house that we had a regular chair that was just left available for whoever was coming to dinner that night," Koh said. "When I was [U.S.] assistant secretary of state, I went back to Korea a few years ago. Hundreds of well-meaning Korean government officials came to me and said, 'I ate dinner at your house.'"

There are many truths that can be gleaned from Yung Wing's story, Koh told the audience. Chief among these, he said, is "a lesson about making our own choices, no matter how difficult they might be." Koh remembers watching "Perry Mason" as a youngster and asking his father if he should become a lawyer. "My father turned to me and said just two words: 'Study physics,'" he recalled. The dean told the audience he later realized that underlying his father's urging were certain "assumptions about choices" -- notably, that law is for "insiders" and "we are outsiders in this country," whereas physics is a profession that is "truly open to Asians"; and that law is not an exact science, and "we will suffer from its inexactness," while in exact sciences such as physics, "they cannot discriminate against you," explained Koh. Although Koh did study physics for nearly 10 years, he decided that law was his true vocation. He wasn't daunted by the "old boy network" and, he said, "It didn't matter that law was not an exact science because, as it turned out, I wasn't very good at exact sciences."

Over a century after Yung Wing, Koh still found few Asian faces among his classmates at Harvard, and the only Asian names he encountered in the Supreme Court cases he studied "were always litigants and never lawyers," recalled the dean, adding that the history of Asian Americans is "not a story of victors of justice, but victims of injustice."

Today, the world of academia is very different, he said. "If you look over classrooms at Yale and the Yale Law School, you see a huge increase in the number of yellow faces." The population of Yale College is now 13% to 15% Asian American, and about one-tenth of the international students at Yale are of Asian ancestry. "More than that, the world is not nearly as white as it was. The United States has become a strikingly diverse country, and the number of Asians is growing," he said. "What we have now is a different kind of Asian experience."

Another lesson inherent in Yung Wing's story is that of one's obligation to others, asserted Koh, urging audience members "to be a bridge between two cultures, to be a ladder for those who come behind, to be a beacon to those who look for us for leadership because of our unique educational advantages, and most of all, to represent not just those people who are like us in appearance, but those who stand for the same principles." Yung Wing's story also reveals "how one person, even a solitary yellow in a white world, can make a difference," said Koh, pointing to the Yale alumnus' legacy -- the Yale Library's world-renowned East Asian Collection, which was founded with a gift of books from Yung Wing; the Yale-China Association, which promotes East-West cultural understanding and educational exchange; the Yale China Law Center, which is working to modernize that nation's legal system; and the delegation of Chinese university administrators who came to Yale this summer to learn about the operations of U.S. universities, which Koh described as a "modern-day Chinese mission to New Haven."

All this shows that "people can change institutions, institutions can build legacies and legacies can make history," asserted Koh. "And so, my friends, that's Yung Wing's story. It is a story of what it means to be yellow in a white world. It's a story of choices; it's a story of hope; it's a story of obligation; it's a story of accomplishment," said Koh. "But most of all, I think, it's a story of justice -- the justice that Asian Americans seek, and the justice that Asian Americans can create with the help of their friends and their colleagues."

Noting that Martin Luther King Jr. once said "The moral arch of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice," Koh concluded: "If Yung Wing were here, I think he would have to agree."

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Yale Bulletin & Calendar October 8, 2004 [Volume 33, November 6] by LuAnn Bishop

[Article] Korean Doctor, Anthropologist Selected to be Dartmouth’s Next President

Doctor and anthropologist Jim Yong Kim will become the first Asian-American president of an Ivy League school this summer when he begins his term as the 17th president of Dartmouth College on 1st July 2009. The college announced the appointment on Monday, 2 March 2009.

A native of Seoul, South Korea, Kim moved to the United States when he was 5 years old and grew up in Iowa in one of only a handful of Asian-American families in the area. Kim has said that his father, who advised him to be a doctor, also counseled him on issues relating to race.

“What he said to me was, ‘Look, you’re Asian-American. As a Korean you will have a skill no one can take away from you.’ And that’s still what people felt at that time,” Kim told The Dartmouth, the college’s newspaper. “No one would have said an African-American could be president of the United States. I mean, that was not in the realm of possibility in 1980.”

Kim currently serves as chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, as well as chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has never held a position at Dartmouth.

Kim was awarded a MacArthur “genius” fellowship in 2003, and U.S. News and World Report ranked him in 2005 as one of America’s 25 best leaders. In 2006, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. As a trained physician and anthropologist — he holds both an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in anthropology, also from Harvard — Kim has worked to improve the health of residents of many developing countries, serving as director for the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization from 2004 to 2005. As Dartmouth’s next president, Kim will face significant challenges as the college is pressured to cut costs. Last month, Dartmouth announced that it would cut 60 non-faculty employees after the value of the endowment fell by $700 million, or 18 percent.

Noting that he has tracked Dartmouth’s financial situation since the global economic crisis hit in November 2008, Kim said that he has few concerns about the budget cuts and is optimistic about Dartmouth’s finances. “I think there’s a way for us to take advantage of this climate where everyone is just thinking about cutbacks and low-downs and scaling back on what they are going to do,” Kim said. He added that he has no plans to “impose any research agenda” during his time at Dartmouth despite concern that he will be overly focused on bolstering research. “I don’t want to argue with my faculty about content and curriculum — they’re the experts,” he said. “My job is trying to find ways of supporting them in delivering the content and curriculum in the most innovative way.”

As Kim prepares to take office in the coming months, he will also have to adjust to life with a second child in the house. Kim’s wife, Younsook Lim, gave birth to a baby boy on Feb. 27.

Kim will replace James Wright, who has served as Dartmouth’s president since 1998. Under Wright’s tenure, Dartmouth changed its financial aid policy to offer free tuition for all students from families earning less than $75,000 a year. Wright also oversaw the construction of new dormitories, gymnasium renovations and the creation of the Student Life Initiative in 1998, which banned the formation of new single-sex Greek organizations.

Kim said he has “no particular bias against [fraternities and sororities]” and pledged to keep an “open mind” about the college’s Greek organizations. “I want them to be institutions that actually enhance peoples’ experience and don’t detract from them.”

The Daily Princetonian By Marissa Lee and Aaron Hosios

Published: Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

My Testimony Prepared for Park Street Church

This testimony was prepared for the Tuesday New Members' Class with Rev. Gordon at Park Street Church on October 14, 2008.

When my mother was expecting her third child, me, our family lived in a neighborhood that there were two remarkable pastors’ families. Naturally, the two pastors’ wives became good friends with my mother thanks to their mutual interest in children’s education. One of the wives is Dr. Eunsoon Yang, she later established His University in Corona, CA for family ministry. Through their prayers, my mother became the first Christian in our entire families, and my two older sisters and I grew up in a half Christian family.

My father did not have faith when my mother started to believe in God. But to my surprise, even he was not interested in Christianity, he helped Rev. Lee, Tae Woong, who finished his Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, to build Global Missionary Training Center right next door. It was possible because my father liked him. Moreover, sometimes, when the training center was full, some of the missionary trainees stayed with us since my father and mother agreed to open our house willingly to the young trainees. For me, to meet the young passionate Christian families and singles planning to go to mission fields remains one of the most wonderful childhood memories.

When I became a freshman, one day, I started to doubt everything about Christianity. I had too many questions. I wanted to understand God intellectually but often I could not get clear answers to my questions. Soon after, I became cynical about all Biblical messages, church, and Christians. While looking at people praising and praying at church, even I thought that they might be crazy. I totally lost my way. It is very difficult for me to explain exactly how, but I came back to having faith in Christ. I realized that there is no place hidden from God. I could no longer deny that God is God. It was actually a very scary experience for me to feel His real being. Many church friends and pastors knew that I had been struggling against doubts. I believe that God worked with their prayers.

After I went through the transitional time, I wanted to know God deeply. So when I learned about short-term mission works at church, immediately I applied to the opportunity, and was selected as a researcher in Myanmar. Through this rare chance, I could stay in Yangon, Myanmar for four months. During the time, I stayed with a pastor’s family, unavoidably, I had to go to every morning prayer meeting with the family. I am not a morning person, so it was very hard for me to get up before 6AM. However, it turned out that the period was a blessing itself in my entire life! 

One day in Yangon, Myanmar, I mumbled myself “Why does it rain everyday here?” Myanmar has a tropical climate, so everyday there is heavy rainfall. At that moment, unexpectedly, God talked to me, “When it rains, let it rain, and you just get wet in the rain. 비가 오면 비를 맞어.” I cannot explain how I could listen to the God’s talking, but obviously he talked to me. I was really surprised at his sudden approach like a close friend. After the unforgettable moment, I came to understand something important. Even though I get answers to my questions, there are always things I can never understand. God created this world and reigns everything. Since then, I have tried to obey what He makes me do, even though I cannot understand the reason wholly.

On the other hand, I began to see the vulnerable, oppressed, and helpless people there. I started to realize that there are many people suffering on the other side of world because of the chaotic political situation, and the lack of education, and etc. God opened my eyes. I started to think about justice, which I had not thought about before. I got an inkling of my passion for governance issues beyond being an architect or an urban planner. Or I probably got a strong desire to participate in something urgent for His kingdom. I think the passion eventually brought me here to the States to study International Development at Cornell University.

Here in the States, as a foreigner, I am struggling to find a job and have many fears of my uncertain future. I still do have many questions. I cannot get clear answers to some of my questions. But it is ok. I know He will lead me and make a way for me. One of my most important prayers is that He may provide me with wisdom and discerning heart to recognize His voice on time. This is because knowing God and following Him are the most important things in my life.