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<P>Dear Ken and Stefan,</P>
<P>After receiving a notice of Peace Corps meeting, I remind of you, Ken. Then I
read these</P>
<P>correspondences between you and Stefan with great interest since I have lived
in 205-37 Noryangjin for ten years.</P>
<P>Ken's field work is very well done. 205-35 is just two buildings away from
our villa.</P>
<P>I visited that house yesterday and also found it will be demolished before
the end of this month. However, it is too early to disappoint since we are not
sure whether 205-35 is Nomura's place or not. We have to find out exact
'ho-su' 205-?? for his residence.<br>I also phoned the
local office where they keep old documents in order to find some traces of
Nomura's residence. They said they might have some but this week is Chuseok and
advised to visit the office in the next week.</P>
<P>If Esther still wants to visit this area, there is one remaining
building in old Japanese style although renovated into a Buddhistic temple
inside. This Bokwangsa is three buildings away from my house.</P>
<P>After visiting the office I will let you know the further development.</P>
<P>Best,</P>
<P>Sang-Oak Lee</P>
<P>Seoul National Univ.</P><BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">--- Original Message ---<br><b>From : </b> "Stefan Ewing"<sa_ewing@hotmail.com><br><b>To : </b> <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws><br><b>Date : </b> 2006/10/03 È¿äÀÏ ¿ÀÀü 2:23:30<br><b>Subject : </b> Re: [KS] The house in Noryangjin: Thank you!<br><br>Dear Ken:
<BR>
<BR>I cannot thank you enough for all your completely unsolicited hard work! I
<BR>had only a vain hope that someone might actually undertake this search--a
<BR>potentially fruitless hunt for an old house with no promise of recompense,
<BR>save for the reward of solving a minor historical mystery. ...Except that
<BR>in place of the original mystery, we now have a whole saga pertaining to the
<BR>property. Perhaps we should start a new PBS show, "History Detectives:
<BR>Korean Edition"!
<BR>
<BR>I'm passing your email on to the lady in question, and we can work out
<BR>contact details off-list. She's since mentioned that she's planning to
<BR>travel to Korea...sadly, it sounds like even the few last remnants of the
<BR>house--the garden, the vine-covered wall--might be gone by the time she gets
<BR>there.
<BR>
<BR>For the KS List members in general:
<BR>
<BR>There is another historical tidbit for all and sundry. Mr. Nomura was
<BR>indeed well liked by his students, so much so that the _Sungnyo^hoe_
<BR>(Sookmyung Girls' School's alumnae association) pooled money to invite him
<BR>back to visit Korea in 1967 or '69. His great granddaughter remembers '67,
<BR>but the visit is mentioned briefly in a _Sunday Seoul_ article from 10
<BR>August 1969 (reproduced at
<BR>http://blog.naver.com/kybkang9?Redirect=Log&logNo=100023303082). The
<BR>article discusses the activities of girls' school alumnae associations in
<BR>general. Here is my probably inadequate translation of the Sookmyung
<BR>passage--where the retired principal is mentioned by his Koreanized name,
<BR>"Yach'on So^ngjijo":
<BR>
<BR>"Also, if you ask if this spring, did the 'Old Timers' of the Sookmyung
<BR>Girls' School almumnae association 'Sungnyeonhoe' pool their money to invite
<BR>the pre-Liberation, pro-Korean Japanese principal Seinosuke Nomura, then
<BR>there is the rumour that the Baehwa Girls' School is saving up 4 million won
<BR>to help their alma mater."
<BR>
<BR>(Is it notable that he is explicitly described as a "ch'in-Han'guk
<BR>Irin"--"pro-Korean Japanese person"?)
<BR>
<BR>During this visit, Mr. Nomura even met the then prime minister of Korea, who
<BR>at that time should have been Cho^ng Ilkwo^n (Jeong Il-gwon; PM 1964-70).
<BR>For the record, Mr. Nomura's wife's name was Shinohara Kusa (maiden name),
<BR>but as for her husband, my own search for information on her has proved
<BR>fruitless.
<BR>
<BR>I'm very glad--and no doubt my correspondent will be as well--that thanks to
<BR>Ken Kaliher's hard work, we've been able to find the house. The breadth and
<BR>depth of interests and experiences among the KS List's participants is truly
<BR>staggering, and I'm glad to be a small part of this wonderful group of
<BR>people.
<BR>
<BR>Thanks,
<BR>Stefan Ewing
<BR>
<BR>***
<BR>
<BR>>From: <ken.kaliher@us.army.mil>
<BR>>Reply-To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws>
<BR>>To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws>
<BR>>CC: sa_ewing@hotmail.com
<BR>>Subject: Re: [KS] Memories of Sookmyung--the house in Noryangjin
<BR>>Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:25:30 +0900
<BR>>
<BR>>Stefan,
<BR>>
<BR>>While the Korean Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs
<BR>>began back in 1997 marking buildings in Seoul and many other locations with
<BR>>uniform address signs based on street names and sequential numbers, the
<BR>>chaotic old Japanese address system remains in use to this day.
<BR>>
<BR>>On the very day that your postings appeared (Sept. 27), however, the
<BR>>Ministry helpfully announced that the systematic new address system will
<BR>>finally be implemented, gradually, by 2011. A service to go on line next
<BR>>year will provide conversions from old addresses to new ones, and all the
<BR>>new signs are to be up by 2009, the Korea Times reported Thursday. Both
<BR>>systems may be used until 2011, the Times said.
<BR>>
<BR>>-
<BR>>
<BR>>As for the house in Noryangjin, I quickly located land lot 205 in my Seoul
<BR>>city atlas, and Sundayset out to goexploring.
<BR>>Lot 205 sprawls across a hillside which runs from a narrow commercial
<BR>>street up to the Yo^ngbon Primary School on the crown of the hill.
<BR>>Most of the 200 or more properties with addresses now beginning 205- are
<BR>>three- or four-story red brickvilla residences of relatively recent
<BR>>vintage, jammed shoulder to shoulder in the typical modern Seoul style,
<BR>>with no grass, or even dirt, around them. The newest, flashiest buildings
<BR>>in the area house dozens of kosiwo^n -- Spartan, multi-story dormitories
<BR>>for those cramming for various entrance or employment exams.
<BR>>
<BR>>About three-fourths of the way up the hill, however, I happened upon a
<BR>>distinctive property behind a long, high wall covered with thick,
<BR>>broad-leafed vines. It was the only single family residence I saw anywhere
<BR>>in the area, and the only one with an actual garden (literally -- there was
<BR>>a vegetable patch beside the lawn). While the wall was readily identifiable
<BR>>from the photo of Mr. Nomura's home, however, one glance confirmed that the
<BR>>large house on the lot was not that in which he had lived.
<BR>>
<BR>>I made note of the address, Noryangjin 1-dong, 205-35, and as I rang the
<BR>>doorbell, a sixtysomething grandmother approaching up the alley identified
<BR>>herself as the occupant. As I explained my mission, a younger woman, owner
<BR>>of a nearby kosiwo^n, appeared and joined our conversation. We quickly
<BR>>confirmed that this lot was most certainly the site of Mr. Nomuraï¿?s
<BR>>former home. Any ocean views, however, had long since been obliterated by
<BR>>the surrounding villas and the adjacent high-rise Uso^ng Apartment complex.
<BR>>
<BR>>The grandmother said she and her son had bought the 150-pyong property five
<BR>>years earlier, for 1 billion won, from the family of one Pak Tu-a, a
<BR>>prominent local landowner who had built the current house in 1969. (She
<BR>>knew nothing about him or the property before then.) And I had not come a
<BR>>moment too soon, for they had just sold the house, and were moving out one
<BR>>week later (on Oct. 8). The new owners would be tearing down the building
<BR>>-- stone wall, vines, garden and all -- to build yet another five- to
<BR>>seven-story kosiwo^n.
<BR>>
<BR>>As the other woman and I strolled back down the alley, we bemoaned the loss
<BR>>of that magnificent wall and its vines. Then she told me that, before the
<BR>>grandmother and her son had bought the house, it had stood vacant for 15
<BR>>years because of some sort of family feud over the property. Thus they got
<BR>>it cheap, as it was a hyungga (house of evil, or haunted house). The
<BR>>grandmother's son, meanwhile, was apparently a mudang (shaman) of some
<BR>>repute, and the huge magnolia tree dominating the home's garden was often
<BR>>festooned with a shaman's red and white paper streamers.
<BR>>
<BR>>Perhaps the property has many stories of its own to tell from years gone
<BR>>by....
<BR>>
<BR>>Ken Kaliher
<BR>>
<BR>>Seoul
<BR>>
<BR>>P.S. I took some photos with my newly acquired digital camera, but my USB
<BR>>ports are not cooperating, and I haven't been able to download them. If
<BR>>Esther is interested, I'm sure I can eventually send them to you to
<BR>>forward. Ditto for a section from my Seoul atlas showing lot 205 and the
<BR>>location of the old property.
<BR>
<BR>_________________________________________________________________
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<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></body><br><br>Sang-Oak LEE (ÀÌ »ó ¾ï) <BR>
Department of Korean<BR>
College of Humanities<BR>
Seoul National University<BR>
Seoul 151-742, KOREA<BR>
82-2-815-7164, Fax 82-2-878-1246<BR>
sangoak@snu.ac.kr
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