Tale of SKHU
I have been writing Seoul Diary since I joined SungKongHoe University (SKHU) in March 2007. I have been citing SKHU as a reference frequently, but so far I have not written about the school. Here I like to tell the tale of SKHU in some details.
SKHU was founded in 1914 as St. Michael's Theological Seminary for the purpose of training clergymen. It had to be closed down and moved several times under Japanese occupation and World War II. It was relocated to the current site in 1957 with financial support from the Anglican Diocese in Canada, St. Michael's Theological Seminary Since then, it has established itself for the development of the Anglican Church of Korea. As a training and educational ground, it has played a leading role in the Ecumenical Movement of Korean Christianity and also become a foothold for Korean democratization. The university emblem contains a Latin phrase LUX-MUNDI, which means “the light of the world”. This reminds me of the emblem of my high school in Bangladesh, named Government Laboratory High School, in the 1960s. Our emblem was Aalo Aaro Aalo, a Bangla phrase, meaning “light more light”. What a coincidence?
The mottos of SKHU are:
We cultivate Christian Humanity in the students that enable them to practice the spirits of openness, sharing and service. We raise independent human beings who have their minds open. We raise human beings who are ready to share.
 In 1982, the Seminary took the first major step forward by establishing a four-year undergraduate course in Theology, changing its title to St. Michael's Theological College. The college received full accreditation from the Korean government in 1993. In September 1994, the College crossed another milestone by renaming it as SungKongHoe University. SKHU has taken efforts to cultivate NGO leadership by providing students with a systematic construction of the philosophy, activities, and prospects of civil society organizations. Many current faculty members belong to the generation of liberals and radicals who are the product of the democracy movement of the 1970s and the 1980s. In collaboration with ARENA, it has started “globalizing” its domain by opening a course on Master of Arts in Inter-Asia NGO Studies (MAINS) in February 2007, offering a course for international students with financial support. The current President of SKHU, Rev. Dr. Kim Suong-Soo, is well-known and widely respected name in the Korean society. Whenever I introduce myself as a faculty of SKHU, many Koreans perceive me as a Christian priest. That is a common feeling many people have in Korea about this university. SKHU is managed by a board comprising priests. It also has a church and many times I thought I would attend the services on a Sunday. Finally I made it in end-November.
University without a gate
SKHU is known as a University without a gate. Near the entrance, there is a stone plaque with SKHU name made by a famous brush painter (calligrapher) Prof. Shin Young-bok. He teaches in SKHU and is well-known for his anti-establishment role. He was behind the bar for twenty years during the military rule in Korea. His calligraphy is used in a particular brand of Soju (Korean rice wine) bottles, and the royalty comes to SKHU. I met him in a meeting during Prof. Ohashi’s visit to SKHU on 12 December. He looks too benign and down to earth. To understand Shin Young-bok’s works, I like to quote from his remarks about “Beyond Orientalism” in his essay on “Kyongju, Silk Road, Buddhism, and the 21st Century - From Substance-centered Paradigm to Relation-centered One.
In Korean calligraphy, if a stroke is done wrong, the artist cannot erase nor correct it. He has no choice but to draw the next stroke so as to hide the previous mistake, to make the next stroke harmonize with the first unsatisfactory one. And if one line of characters is wrong, he must strive to make the next line free of errors, but the most important thing is that the next line of characters should help and support the first one. On the finished page of a calligraphy piece, stroke and stroke, character and character, line and line should help each other. It is this relationship between lines, strokes and characters that helps to overcome any mistakes made in the work. 
A work in which individual elements have some flaws but the overall harmony is good is said to be a much more refined work of art than one whose individual elements are perfect. This is not so much the story of beautiful work of art as that of human relationships and simultaneously, of civilization. Whether this is Korea's typical aesthetics or philosophy is up for interpretation, and of course I don't think this is peculiar only to Eastern thinking. However, in my opinion, to complete the run of one's life on earth one must depend on human relationships; what is left of one's self after death also depends on human relationships. This is the Korean interpretation of relation-centered paradigm.
Most of the classes are held in a nine-storied building that includes two basement floors. This is known as the millennium building. In front of the millennium building is a Nti na-moo (a Nti tree), which is a meeting and smoking space for students. If we want to meet someone, we say, let’s meet under the tree. This may be compared with Battala in the Arts Faculty campus in the University of Dhaka. There is a big banyan tree under which, students assemble for meetings and demonstrations. In a historic rally on 2 March 1971, we hoisted a new flag of Bangladesh at Battala. The Pakistani army was so angry with the tree that it cut it in 1971 during its crackdown on 25 March. Even its root was taken away. U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy planted another banyan sapling after the liberation of Bangladesh during his visit to Dhaka in February 1972. This is now a full-grown tree.
ARENA is housed in a three-storied temporary building at the end of the campus road. Two stories are visible from outside and there is a basement floor. ARENA is on the top floor sharing space with the Democracy and Social Movement Institute (DAMSI) at SKHU. The Institute is steered by Prof. Cho Hee-Yeon, an ARENA Fellow. The floor space that ARENA uses would be around 5mx5m. ARENA book shelves are used as a partition wall.
From Hong Kong to Seoul
ARENA had been propelling from Hong Kong since 1980. On several occasions since the 1990s, there were proposals to shift ARENA from Hong Kong to another convenient place as Hong Kong was becoming too expensive. We thought about several options. Seoul was chosen at last.
When I was in Seoul attending an APCEIU workshop, I had a long chat with Lawrence Surendra in a pub and he was too enthused to bring ARENA to Seoul and was confident that a “vibrant young team” in Seoul would be able to give ARENA a fresh lease of life. He was then working as a Deputy Director of APCEIU and was based in Seoul.
I heard that many ARENA Fellows in Seoul were not ready and willing to have ARENA coming here. But it happened. Manila and Bangkok were talked about as alternative destinations. Manila has never been a favorite candidate and there was none in Bangkok to spend time for the registration process and/or the process was too complicated.
Agnes Khoo was appointed executive Director of ARENA in mid-2005 succeeding Jeannie Manipon. For the first time I heard that there is a position of ED in ARENA, as it had always been termed as “Coordinator”. I met Agnes in Hong Kong in December 2005 while I was attending Jubilee South events planned round the WTO ministerial meeting. Agnes had been shuttling between Hong Kong and Seoul. SKHU agreed to host ARENA and offered a free space to house the secretariat. It was decided to have a MoU between ARENA and SKHU. Johan and Ohashi, co-chairs of the ARENA interim board, asked me to come to Seoul to represent ARENA in the MoU signing ceremony to be held in early April 2006. I first agreed, then declined and then finally confirmed that I would come.  I arrived Incheon on 6 April morning and was received by Toshiko, a part-time Program Officer of ARENA. Ohashi also came from Tokyo. In the evening we had a dinner with Rev. Geon Seok Yang, Vice-President of SKHU. I expressed my wish to plant a tree in the SKHU campus as a symbol of ARENA’s reincarnation in Seoul. The Vice-President arranged it and we planted a pine sapling. Every morning I watch it as I walk to the school. One day this will grow to its full length and together it ARENA will grow on the soil of Seoul.  Earlier I prepared and mailed two speeches, one for the students that I was asked to address and another one for the MoU ceremony. These were translated. On 7 April morning, I addressed the graduate students. There were about 150 of them. The session was moderated by Prof. Lee Jung Ok. This was interpreted in Korean by a SKHU professor paragraph by paragraph.
The MoU signing ceremony was scheduled on 7 April afternoon, 2006. It was attended by many SKHU faculty members. The President and I exchanged signed MoU. Ohashi and Jung Ok also attended. On 2 December, I attended a prayer at Samil Presbyterian Church at Sookmyung Women’s University. There were many participants, mostly young people. Unlike priests in other churches, here I observed him with “normal” outfit. There was arrangement for simultaneous translation. I enjoyed the songs very much. Earlier I heard from my Indian student Banajit that an exhibition of the original works of Van Gogh was going on at the Seoul Museum of Art. In the afternoon I visited the museum and walked around the exhibits for a couple of hours. The exhibition was titled as Voyage into the Myth. As many as 67 works were in display including 45 paintings and 22 drawings. It was nice to see some of the paintings again, like sorrow, the sower, the yellow house, irises, potato eaters, sorrowful old man, chestnut trees in blossom, a pair of leather clogs and of course his self-portrait. In my office in Dhaka, I had a copy of the potato eaters. For the first time I saw it in original.
Van Gogh lived only for 37 years with a short ten-year period of artistic career. Living longer and not being productive is meaningless, or what is the meaning of life? He lived a life of a pauper that made him immortal. I symbolize him of poverty, pain and passion. And in my opinion, these are the three most important elements that make a person humane.
When I think of Van Gogh, I think of sorrow, separation and exclusion. Life is bi-polar. Unification and separation are two sides of the life. Happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow are subjects that painters and poets have been playing with for ages. Once I wrote what I learned that death is more blissful than life. Yet hearts break when people part. Here I like to cite two poems that explain injured minds. These have been translated by Jaihiun Kim (I slightly modified).
Yi Kae (1417-1456)
The candle that burns inside the room,
From whom has it been parted?
While its outside drips with tears,
Does it know its heart burns?
The candle is like my own heart
And it does not know it burns.
Songgye-yeonwol (18th century)
Listen, people of the world,
Do not ever meet and know each other.
Meeting and knowing begets love
And love in turn creates longing.
The lifelong pain of parting and yearning
Begins with meeting and knowing.
Climate change
When I left for Bali on 4 December morning, the temperature in Seoul was -2 o. When I arrived at Denpasar in the afternoon, it was 32 o. I stayed few days with the Jubilee South-APMDD group. In the group were over thirty of us. Our main focus was “debt” and we tried to relate it with climate change issues in our conference.
I met some young participants for the first time. Their quality of participation was good and I assume they will be able to carry forward the debt campaign and movement forward. The most horrible aspect of the conference was gender imbalance. There was a big delegation from Bangladesh that didn’t have a single woman.
On 8 th, we participated in a rally. Our group had prepared some banners and effigies that drew attention of the public and the media.  I had an interesting experience in Bali. Just before the rally, we attended a show that was telecast live. I saw the former Indonesian Vice-President Habibi (who later replaced Suharto as acting President) came to the stage together with the former President Meghawati. Then slowly walked in Abdur Rahman Wahid who replaced Habibi. As he can’t see, he was aided by a volunteer to come and take a seat. I thought that they had come to express solidarity with the activists. They were all speaking in Bahsa and the session was facilitated by two persons. Then to my utter surprise came Suharto. He was wearing a black cap and was smiling. I thought that some members of the audience with through stone or tomato to him or at least would shout at him. But nothing happened. Then I realized that this was a popular TV show participated by actors and actresses who looked so real.
MoU with Keisen  Prof. Masaaki Ohashi led a four-member delegation from Keisen University, Tokyo, to SKHU. They arrived on 11th evening and left on 13th morning. A MoU for cooperation and exchange was discussed between the two universities on 12 December. They also exchanged views in a session with MAINS students. An interactive process that started with Ohashi’s visit to SKHU in May 2007, followed by a visit of a Keisen delegation in July 2007 and a return visit of a SKHU delegation to Keisen in October 2007 have now culminated to something tangible. It has been decided that a MoU will be signed in coming January or February. The cooperation will start centering round MAINS in the form of, among others, exchange of students and faculty. A reception dinner was hosted by SKHU to celebrate this occasion.
Paintings for the library
 In last June, I brought three paintings from Dhaka, as Prof. Jin Young Jong requested to have them for the SKHU library. Among these two were done in print medium (etching) by my daughter based on HIV/AIDS as theme and one in water color done by her partner that shows a bit of indigenous culture of a particular ethnic community in Bangladesh, the santhals. The director of the library was out of the station for a long period. He framed the paintings and off late arranged a small ceremony to receive them. On 14 December, he received them formally from me. These are now on display on the walls of the library.
Where the mountain touches the sky
I was out of the station for two weeks in the later half of December. I was part of a team (ALFP 2006) producing a documentary sponsored by the Japan Foundation. It includes three parts: organic farming in Japan, Korea-China environmental collaboration and community radio in Nepal. We titled the 30 minutes film as “Asian Communities in Action”. We worked for about a week in Kathmandu. Among others were Yoji Kamata and Kikuo Kishimoto from Japan, Prof. Lee Seejae from South Korea and Kunda Dixit from Nepal. We used the studio housed in the apartment of Miki and Lakshman Upreti.
 I took this opportunity to visit SAAPE secretariat and RRN. It was nice to meet friends again. Rachita, Sarba and Rishi took me to a special restaurant for a dinner that serves food of the Mustang region. Mustang is in the Himalayas, about three thousand meters above the see level. While I was returning via Dhaka, I could see the Mount Everest through the window of the airplane. The sky was clear and the Everest was standing upright to touch the sky despite all the wrongdoings of the human race.
MAINS
While studying statistics at the under-graduate level, I learned about “variance” and standard deviation” (SD). If I apply this to MAINS students of 2007, I would conclude that the coefficient for SD and variance are quite high. This means, if I draw a “line of average”, I can plot some students at a higher level and some at a much lower level. The variation is so much that I had been very concerned and careful from the beginning. As I was the only faculty who had an opportunity to engage with students on a day to day basis, I could understand their every step. After having two classes, I could make a quick assessment and was pondering how to deliver. I thought that my purpose as a faculty is not to let them know “how much I know”, but to help them to absorb whatever we discuss in the class. This absorption capacity has varied significantly.
I am aware of two “complaints”. First, the lessons should be sharper with theories and secondly, lessons should be more action-oriented and should not be burdened with theories. I was caught as a hostage with these two opposite poles. What to do? This has also been raised, discussed and debated by some students, as well as ARENA fellows.
I don’t think we can find and we should follow a unipolar path to “inflict” lessons on MAINS students. I have always tried to treat the students as “subjects” and I never expected that we can transform them into something else in one year. Students come from rich NGO or movement background and they are supposed to return to respective arena. We provide them with space where learn from each other and we also learn from them. Stereo-typed students and stereo-typed professors are equally unfit in this domain. We would enter a serious fallacy if we tend to compare MAINS with courses offered by European or North American schools that usually produce scholarly commodities for the market (there are exceptions of course). And it may require several years to have a refined MAINS course.
For the academic year 2008, we have so far selected 14 candidates from 11 countries. Among them are some “new” countries that were not covered in 2007, such as, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Nepal. We are yet to find candidates from Korea. As it is too expensive and Korean students are not entitled to scholarships, it is difficult to sell the MAINS program to them. Under the existing rules of SKHU, for Korean graduate students, one-third of the tuition fee for two semesters is waived.
2008 will be different. The average age of the students is lower compared to that of 2007. SKHU will try different visiting ARENA faculty for different semesters. So far I am aware of Margaret (China) and Andrew (Malaysia) coming for the spring and the autumn semester respectively. They are also “young”. I wish them Godspeed.
Getting gray
It’s December. The winter has set in. Most trees have lost their leaves. Not a bit of red or yellow anymore. It’s all gray except pine which is evergreen. Some evenings are very windy. If one is not familiar with the situation, one would find it difficult to understand the change in nature. I took a photo of some trees near the entrance of the SKHU in the autumn and then again in December. They were poles apart.
Human beings desperately adopt the technology to look young. They dye their hair, spend huge amounts for painting faces and even resort to plastic surgery. Trees cannot do that. But they regain their youth as the season is over. Humans cannot. Can we beat the age? Hwang Yunseok (1729-1791), a poet of the period of the Choson Dynasty, wrote: A white haired wanton woman,
on her way to make love to a young man
dyed her hair black, and pants and puffs
her way to a steep mountain pass.
But she is caught in a sudden rain,
which turns her white collar-strip black
and her black hair white.
Her desires tease her out of joy.
I think the quality of the dye has improved.
Photo
Courtesy: Pinpaka Ngamsom, Francis Dae-hoon Lee
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