From left: U.K. Ambassador Colin Crooks, Hong Suemin, Kim Ji-myung, Kim Jiyoon and RAS President Steve Shields. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Steven L. Shields

The winners of Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea's third annual high school essay contest were presented with their awards at the society's recent Founders' Day celebration on June 11. A large group of RAS Korea members and friends were on hand to greet and congratulate the students and their families.

The 2022 awards were presented with assistance from U.K. Ambassador Colin Crooks, who is also RAS Korea's honorary president, and Dr. Kim Ji-myung, president of the Korea Heritage Education Institute, who sponsored the cash prizes.

RAS Korea's essay contest is a follow-up to a delightful contribution in 2019 from several students at Dongducheon Foreign Language High School. The group of students there read an article about RAS Korea in the Chosun Ilbo late in 2018. They got together and decided to express their support for RAS Korea's century-long contribution to Korea through essays. Afterward, RAS Korea representatives visited the school and met more than 100 students, many of whom also wanted to contribute essays, and the contest was born.

This year's contestants were challenged to choose between three directed topics rather than an open format. The topics were: "How can Korea preserve its cultural assets for future generations? How should Korea make choices about what is culturally relevant and vital?"; "What is something that is not currently being taught in your school that you think could foster a better understanding or appreciation of Korea's history or culture? How would this improved awareness help us today?"; "You have been asked to make a new holiday in Korea. When is your new holiday, what is it about, and how is it celebrated?"

Essays were received on each of the three topics, but two winning essays were on curriculum, and one was on a new holiday. All three winners were from the same school, Myungduk Foreign Language High School in southwestern Seoul. Each contestant this year presented well-written, creatively thought-out, timely essays. The judges were challenged to make the top choices. Even though not all could be awarded, RAS Korea believes that competing students were winners, too. We are proud of the young people who took part.

Oh Sumin's delightful essay, "When eggplant flowers bloom," proposes a new national holiday for Korea. She proposes that July 27 be designated as Armistice Day, the day on which the cessation of hostilities was declared in 1953. She recounts the story of her grandfather, who suffered significantly escaping to the south at the end of the Pacific War. Grandfather ate raw eggplants to survive as he made his way south. Oh's father plants eggplants each year, and when the flowers bloom, they remember her grandfather (now deceased), who never got to see his hometown again. She notes that every year, the number of separated family members is decreasing due to old age, and in a few short years, no one will be left to remember. Her suggestion of a new national holiday is thoughtful and heartwarming, to be sure.

RAS President Steve Shields, left, presents Oh Sumin with her award. / Courtesy of RAS Korea

On adding to school curricula, Hong Suemin writes that making kimchi should be added. She notes that few of her peers know how to make kimchi, which is not only an essential food in Korea but one of the most potent representations of Korean culture and heritage. Kimjang is what was done in every Korean home for centuries, as they bought cartloads of cabbages and peppers and packed kimchi into giant earthenware jars. Families had nutritious food supplies available during the cold winter months when nothing grew. With the advent of commercialism and preservative technologies, fewer and fewer families take part in the annual fall kimjang time. For Koreans to lose the knowledge of making kimchi would be a sad loss of essential cultural heritage.

This year's top prize went to first-year high schooler Kim Jiyoon. Her essay was, "Vietnam War: Our dark side of the moon." She wrote about the rarely discussed brutal history of Korea's military on the ground in South Vietnam in the late 1960s to early 1970s. In line with a prominent Korean historian who said that a nation that forgets its past has no future, she argued that Korea and its school curriculum must not focus only on Japanese colonial-era matters. She believes Korea must also look at similar behaviors during its first extraterritorial war effort. She argues that many of the same problems the Japanese are accused of were committed equally and perhaps more brutally by Korean soldiers in Vietnam. She points out that hundreds of children were born to Vietnamese women by Korean soldiers and abandoned in their poverty. Further, she discusses the more than 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants living in Korea who are subjected to discrimination and abuse. She concludes, "If Korea keeps ignoring their war crimes, Korean people might forget their existence, but the world never forgets or ignores it."

Kim Jiyoon's winning essay is published in RAS Korea's annual journal, Transactions Vol. 96 (2022). The journal is free to members of RAS Korea and may be purchased by non-members directly from the RAS Korea office for 10,000 won.


Rev. Steven L. Shields is president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea (www.raskb.com) and columnist for The Korea Times. Visit raskb.com or email royalasiatickorea@gmail.com for more information about the society.