Chong, My First Teacher of English

 The subject of English begins in the middle-school curriculum in Korea. Korean children, therefore, formally study English from the first year of secondary school.

  It has been that way since the day when the modern educational system was established. When the names of successful candidates for entrance to a middle-school in Seoul was announced, when I saw my name in the list, I said to myself, “I am now, a middle-school student. I’ll be different from primary school pupils who do not study English at school.” and my heart was filled with expectations about the upcoming new experience of studying English.

 In the first hour of English, a teacher came into our classroom. He was Korean, short, and bespectacled. He was Chong Chi-yong(鄭芝溶 : 1902~?) my first teacher of English in my life. It was and is unusual even now that a teacher teaches a class for two years consecutively at a middle-school, but he taught us again the second year. He was a good teacher, so I haven’t forgotten him even after the lapse of so many years.

 He was a famous poet. In fact, he was a pioneer of modern Korean poetry. A jewel of lyricism was found in his poetry, they said. I remember Chu Yo-han, the contemporary poet, once made a comment that Chong Chi-yong was an excellent sculptor of words, and that even a Japanese scholar of the Korean language, Okura Simpei(小倉新平 : 1882-1944) expressed his views in praise of Chong. “No one could write more beautiful poetry in Korean in the past and no one will be able to do so in the future.”

 Alas, however, Chong went to the north during the Korean War, a period of terrible confusion in Korea. I’m not in the position to judge whether he was a kidnapped or defected. He went to the north during the Korean War, a period of terrible confusion in Korea. I’m not in the position to judge whether he was kidnapped or defected. He went to the north for unknown reasons, and the publication of his poetry has been banned since that time. We should be understanding of the position of the government on this matter, because the confrontation between the Communist regime and us has been very sharp, and all the rubble since the war was caused by the inhumanity and recklessness on the other side.

 People in the literacy circle are pleased with the government’s recent partial lifting of the ban on publication of Chong’s poetry.

 I’ll not go any further in the matter of the ban and the recent partial lifting, but according the proverbial saying “seeing is believing.” below is an English version (Please forgive me for my poor translation) for one of his poems. The title of the poems is “My Home Town.”

 

    To my home town, to my home town, I've returned

    To find it's not the same home town I've missed.

    Though wild pheasants brood on eggs,

    And the cuckoos cuckoo at the season they should,

    My heart is void of its home town

    Like a cloud floating afar from port to port.

    Again today I climb to the top of a hill alone

    To see a white-spotted flower smile tenderly.

    I hear no sound of the grass flute I played in childhood,

    And my dry lips feel something bitter.

    To my hometown, my hometown, I've returned

    To see only the sky I've missed high and blue.

 

    For you to appreciate the poem truly to nature, the original poem in Korean is added.

 

                                      고향

  

          고향에 고향에 돌아와도

          그리던 고향은 아니러뇨.

 

          산꽁이 알을 품고

          뻐꾸기 제철에 울건만,

 

          마음은 제고향 진히지 않고

          머언 港口로 떠도는 구름,

 

          오늘도 메 끝에 홀로 오르니

          힌점 꽃이 인정스레 웃고,

 

          어린 시절에 불던 풀피리 소리 아니냐고

          메마른 입술에 쓰디쓰다.

 

          고향에 고향에 돌아와도

          그리던 하늘만이 높푸르구나.

 

 

 Chong, Chi-yong went to Doshisha (同志社) University, Dept. of English, In Kyoto, Japan. I’ve heard that he wrote this poem when he was a student at the university. As a sign of admiration of the poem written by a very popular poet at that time, they printed the poem translated in Japanese in the first page of the university magazine, encircling it with a gold frame, they said.

I don’t have that magazine in my hand at the moment. It’ll be almost impossible to find the particular book here in Korea. The only solution might be to make a venture of my own Japanese translation, which is for those Japanese friends interested in the history of Korean poetry.

 

  I don't know whether my teacher in old days is dead or still alive in the bleak north. One thing I can say surely is that he was a good teacher, unforgettable to me.

 

 

                                                                                                             The Korea Times

                                                                                                             January 31, 1988

                                                                                                             Except the Japanese translation

 

 

→ 1988. 1. 31 영자 일간신문 '코리아 타임스' 기고 에세이.  

→ 정지용 시인 시작품 국내외 최초 영역, 일역이 아닐가요? 흥미로운 의문입니다.  

→ 정지용(鄭芝溶, 1902 ~ 1950) 시인 해금 전_ 피납 이유, 몰년(沒年) 등 사실이 알려지기 전 쓰신 글이라,  본문에 정지용 시인

    사망년도를 '?'으로 표기 하셨습니다.

→ 선친, 남용우(1922~1995 휘문고 영어교사, 단국대학교 영문과 교수)께서는 일제 강점기, 휘문고보에 입학하셨을 때

    영어 선생님이 정지용 시인으로 아버지를 예뻐해 주셨다고 말씀하시며 시인을 회상하셨습니다.