Thank You Dad
Written by Master Whang
This article by Master Whang (Sr. and/or Jr.) was originally written for and posted on www.CarbonEcho.com, a martial arts website dedicated to educating the public about all martial arts. While the site enjoyed tremendous popularity, it ceased operations several years ago.
Thank you, Dad
Dad was a diplomat for Korea, so my twin brother and I grew up all over the place. We were born in Tokyo, and grew up in Korea, the Philippines, Argentina, Japan and the U.S. So I remember my childhood as a series of separate lives with different friends, schools, languages, foods, tastes and smells.
I also have some very vivid memories of certain incidents in my life which I remember just because they came to define who I am.
My brother and I were four when we moved to the Philippines. When we were six, we enrolled in pre-school. It was a Filipino school, and we were the only Koreans in our class. In fact, we were the only Koreans, Japanese or Chinese kids in school at the time. We were also scrawny little kids - so small when we were born that my mother did not even know she was having twins until I was born, and the doctor regretfully informed by mother that there was one more left. My mom’s reaction was to faint (from joy she claims, although knowing what I know now as a parent, it was probably from sheer terror at the prospect of trying to raise 4 kids at the same time).
Kids being capable of brutally honest cruelty at that age, at the end of school one day, as we were waiting to be picked up, a group of about 20 of our schoolmates surrounded us in a tight circle and started closing in on my twin and me. They started chanting in unison, louder and louder, “JAP!!! JAP!!! JAP!!!”, all the while using their hands to spread their eyes to make the moronic, but universally accepted symbol for “slant-eye”.
At this point I would like to say that we used our Taekwondo skills to dispatch the ringleaders with a few spectacular kicks to the head, and send the rest of the gang scurrying away with their tails between their legs. Unfortunately for us, our first Taekwondo lesson was still a month away. Instead, my brother and I just squatted down in the middle of the circle, side by side, and started to cry… Alright, let’s be honest, we started to bawl. The chanting around us just went on and on.
After what seemed like an eternity, out of the corner of my eye I saw salvation. Dad!!! My hero, come to save the day. He quickly approached us, and the band of thugs dispersed. He took my brother and me by the hand. Instead of comforting us, however, he was strangely cold. The ride back home was completely silent. When we got home, my father ordered us to go upstairs, change into our pajamas, even though it was 3 in the afternoon, and in one of the rare expressions of anger he has ever displayed, slammed our bedroom shut without saying a word to us. Why, I wondered?
A month later, we signed up for Taekwondo lessons with Master Young Man Park, the first Korean Master sent from Korea to teach in the Philippines. I remember the day after my first class, as I was going to sleep, my Dad came to tuck me in. He asked how Taekwondo class was. I said it was fine, but that my thighs hurt from the stretching. He just smiled and turned out the lights.
Two years later we moved to Argentina. We enrolled in a Scottish boys’ school. As if we hadn’t stood out enough in the Philippines, where at least the kids for the most part shared our black hair, here we were now among Scottish, English, American and Argentine kids. Blond hair and blue eyes was the norm. The names and the cruel funny eyes started immediately, with “JAP!!! JAP!!! JAP!!!” becoming “CHINITO - JAPONES!!! CHINITO - JAPONES!!! CHINITO - JAPONES!!!” chanted in a sing-song, almost catchy way. Just as quickly, my brother and I took out the kicks and punches. We settled scores every day for the first month with anyone who made fun of us because we were Korean. Big or small, it didn’t matter, we took them all on. They all backed down after a kick or a punch. They became our friends. Some even became our best friends.
Dad never sat us down and told us why he was mad at us, and over the years I’ve wondered what went through his head that day, and on the day he signed us up for lessons. I know Dad well enough to know that he didn’t enroll us in Taekwondo to create two belligerent fools who would try to settle every score physically (heck, we both became lawyers). But on the other hand, he never told us he enrolled us in Taekwondo so that we could learn to stand on our own two feet. He never gave us a pat on the back congratulating us for fighting for and winning our right to look Korean in a non-Korean world. And I’ve never thanked him for giving me the gift of Taekwondo.
Thank you, Dad.
Epilogue
“Thank You Dad” was written in 2000. In May 2004, our father Mr. Won Yung Whang passed away. For the last 18 years of his life, our father lived with the debilitating effects of a stroke he suffered in 1986, which initially left him paralyzed on his right side. The stroke was stress-induced, the result of a perfect storm of financial and personal challenges that came together and boiled over that year. Although he eventually recovered his physical functioning, he never recovered his speech.
When my brother and I opened West Side Taekwondo in 1992, we could never have anticipated one side benefit that would become a source of great pride for both of us. The frustrations of living with the effects of his stroke had left my father listless, unsocial, and inactive, and that’s how he was in 1992. Soon after we opened the school, our father began to come to the school to visit. A trickle of visits became, within a few months, his “job”. He started coming to the dojang every day, and soon became a fixture. He would wordlessly greet the children and receive their greetings, help them tie their belts, share a quiet meal with Mr. Lim, and to make himself otherwise useful. Six days a week, coming to the dojang became the most important part of his life, so much so that he hated leaving New York. On one occasion, my sister had to literally “kidnap” him under false pretenses (telling him that she was just driving him home to Queens) to drive him and my mother up to Boston to spend a holiday. I think he was forever suspicious of rides in my sister’s car after that day!
My brother and I would mostly see him on Saturdays, since his “day” would be over in the early evening, once the children went home, and before my brother and I would show up to teach the adult classes at night. For Derek and Dylan, Saturday with Grandfather became a routine, one that I’m sure he enjoyed and looked forward to as much as they did. Whenever I saw him at the school, observing classes, watching promotion tests, I could see his pure joy of being amongst the students, the family at West Side, and how proud he felt that his sons had created this institution.
I said in my essay that my brother and I are grateful to my Dad for having given us the gift of Taekwondo. In turn, the art that has brought us so much joy and learning and friendship and passion, allowed us to give our father back a gift, one that gave him a wonderful reason to keep on living every day.
We relocated to 99th Street and Amsterdam Avenue at the end of April, 2004 - just before he fell ill. We are grateful that our father was able to see that new dojang just before his passing; he was so pleased at how new everything was, and how enthusiastic everyone was about this new beginning. We have since moved on from 99th and Amsterdam, as we did from our original location. My father no longer greets students as they come in, but for me, our dojang, wherever it is or might be, will forever be etched with the spirit and memory of students coming to take class, bowing to my father, and my father, smiling back and shaking their hands. Our father was born to humble parents in the humblest of countries in a time that might as well have been the middle ages. He lived through the national humiliation of Japanese occupation of his homeland, where Koreans were second-class citizens in their own country. He lived through the euphoria of liberation from Japan, only to see Korea become a pawn in the global cold war. Seeing where North Korea was headed ideologically, he escaped from his home in what is now North Korea in his early 20’s, never to see his family again. He lived and fought through the brutality of brother killing brother in the Korean War. He served as a military officer after graduation from the prestigious Korean Military Academy, while simultaneously working on a civilian degree from Kyung Hee University. After the war, he was admitted to the Korean Foreign Ministry, and served in the first Korean Embassy in Tokyo. His career took him on to Manila (Philippines), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Osaka (Japan) and Fukuoka (Japan). In 1981, he was unceremoniously cast aside by the government he had served for 25 years after the assassination of President Park, Chung-hee. To our father, who faithfully served God and his country, first as a military officer, then as a seasoned diplomat, becoming, along the way, a sophisticated world traveller, and then chose the hardship of life as a first generation American immigrant in order to be with his children, we say, you lived an amazing and brave life. May your courage, and the pureness of your spirit always be a guide to your sons. Thank You Dad.
