Many Koreas, Many Streams Flow into One
Eun-Jin Lee
 Berlin, Germany

Dr. Hesung Chun Koh is a fascinating person, especially for me, a Korean woman born in Germany. She is fascinating because never before could I meet a Korean elder who is so unself-conscious and candid. With other elders, I felt judged and measured, but not so with Dr. Koh. She did not wonder about me, “Does she speak Korean? Is she well-educated? What is her profession? Who are her parents? I could be the way I am, simply me. This was a totally new experience, a wonderful and exciting opportunity.

I met Dr. Koh for the first time at the 2005 Overseas Koreans Foundation leadership conference in Seoul and Chejudo, Korea. There I listened very impressed, very curious, very moved and reflective upon Dr. Koh’s presentation of her research on authentic leadership. From that time on, there were two lessons that were imprinted in my memory, accompanying me always:

  1. Everybody is able to lead, but only in the right way after having understood about leadership. The qualities we have as kyopos of the Korean disapora – as we live between two cultures – are to be seized in the right way. Authentic leadership begins with the awareness of having those qualities and special talents. In this way, Dr. Koh gave me a new consciousness about myself and my leadership of an organization in Berlin. Before, I led by intuition and tried to give my best as a good president. Now it was something totally different to lead with intention and greater self-knowledge, to know and name precisely the goals, whether they are right or false, and how they can be made better.

  2. Until I met Dr. Koh, questions about “what is the real Korea?” troubled me. We were not Germans in Germany or real Koreans as visitors in Korea. How often we were told that we are Koreans and that we must never forget our origin by keeping alive our cultural heritage. But which Korea was being discussed? Our parents brought their Korea of the 1970s to Germany, and conserved it as the original Korea. That was the Korea I knew. But what a different country there was on the Korean peninsula, so different from what I had thought and imagined! Our parents must have wondered, too “where was it – the real, authentic Korea?” I always felt that we German Koreans were a poor copy of the real Korea. But no! At the 2005 conference and later at the 2007 East Rock Institute/NamMae retreat in the USA, I was amazed to see with new eyes that there is not only ONE Korea existing, but countless Koreas in the world. They exist in every country of the Korean diaspora, having their own history and past, their own identity, a Korean identity!

Throughout the years, Dr. Koh offered all of these ideas, experiences and knowledge as gifts to us. I had not the age, not the wisdom and not the experience to discover them by myself. Who knows whether I would ever have on my own? All of these achievements – won through wisdom and intensive research on different cultures and philosophies – she termed in a way, made to be understood and given as a gift to young overseas Koreans like me to be carried all throughout our lives.

Thank you for all of these gifts, and thank you for the time that you have dedicated to us. Happy 80th Birthday, dear Dr. Koh!