Dr. Hesung Chun Koh, Painter-Scholar
Heseung Kim, Ed.D.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“What do you see, Parker?”
I ask this of my five-month-old son each time I catch his eyes locking on Dr. Koh’s watercolor—the one done in bright hues of yellow, orange and green, showing an elderly couple walking towards a large setting sun.
I look to see Parker’s jaw drop to form a smile so happy his mouth has to stretch wide, wide open to accommodate it. Then the gleeful squeals begin. As I carry him away to his bed, he stretches his neck and wrangles his way over my arms to keep the painting in sight as long as possible. As I witness this, I swear, my heart actually lights up. I’m overcome with wonderment over this crazy communion.
My son’s inexplicable connection with this painting—in a house full of other paintings that don’t even register with Parker—makes me think of something I learned from Dr. Koh. Parker’s reaction to her painting brings to life what she taught me about the higher Confucian value placed on the artwork of those painter-scholars who have attained authentic wisdom, insights into life that are believed to flow through them onto their canvas. To say the least, Parker seems to get that there’s something very special about this painting, and the painter-scholar responsible for it.
As all of us get ready to celebrate Dr. Koh’s 80th birthday, I know I am not alone in feeling blessed to have been able to experience her wisdom in important ways that have shaped the person I’ve become.
Among many things, she taught me how “role fulfillment” can be the same as “self-fulfillment;” what made this teaching stick is that she showed me how this works in her own life—how being a wife, a mother and mentor can be so richly satisfying to one’s presumably egocentric self. As a young woman, I felt so liberated by the lack of contradiction in this thinking.
I once asked Dr. Koh how she was able to raise six children and still accomplish so much. She gave me a no-nonsense answer that I wasn’t expecting, but as it turns out I really needed to hear: “You just figure it out as you go along.” God knows how that practical advice has saved me from many anxious nights. But I also cherish Dr. Koh’s far less practical maneuvers, particularly those in the traditionally male-dominated world of academia. Dr. Koh has always been ahead of her time as she pushes forth with great courage compelling analyses of a wide range of disciplines based on a worldview of differentiating cultural values.
Over the twenty-three years I’ve worn many hats for ERI—first as a conference organizer, then as a teaching assistant, TKC panelist, NamMae leader, and most recently as a board member. During this time, I’ve heard Dr. Koh tell thousands of people her reasons for starting ERI back in 1952 as the nation’s first organization devoted to Korean and Korean American culture: it was for her children’s sake.
Dr. Koh didn’t want her children to get lost, something that could have happened without a strong sense of cultural identity anchoring them while growing up in the States as members of one of the first Korean American families. This is why she and her husband insisted on finding a way to fit ERI in to their family life. Along the way, I believe their work saved the lives of countless others. How many times, after one of our workshops, did we have a mother, father, teacher, a young student come up to us to say how the lesson changed the way they saw themselves and their families?
When I think about what motivates me to keep ERI growing as Dr. Koh continues to wean all of us from her leadership, I find myself coming to the same reasons she had for starting ERI: it should be for our children’s sake. What better, more meaningful way to devote some of our precious collective time and energy than to make the world a better, more sensible place for us, and others?
As I complete this essay, I look at the painting that my husband recently moved to our son’s bedroom, right over his crib, so Parker can say goodnight to it every night and greet it when he wakes. I tilt my head and begin to smile as I believe I’m beginning to see what Parker sees: the man and woman, once elderly, have a certain spring in their steps that belies their age. And the sun no longer appears to be setting, but rising, in fact, rising brilliantly. Then I think, ah, Dr. Koh and Parker probably knew all of this already.
