What Are Years? > IDEAS & IDEALS

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One generation passeth away, and another
            generation cometh.... The sun also riseth."
                                                      - Ecclesiastes -

     Last Thursday I went to The American Cultural Center in downtown Seoul to attend a lecture on the subject of 'Multi-Culturalism in American Literature' by Mr. Ishmael Reed, a well-known American writer. As usual, on such occasions, there were about sixty invited audience, mostly professors of English literature in the universities and colleges. After the lecture, as usual, there was a small but very convivial reception for all the participants. People exchanged greetings, shook hands, talked about the lecture and the lecturer, and some new-comers made new acquaintances by introducing themselves and exchanging their name-cards. The cultural event in the American Center last week, as those events had always been before, was intellectual as well as social one.

     I have been attending this kind of cultural event in the American Center which is located in the heart of Seoul across Lotte Hotel for more than twenty-five years since I started my teaching career at a college in Seoul as a full-time lecturer of English and American literature. I tried not to miss the privileged opportunity given to me. It provided me with rare and unique chance of meeting men and women of letters and scholars in person whose big names I could only come across through their works. It was always a big thrill and pleasure to see their face, listen to their voice, and sometimes shake hands and talk with them. For me going to the American Cultural Center in Seoul has been like going to the United States by taxi. I could have everything I wanted to have in the United States by just bothering me to be there: language, books, atmosphere, efficiency, cleanness, people, opportunity, and the American dream.

     Whenever I went there, I usually met with the people who had something in common with me. Most of them had been to the United States for some period of time for their study, spoke English quite well, and were eager not to miss any given opportunity to improve themselves intellectually. Most of them were familiar faces who came to the place as often as I did. Some of them were my teachers who had taught me in the college some years ago, and some were the new-comers fresh from the United States equipped with the shining Ph. D. diplomas, but most of them were my equals -- friends, colleagues, acquaintances. In short, it was my place, nay, our place.

     But, all of a sudden, in the gathering last Thursday, I realized, for the first time in my life, a change in the atmosphere and mood of the assembly. The place was the same as before, the people were the same, and the raison d'etre of the event was the same. But I felt that there was something new, or missing, or strange about it that I could not pinpoint. But it was there, and I could feel it, although I could not articulate it. It bugged me during Mr. Reed's lecture, during the reception, and even when I got home. What was it? What was certain was that  the place was not what it used to be.

     Gradually it dawned upon me that it was the years on the faces, on the hairs, on the clothes, and in the movements of the people of my generation that made me feel different this time about the occasion. Years have been silently playing havoc with the people gathering there, step by step, systematically, and relentlessly, without my noticing the fact. Years have not only turned the color of my friends' hair to gray; they not only wrinkled their necks, nor thinned their voices, nor slowed their gaits and steps. They have prevented so many familiar faces from turning up there at all. They are not all dead, but they are gone. They have stopped coming to the place.

     After Mr. Reed's lecture, as usual, there was a brief ceremonial question-and-answer session. Immediately there was a volunteer in the back, and momentarily attention of the audience was focused on the questioner. Some turned their faces to see who it was, but I did not because I thought I could identify the person by his or her tone of voice. I was a veteran of the cultural events in the place, and as an old-timer I could always recognize the name of the questioner and even the quality of the question he would make without turning my face, simply because it was made by one of my equals whom I knew too well. But, to my great amazement and vexation, it was a strange and new voice that was impossible to identify. I had a very hard time in order to quell the curiosity and quench the itch to turn my face. Later, in the reception, I learned that the person in question was a young woman in her twenties, who returned home recently from abroad, and had just began her teaching career at a well-known university in Seoul.

     Slowly I came to realize that the ground on which I played with my equals had already been taken over by the new and strange players who were younger, stronger, and faster than us. Without our knowledge we had been pushed out to the sidelines and made to watch the game being played by the new players. We were no longer players; we were spectators. I felt very sorry and sad, even bitter about the unpleasant reality, but it was what it was. I had to admit the fact. The poignant remark made by one of my colleagues when I had asked him to accompany me to the American Center this afternoon struck me on my head. "It's no longer our place. There are so many strangers now, and they look at me with suspicious eyes. I feel so awkward among them now."

     Years are a great avenger of us all. They avenge sweetly and silently the wrongs committed by one generation toward the other. Just twenty-five-odd years ago we made a surprise attack on the place, pushed the old players out of the ground and took it over from them triumphantly and mercilessly without slightest remorse or regret. We looked at them with suspicious eyes. We were the conceited, proud, ambitious, and arrogant conquerors of the new world. But where are we? Whither is the pride, ambition, and the arrogance? They are all gone. We are defeated, nay, punished by the years.
          (September 24, 1993)