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 "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
                   Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
                           - John Howard Payne (1791-1852)

                                         
      My colleagues and friends who know that I was on a sabbatical leave last semester usually ask me when I meet them, as a greeting, where I went during that heavenly period of time. They expect to hear as my answer some famous foreign cities in the world where great universities are located. When I say I didn't go anywhere and just stayed at home, they would not believe it and never fail to ask why, as if something must have gone greatly wrong with me. Truly nothing particularly went wrong with me. I just spent my long vacation at home simply because I didn't feel like going or have any urgent need to go abroad.

      Recently I came to realize belatedly that there is indeed no place like home. The home I have is not a humble one at all as the one in the well-known song, "Home, Sweet Home." The apartment I live in is no other than a palace where I can enjoy all the luxuries in the world. It is warm in winter and cool in summer. In the refrigerator I have a large variety of goodies including orange juice and milk. With no difficulty I can make my coffee and even cook some simple meals for myself without bothering anybody in the house. I can read my books under the most comfortable and ideal conditions that could possibly be conceived of on the earth. Reclining regally on the sofa like a Roman emperor and just clicking the remote controller of my wide color TV set, I can travel farther, wider, higher and deeper, than any great travellers and explorers of the world in  human history. I fall into sleep on the bed whenever I feel sleepy to the soft melodies my radio provides. Why should I abandon or forego these comforts and pleasures, even for a while, by staying in a foreign country away from home?

      But once not long ago, when most of us lived under the thatched roofs, there was a time when I envied unconditionally those who could just go out of the country through the Kimpo International Airport by airplane. Foreign travelling was only a dream for most of us and a few of us could enjoy the privilege of it. Two of the most foreign as well as envious words were 'passport' and 'visa.' Stories these foreign travellers brought home from the other part of the country across the ocean were all fairy tales full of wonders. The message of John Howard Payne's poem, "Home, Sweet Home" was right of course but not so convincing. I was anxious to leave home not because I wanted to roam amid the pleasures and palaces but simply because I knew there were better places somewhere away from home.

      One day about thirty years ago, I was one of the many travellers aboard the airplane that was bound for the United States. The purpose of my foreign travelling at that time was not a sightseeing tour as many of our foreign travellers' purpose is. I was one of the young and poor students who were eager to work their way through school in one of the most advanced countries in the world.

      Away from home, away from my wife and three daughters and from dear friends, I felt terribly lonely in the foreign soil but soon I found myself enjoying the life there very much. I drove a car, an old Mustang, whose former owner was just happy to get rid of it, when at home driving a car was just an impossible dream. I took a picture of me at the wheel of my car and sent it to my family and friends at home. Even though I rented a cheapest small room that could be found, there was a square box on the window and at first I did not know what it was for. It was the air-conditioner. I watched landlady's color television in the rooming house, when only the black and white TVs were just beginning to spread at home. I was allowed to use the landlady's refrigerator as mine, while it was only an English vocabulary to be consulted and remembered in the English-Korean dictionary at home. I saw the dish-washer, gas and electric range, washing machine for the first time in my life and thought of my wife who did all the work with her hands at home and felt sorry for her. When I saw the infinite varieties of the Baskin-Robins ice cream and tasted some of it, I thought of my daughters at home and wished, if only I could, to pack and send it home by mail. Some advised me earnestly to bring my family to the United States and live happily there for good, and I almost listened to the advice.

      But the strongest temptation of the United States of America for a poor and lonely foreign student at that time lay elsewhere. It was in the Falvey Memorial Library of Villanova University I attended for my M.A. in English, and its facilities for reading, study and research. I was surprised at the mere size of the library building, amazed at the number of volumes it housed, impressed by the efficiency with which it was operated, struck by the ideal atmosphere for reading as well as resting, moved by the kindness and cooperative attitude of the librarians. Coin-operated electric typewriters available to anyone were a new surprise to me, and the wonder of the wonders was the Xerox copy-machine that I had nerver heard of or seen before at home. But more than all these wonders and surprises, what made me forget and at the same time think of my home was the reality that the whole the reading room of the library was lit and open all night with only a few students in it. Often I found I had whole of the room to myself after midnight and left the place feeling sorry to keep the guards awake and to consume so much energy for myself. I thought of the primitive conditions in the university libraries at home, and laughed silently.

      Many years have passed since I came back home and I have been teaching English in a university in Seoul since. During the time many changes and improvements have been made for the better in every aspect of our society and life. Not only we eat better and wear better, we can also learn and teach under much better conditions than when I left home thirty years ago. I drive a car but nobody cares. My wife is thinking of replacing the old but still usable washing machine for a new model. Yesterday on my way home I bought some of Baskin-Robins ice cream for my grandchildren, and Kentucky Fried Chicken for my wife. Home is always sweet for everyone, and sweeter when I can get what I need for my work without leaving it.
                                                                                                   (February 11, 2000)