The Arrow and The Song > IDEAS & IDEALS

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  IDEAS & IDEALS

The Arrow and The Song

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On September 7, I had the honor and pleasure of being invited to a fabulous party at the Convention Hall of Sheraton-Walker Hill hotel in Seoul. It was planned by the 23rd graduates of Chang-Duck Girls' High School to celebrate their 30th year of graduation. They invited some of their old teachers, of whom I was one. About 200 old students in their early 50' filled the hall. They seemed to recognize their old teachers easily, but I could not. They were no longer the teenage girls in their school uniform. They were beautiful and attractive ladies in their prime of life. I felt a little bit nervous among them. I could not believe my eyes witnessing such a sea change time had wrought on them.

     They made a scene upon meeting with one another. They had a brief time to introduce themselves before shouting and jumping into another's arms with surprise and joy. By the time the three-hour ceremony, dinner and entertainments ended, the distance and the barrier that had separated them emotionally seemed to have disappeared completely, and they all miraculously returned again to what they were thirty years ago: spirited, talkative, playful, and mischievous highschool girls.

      After the party, some of the ladies who liked me when they were students asked me to go to the coffee shop in the hotel, and recollected their school days spent with me in a wistful mood. They reminded me of various happenings and episodes that had taken place in their school days. I could remember some, but I found, to my own disbelief, most of them had been completely erased from my memory. They were wise and polite enough to avoid topics that would make me embarrassed or uncomfortable, and talked only good and pleasant things about me that made me feel happy and proud. 
 
     Then, quite unexpectedly, one of them, who had been only listening with a smile on her face without contributing a word to the on-going conversation, said that she had brought something very important to me. And she opened her pocketbook and produced from it an old envelope and handed it to me. The eyes of the other women fell on it with unusual interest and curiosity. From the handwriting on the envelope, it was plain that I wrote it.  I felt somewhat very awkward, and blushed in spite of myself. My heart leaped within.

     As far as I remembered, I had no memory of writing a letter personally to any students when I was a teacher, and I had done nothing wrong or dishonorable as a teacher to my students, but I realized tonight that my memory was not so good or dependable. As a young man of thirty, unmarried, among so many lovely girl students, I could have written to her or any other students some letters whose contents could put me in shame and blush me immensely, if made public now, even thirty years later. She said she had more of them at home.

      I had to open the letter in the eyes of the curious watchers. I was also forced to read it aloud to the attentive listeners. The letter began with the usual greetings not improper to a girl student from a teacher, and to my great surprise and relief, it contained an English poem, "The Arrow and The Song" by a 19th century American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I had not realized until then that I had such a beautiful penmanship. She said that she had been keeping it as a treasure until now, even after she got married. I read the poem aloud, and they listened carefully, as if they were my students again in the classroom.

                     I shot an arrow into the air,
                     It fell to earth, I knew not where;
                     For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
                     Could not follow it in its flight.

                     I breathed a song into the air,
                     It fell to earth, I knew not where;
                     For who has sight so keen and strong,
                    That it can follow the flight of song?
                      
                     Long, long afterward, in an oak
                     I found the arrow, still ubroke;
                     And the song, from beginning to end,
                     I found again in the heart of a friend.

      When I finished reading, all of them clapped hands, but seemed somewhat disappointed because it had no sensational or scandalous contents at all. It fell far short of their expectation. The woman who brought the letter asked the letter back, folded it neatly, and pushed it back into the envelope, and put it into her pocketbook. She thanked me sincerely for the care, kindness and attention I had shown to her by writing all those encouraging letters, when she was a lonely girl full of dreams and worries, and when she needed attention from some important persons. We all laughed heartily and we parted with one another.

      On my way home, late at night, with my hands on the wheel, I intoned the poem again, and thought of the woman who kept the letter so long. Now her face and appearance in school uniform, and her unique characteristics slowly surfaced up from the bottom of dark oblivion. She was a small, silent, shy, and obscure one. She always fell behind others in many ways. What made me wonder was the fact that I was once so diligent or energetic enough to write such letters to any individual student. I couldn't believe it myself. Like the song in the poem, I had done some good to my students, and forgot about it, but I found it again tonight in the heart of my old students. I felt good and happy.

      But I felt worried and uneasy to think of the arrows I shot. Surely, I had not only "breathed songs" of kindness, praise and encouragement, but also shot many arrows of words that would have hurt, cut and pierced the tender hearts of the young students. The unkind, harsh, and even some cruel words and acts I had uttered and done - all carelessly and unwittingly - would remain undiminished somewhere, like the unbroken arrow in the oak. Tonight I have found the songs, but no arrows. Where are they? I couldn't fall into sleep. I tossed and turned in bed all night.
     (October 4, 2002)
 

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