Mr. Kim came to Canada; he had dreams; did he realize them?
(지난 호에 이어)
Kim was happy that Paul opened up and showed his inner life. Kim knew that his answer would be very important. He should be able to show Paul that he was knowledgeable, that he was concerned; that he loved Paul and that he was a good father.
Kim thought that the best approach would be humble and show to Paul as he was, no less, no more.
“My son, I do not know the Canadian education system more than you do. I do not pretend to know everything. I am sorry!
"But you and I can work hard together to learn the Quebec society and Quebec people."
"Do not forget that our Lord is always with you and in you. Our Lord will protect you and do not be afraid about the people you meet. Try to see their good points; try to love them. Then, they will feel your sincerity and your neighborly love”, explained Kim slowly.
Paul was surprised to hear his father saying this. He felt guilty, but he was proud of his father who could say such thing to a child. Paul decided to become a good friend with his father. In fact, he became one.
This simple conversation transformed the father-son relation from a vertical system to a horizontal one. The new relation was based on love not obedience. This relation was a big help for Paul’s integration into the Quebec society where parents-children relation is based on love.
Kim’s philosophy of parents-children relationship has played a key role during the period of adolescence, youth and young adult period of Nancy and Paul. Paul went through some difficult period during his adolescence.
The period of adolescence is the period when the adolescence tries to build up his or her own identity by imitating the behavior of peers. This process of finding own identity through the value system of the peers means the efforts to free from the value system of parents.
This creates inevitably a friction between parents and children; the friction varies directly with the cultural distance of parents. The wider is the cultural difference, the deeper the friction is.
The friction between parent and the adolescents is a universal phenomenon. But in the case of the Korean community, the friction seems to be more serious because of the huge cultural distance between Korean culture and Quebec culture.
One thing which Korean parents should not do is not to impose unilaterally the Korean value system. In some cases, Kim was told, the misunderstanding between father and adolescent children was so great that the children left their parents for good.
Kim remembered one scene he witnessed. It was in 1983. There was a seminar organized by the Korean Association of Montreal on intergenerational conflict.
There were about 80 participants; the seminar was a big success. The normal number of participants at this sort of event was around 30. It showed that the people were so much interested in the problem of intergenerational conflict.
On the front desk were sitting a panel consisting of church pastor, two senior persons and the president of the Korean Association. The panel members expressed their views of the problem.
“I think that the problem is due to the ignorance of the young people about the Korean values; the children must obey their parents”, said one panel member.
“But, we are not in Korea; we are in Canada; we have to adopt the Canadian values”, reacted another panel member.
“I guess that both views are right. But, we must remember that for the parents who had been educated in Korea, it is not easy to change their values; the children must accept their parents’ values”, suggested another.
Then a young university student stood up and declared: “You see, we are being educated by Quebec teachers; we are making friends with Quebecers; we have to find job in Canada; we have to live like Quebecers. We love our parents in our new way. Why don’t parents leave us alone?”
This shocked many. The young man was a son of one of the panel.
“Young man! You are going over the fence!”, said one of the senior persons with affection. All laughed.
There were different views, but the atmosphere was friendly. Both the first generation and the second generation people tried to understand each other. Kim had a fond memory of this incidence.
What made Kim a little sad was that since the 1983 seminar, there were no important intergenerational dialogues within the Korean community in Montreal.
Kim knew that the probability of having organized intergenerational dialogues depended on the perception of the problem by the leadership of the Korean Association and its intellectual leadership.
In most of the cases, for the presidents of the Association, what was important was the bread-butter problem; they were little interested in intellectual, psychological and sociological problem of the community.
What interested more the leaders of the Association was the fellowship and the conservation of memories of a certain part of the contemporary history of Korea including the 8.15 commemoration of Korea’s liberation from Japan on the 15th of August 1945, the 6.15 commemoration of the Korean war and a few others.
Kim admitted that the first generation Koreans in Montreal was too preoccupied with the very survival for thinking about the suffering of their children who came to Montreal because of the parents’ decision and who are lost between the two seas of values.
Kim remembered a few horror stories. In one case, a father was so mad with his son’s “non-Korean behavior” that he took his son to Kimpo airport and there he beat him severely.
That was the end of the father-son relations; he lost his son. Kim felt sorry for both the father and the son.
One another case involved a son’s court action against his father. A young man of 19 years old accused his father for negligence and violence against him before the court and the father was judged guilty of torturing his son. (다음 호에 계속)
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