Dokdo

 

Dokdo1
by Choi Yearn-hong

Don’t try to steal the lonely island,

Because it is lonely in the vast blue sea.

It has been owned by the Korean people over 1500 years.

Two-peak or three-peak looking islets were once the islands

For the seals.

So they named the islets Three-Peak Islands and Seal’s Island

Over the years.

Your Tokugawa Government made a wise ruling over the islets

After it inquired about the distance between Ulnung Island to Dokdo

And Oki to Dokdo: They belong to Korea, or Chosun in the 17^th century.

Don’t try to hide your own history of decency and justice.

The Meiji Restoration by Satusma and Chosu samurai modernized

Your country, then colonized Korea and staged the Pacific War.

Then, two atomic bombs forced your Emperor to surrender and

Brought Liberation to Korea.

But your invitation of Russiaat the ending of the Pacific War

Made Korea divided, even now.

You don’t seem guilty of your 40 years’ colonial rule

In the most critical time of the 20^th century.

Be ashamed!

Try to restore East Sea on the water between Japan and Korea,

And Dokdo from Liancourt Rocks or Takeshima in all maps

And persuade the world with history:

Tell them the Sea of Japan should be shared with the East Sea in their maps, and

Tell them Dokdo was the legitimate single name.

White waves from the blue sea will cleanse your conscience and a sense of justice:

Without confession of crime, human history cannot make progress.

2

The fishing boats could anchor at Dokdo in the stormy sea.

Some currents moved the fishing boats to Dokdo

Before they reached Ulnungdo from the coastline,

So that the innocent fisherman once placed Dokdo in between the coast and Ulnungdo.

They were not scientific enough in the 17^th century.

Dokdo was generous and hospitable to the fishermen from Oki.

But don’t steal Dokdo from Korea.

East Sea is not just the Sea on the East:

It is the name of renewed hope every dawn with the Sunrise

To all Korean people.

It is the hope and inspiration of 70 million Korean people

And the hope and inspiration of peace on Earth and Sea.

 

Seattle --------< by Yearn Hong Choi >



Seattle

The Pacific Ocean comes to the inland and makes a city an island.

Winter means rain, not snow, to the city people.

Needle leaf trees contrast with the snow-covered mountain tops like the Alps.

The city still has the Space Needle which was erected for the commemoration

Of the 1962 World Fair, the Boeing, and the University of Washington.

I see a Korean young man working as a janitor at the Roosevelt Hotel in the daytime

And as a dishwasher in the Greek Village, a downtown restaurant, at night.

He worked all of the summer months of 1968 and went to Indiana University after earning one semester’s tuition at the end of that summer.

He returned to the town after his retirement from a long college teaching career

And checked into the Roosevelt hotel on

Pine St and 6^th St.

No one recognizes or greets him.

He is trying to find the house of a young couple who accommodated his first night in America on May 30, 1968, but fails to find it.

He remembers this city as the place where a couple warmly welcomed him, a poor young Korean man who came to town with $70 and ambition in his pocket. He may come back to the town in order to find them when they are no longer a young couple.