Korea Through Western Eyes

Peter Maeng’s most vivid memories of a war-torn Korea are as a starving 13-year-old errand boy, dodging bullets to deliver messages between American military bases.

The money he earned helped to feed his family of six. Maeng, the eldest son, shouldered most of the household’s financial burden, and worked to eventually put all three of his siblings through college.

Maeng’s formal education, however, stopped at the third grade. He had little choice but to drop out of school and work. But he was “always very, very jealous” of the college students who walked by with books under their arms; they were reading and learning--and Maeng yearned to do the same, he said.

Decades later, Maeng spent nearly $50,000 acquiring rare books on Korean history. The Van Nuys resident, now 63 and an avid self-taught reader, spent more than 15 years researching and buying the texts, many of which were found in England.

His collection is on display at Cal State Northridge’s Oviatt Library. The exhibit, “Land of the Morning Calm: the Western View of Korea, 1741-1960,” features Korean art, books on the peninsula by Western authors and centuries-old maps of East Asia, in which the Sea of Japan is called “Sea of Coree” and Manchuria “Manchew.”

Maeng’s collection also includes Japanese-language newspaper articles from 1901 to 1910 justifying the colonization of Korea, as well as photos of American missionaries and their Korean Christian converts.

Maeng, who emigrated from Seoul in 1980, cannot read many of the books, which are in English. But the father of two said he hopes the exhibit will benefit others--especially second-generation Korean Americans “who sometimes lose touch with their roots.” Moreover, he hopes the exhibit will increase dialogue among Koreans and other Americans, and thereby facilitate U.S.-Korean relations, said Maeng, a naturalized citizen who works for a printing toner company in Chatsworth.

In poetic Korean, Maeng described the rapport he developed at an early age with American troops.

“Korea was in dire poverty, the country divided and the military weak,” he said. “We barely had any guns to call our own. We were prepared to fight with our bare hands. And we were hungry, always hungry.

“Then the American military came in,” Maeng said. “The soldiers played with me, gave me money. And they fed us. I will always be grateful.”

The exhibit is timely in light of the Korean summit discussions occurring during the 50th anniversary of the Korean War, said coordinator Jina Choi Wakimoto, who approached Maeng a year ago, knowing of his collection. It has drawn hundreds of visitors since the exhibit opened earlier this month, she said, but most of them are non-Koreans. Choi Wakimoto said she would like to see more support from the Korean American community.

“The theme of this exhibit is a universal one, though,” she said. “It’s about continuing awareness and showcasing the distinctiveness of a culture.”

Indeed, the exhibit signifies a span across religious and generational divides, said Korean American Student Assn. President Ben Suh, who hopes to ease tensions between Christian and non-Christian Korean Americans on campus.

“We share the same history,” he said. “This exhibit will hopefully bring us all together.”

If so, then Maeng says his long and expensive endeavor will have been more than worthwhile.

“This is to teach the next generation about the war, about what earlier generations fought for, lived for,” he said. “This is for posterity’s sake.”

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UCLA professor Gi-Wook Shin will give a lecture, “The Korea Summit and Beyond,” as part of CSUN’s Korea Month, in the library at noon Thursday at 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. For more information, call (818) 677-2638.