Last train from Seoul
Y.S.Kim (1996.1.22)In my last article, I promised to discuss Korea's college entrance exams, and I indicated that we may gain some wisdom from the admission policies of the IV League schools in USA. I discussed one Korean boy who was not admitted to Harvard because he never participated his high-school's blood-donation programs while his academic plan was to study medicine at Harvard.
- Before getting into the admission procedure, I would like to emphasize
that we do not have to hear this kind of story from the Harvard admissions
office, because we can hear many of them from our fellow Koreans. Today,
I will tell a story which I heard from my uncle whom I talked about in
one of my earlier articles. As I said there, he dedicated his life to
Korea's medical education. Naturally, he was always concerned about the
ethics of Korean medical doctors and doctors-to-be. He used to tell the
following story to his students.
-
Statue of Dr. Kim Myung-Sun standing on the ground of Yonsei Medical
School in Seoul.
- During the early hours of June 29 (1950), he was on one of the platform
cars (without walls) attached to the train which became the last train
from Seoul. He was supervising the withdrawal of the medical staff of
Severance Hospital (now called Yonsei Hospital), together with hundreds
of wounded soldiers. As soon as the train arrived at Suwon's railroad
station, it was sprayed by machine-gun bullets from Kim Il-Sung's
Soviet-made fighters (called YAK fighters). The situation on the roofless
platform cars was a total mess.
Amidst this confusion, my uncle heard a clear voice from those wounded soldiers. They were urging their medical doctors and nurses to run away from the train and take cover. They were concerned about the safety of the un-armed civilians they were supposed to protect. My uncle used to tell his students that their job is to protect the health of Koreans and that they should learn lessons from those humble soldiers. You would agree that those wounded boys were much stronger soldiers than some of the corrupt generals.
- In 1950, the Korean army consisted mostly of volunteers. They had to join the army because their parents did not have enough money to send them to colleges. They were the true representatives of the humble people of Korea. While the Harvard admissions office was talking about a negative aspect of one Korean boy, we should seek eagerly positive values in our traditional culture, and we should take them into consideration when we admit boys and girls to our universities and colleges. Then how? We will talk about this later.
|
