Visiting Kenyan Dignitaries

In 2010, the country of Kenya (eastern Africa) wrote a new constitution to restructure its government for the sake of efficiency. Despite Swahili and English as common economic and political languages, this country of 580,367 square kilometers experiences significant cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. Since gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1963, Kenya has experienced less cultural conflict than many other African countries. Yet, a country with such diversity of peoples often had difficulty of fully meeting the needs of such a diverse population. Thus, the new constitution created a system of federalism (similar to the United States) in which the national government would share power and responsibilities with 47 county governments (comparable to the 50 U.S. states).

With not having had a background in federalism, various international leaders, including my friend Jerry Regier, have been invited by the Kenyan government to lead seminars the political ethics involved within democratic federalism. Kenyan leaders have also made a variety of study tours within the United States. One such study tour has brought a delegation of Kenyan Governors to Oklahoma.

Tonight, I had the opportunity attend a reception held at Express Ranch (home of Bob Funk) and sponsored by Water4 in honor of this Kenyan delegation. It was an honor to meet:

Wycliffe Oparanya Ambesta, Governor of Kakamega

Peter Munya, Governor of Meru

Mohamad Ahmed Abdulahi, Governor of Wajir

Joshua Irungu Wakahora, Governor of Laikipia

Rutto Isaac Kiprono, Governor of Bomet

Johnathan Mueke, Deputy Governor of Nairobi

Evelyne Aruasa, Deputy Governor of Narok

and their associates holding other governmental offices

This delegation arrived Sunday evening. They then spent Monday touring agricultural sights and the Water4 production facilities. Today they met with several Oklahoma government officials at the Capitol and will meet with others, including Lt. Governor Todd Lamb, tomorrow. Jerry Regier has facilitated their visit to Oklahoma and is already planning a return trip to Kenya in hopes of taking some other Oklahoma leaders with him.

Personally, it was great to visit in-depth with a couple of these delegates and share my own experiences of having visited Kenya in 2001 and 2002. I've been invited back...so perhaps that can happen sooner than later.

pavilion at Express Ranch

His Excellency Wycliffe Oparanya Ambetsa,
Governor of Kakamega & Delegation Head,
presents formal greetings on behalf of the delegations

Icons of Korean Language

Yesterday, Sunday, our group left Seoul early in the morning so as to begin our 5-day field trip into the southern provinces.  Following our 1-1/2 hour bus ride we arrived at our fist stop of the day: Yeongneung, or the tomb of King Sejong.  Sejong is the Korean leader credited for creating the Korean written alphabet, Hangeul, despite of scholarly debate as to whether he himself crafted the characters or if an advisory committee did so; Mark Peterson, our primary professor who teaches Korean Studies at Brigham Young University, contends that Sejong himself did so because many of this advising scholars were against the endeavor.  Sejong's work is not limited to language as he was also a key player in astronomy and developed a rain gauge, sundial, and other devices to measure wind and water.

The tomb itself is located in a park outside of the modern city of Yeoju.  To get to the burial mound you pass through a forest of twisted trees, walk past the small shrine in which ancestor remembrance ceremonies are conducted, and ascend the stairway to the top of a hill.  The tomb is inside a man-made mound similar to the mound-building cultures of North America's upper Mississippi River Valley (my friends in Oklahoma may have visited the mounds near Spiro).  Surrounding the tomb are life-size statues of soldiers, scholars, horses who are thought to have protected and accompanied Sejong's spirit into the afterlife.

Leaving the tomb, we transferred to a bustling restaurant for lunch.  Plate after plate of Korean delicacies were placed before us...most were in a quantity primarily for tasting but the vast quantity of so many dishes/courses left me too full to truly enjoy the "main course" at the end.

Another hour-long bus ride took us to the city of Cheongju.  As this growing city was the focus of much modernization a few decades ago and new construction was being complete.  During ground preparation, several relics were unearthed which gives credibility to the claim that an ancient Buddhist temple once stood on this site.  The Chinese markings on the relics carried the same name for the temple as noted in the Jikji.  The Jikji is owned by a French museum and is an example of early metal movable type printing which predates the Gutenberg printing press by 75+ years.  While the manuscript is still in French custody, this construction focus on this site shifted to creating the Early Printing Museum to honor both the significance of the Jikji and the history of metal movable type in Korea.

Following our exploration of the small museum itself, we teachers again became students and went through a hands-on demonstration of binding a book in the traditional Korean manner.  We used hard stones to impress a design on to our book covers, we "scooped" fibers/pulp out of water to make our paper, we rubbed paper to take on ink from a pre-set image, and then bound the book with string.  It was a pretty cool, and yet occasionally frustrating process (my paper didn't want to dry fast enough to satisfy my instructor).  We each left with our own book complete with the symbol for the Jikji stamped on the front.

It was rather cool to have both our stops in this process of remote road roaming connect with iconic expression of written language history within Korea.

Learning...and...Teaching

The Learning

This morning our group headed off to Korea University for the first three sessions of our lecture series while here in Seoul.  Various professors from both KU as well as other colleges/universities in Korea and the U.S. are sharing their expertise on a variety of Korean social, political, and economic issues.  Today our lectures where over "Language", "Economy", and "Education" in Korea.

Language: The Korean alphabet, better known as Hangeul, was created in the mid-1400s under the leadership of King Sejung.  The Korean people had been heavily influenced by the Chinese for centuries, and while they spoke a distinct language the Chinese alphabet had been used for the written version of Korean.  Sejung felt that the Chinese characters were too complicated for the common people and wanted something more simple in hopes that they could learn to read.  It is estimated that today there are 79 million speakers of Korean world-wide: 60% in South Korea, 31% in North Korea, and 9% elsewhere (China, Russia, USA, etc.).

David = 데이비드 (pronounced: deibideu)

Oklahoma = 오클라호마 (pronounced: okeullahoma

Professor Mikyung Chang

Economy: A very intriguing discussion regarding South Korea's economic development growth.  In the aftermath of the Korean War South Korea was the poorest country in Southeast Asia (even below North Korea).  Due to multiple five-year plans and lots of regulations from a strong "dictatorial" government the economy rapidly developed.  As of 2012, South Korea joined an economic group which their media calls the "20-50 Club", those countries who have an annual per capita income of $20,000 or more AND a population of at least 50 million people.  There are currently only seven total countries that meet both qualifications: Japan (joined in 1987), USA (1988), France (1990), Italy (1990), Germany (1991), UK (1996), and South Korea (2012).  One interesting point raised was that the government understood that the fertility rate (average number of children born per woman) is linked to economic development and thus a policy was enacted to discourage couples from having more than two children each: any government based economic incentives, like health insurance, was denied to the 3rd or subsequent child.  However, significant concerns developed in the 1990s with the economic advancement combined with declining population growth that there would eventually not be enough workers paying taxes so as to help finance government-based elder care programs (like our Social Security) so now there are cash bonus plus the other benefits if couple will have more than two children--it is too early to tell how much long-term success will come from these programs.

Professor Innwon Park

Education:  Following a brief video created by the Korean Ministry of Education, the discussion noted that Korean education was much of the driving force behind the economic growth.  The government wanted to profit from its human capital so it tried to provide the best quality education possible.  So much in Korean society has been linked with the "best" education that many parents place a large amount of pressure on their students to earn the highest possible grades and national standardized test scores.  So important is this quest for high grades, many families hire tutors for their children's after school hours.  It was "claimed" that the most influential indicator of a couple's marital happiness is(are) the score(s) of their child(ren) on standardized tests.  With her blessing, the discussion ventured away from the presenters pre-planned PowerPoint presentation to a discussion on the importance of educational systems which place so much emphasis on standardized test scores, an issue of concern to many educators and parents within the United States.

Professor Mimi Bong

The Teaching

Following the morning of being "students" and our special lunch meeting at Korea University, we traveled across Seoul to Goyang Foreign Language High School.  As we entered the meeting hall we were welcomed by thunderous applause from the pre-selected student guides for the afternoon.  Word of greeting were given by the school's principal and two student leaders.  GFLHS is a private Christian school in which most of the students live on campus due to the distance from their families' homes.  The nearly 1400 students are involved in school-related studies (classes and co-curricular activities) from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM Monday through Friday and until 1:00 PM on Saturdays (yes, that's 18 hours of school per day!!!).

washing up after PE class

The students then broke up into small groups to accompany pairs of teachers from our team on a campus tour which would concluded at their home room class.  Once at the classrooms we were able to spend about 15 minutes on a lesson we had previously prepared (originally we were told 25 minute lessons...but hey, things change, right?).  I quickly passed out some bookmarks of Sequoya and Clara Luper I had taken as gifts and briefly explained each person's significance in Oklahoma's history.  It was cool to be able to connect Sequoya's Cherokee story with that of King Sejung and the Korean alphabet.

lesson handouts and Sequoya bookmark 

I then passed out the handouts I had made for my lesson/discussion on "Natural Disasters and Community Response".  Due to the time changes, I wasn't able to provide the time for individual writing and small group discussions for which I had planned.  I was able to, however, briefly discuss the recent May 20 tornado in Moore and SW Oklahoma City and show them pictures of the tornado with Southmoore in the foreground as well as before/after pictures of the overall tornado path and Plaza Towers Elementary School.  Students enjoyed the fact that my handouts included pictures of the front pages of two Korean newspapers with headlines/pictures of the tornado event.  I then drew their attention to recent natural disasters in Korea and we briefly discussed how a community might react in the aftermath...one young lady had a great word for it: "help!".

my student guides for the afternoon

We then headed back to the hotel to be dropped off for dinner and running around on our own.  It was great to do some remote road roaming today in the forums of each a student and a teacher.

Itinerary for Korea

I just received an e-mail a little while ago with the most up-to-date itinerary for my upcoming trip to South Korea.  Here is a taste of what I'll be getting to see:

Korea University

National Museum of Korea

Royal Tomb of King Sejong in YeoJu

Early Printing Museum in Cheongju

Cheonmachong Tomb

Kyungju National Museum

Bun Hwang Sa

POSCO Company

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguk-sa Temple

Yangdong Village

Ok San Seo Won

Haeinsa Temple

Demilitarized Zone