월드미션프론티어

My first job as a Peace Corps Volunteer was in the village of Mu Gook in Chung Chun Puk Do. I was determined to experience the “real Korea” so I volunteered to teach English in the smallest place available to me. Soon after I arrived I discovered a nearby stairway. This wasn’t an ordinary stairway, but a huge concrete structure of about 100 steps leading from a roadside restaurant up the side of high hill and onto a flat area overlooking the entire village. I couldn’t figure out the purpose of the stairs. But, the view was truly marvelous and I have pictures of Mukuk in the winter, Mukuk in the Spring and MuKuk in the Summer.

It was surprising to me that the stairs were in such disrepair. Erosion knocked many stairs out of place and most had cracks running from side to side. When I left Mu Kuk in 1973 the large concrete stairs were still a mystery to me.

I returned to Korea in 1984 and decided to make a side trip to my old school in Mu Kook. I recognized some of the teachers and had a talk with the principal. I met some of the family members that I lived with eleven years earlier. I wanted to take pictures from my favorite place in Korea. I crossed the familiar bridge and walked toward the concrete stairs. I spotted the old restaurant but the stairs were gone! I was really puzzled by all this and finally decided to talk to one of the English teachers about it.

He shook his head sadly and told me this story: “During the rule of the Japanese, Mukuk was administered by a cruel magistrate. He forced local farmers to construct a large concrete stair way to the top of the highest hill in the area. On top of the hill he built a Shinto shrine where all the local Japanese would go to worship and lord it over the Koreans. The place was very much hated by the locals and on the day after the Japanese left town, the local people ran up the stairs and tore down the shrine. The stairs were just too bulky to destroy and were left alone.” He told me that around 1980 the hated concrete was broken into pieces and carried to a local water project. How sad I thought that such a beautiful place had such a sorrowful history.