I’ve returned to Australia after a long time to give a lecture in Sydney. The title of the lecture is “Literature and Diplomacy.” I’ve given lectures and speeches at universities, institutions and Samsung, in Korea, Japan, France and the U.S. Those countries are familiar to me. Yet Australia is relatively new.
I thought I had visited Australia about 10 years ago, but after counting I realized it has actually been 22. Also, Australia, which is located in the Southern Hemisphere, was not of interest to me as Korea is already surrounded by four powerful nations, and the media and public are only interested in the Northern Hemisphere.
The lecture was hosted by the alumni association of Ewha Girls’ High School and Ewha Women’s University (my alma mater) in Sydney. My fellow alumni boast that a lot of people came to the lecture despite of the lack of publicity.
To talk about the background of my literature, I had to talk about the root of my literature, my mother’s poetry, how the literature of me and my mother’s became a bridge for Japanese-Korean relations which are always in discord, how the leaders of Korea and Japan came to recite a poem on peace written by a Korean poet and talk about the spirit of peace after arguing for some time, how Japanese erected a poetry monument for a Korean poet in their land, how Japanese were consoled by the 250 pieces of poem I wrote for the calamity of Japan in 2011, and about what great impact literature has on international diplomacy and why it is so important to Korea, a country so small and divided. The Australian audience was moved by the literature of the mother and daughter poets and its spirit.
Australia was discovered by Captain Cook from England in 1770, and the country was founded in 1788. It has a short history. It takes 11 hours to get to Australia from Korea, it is pretty far away. I go out to the balcony of my room in the busy streets of a large city. I see skyscrapers like in Korea, and looking up to sky, I spot stars shining; one of them is particularly big, like the North Star. The next day I mention that it was amazing to see the North Star, and they tell me we are in the Southern Hemisphere and what I think I saw must be the Southern Cross, not the North Star. I had almost forgotten I was in the Southern Hemisphere.
The star I had seen was the very Southern Cross in the lyrics ‘The Southern Cross from the South is my mom’s face.’ It is surprising that there are so many Koreans living in Australia, a hundred thousand in Sydney, fifty thousand in Melbourne and two hundred thousand in Canberra and other cities. It is also impressive that Australia, even though it does lack something when compared to more advanced countries, has achieved so much in such a short history of 200 years. Coming from a country which is suffering from micro dust, I also envy the pleasant scent of clean air. Everyone I meet keeps saying that people here have no worries nor stress, and that Australia is a great country to live in.
I hear that you don’t have to pay for brain surgery even if you have no medical insurance, and if you don’t have a place to live, they give you a house, and if you have no income, they give you enough money to get by. It is truly unbelievable. Australia has a population of 25 million with the size of the U.S. minus Alaska. No one would notice if we put all 50 million of our fine dust-stricken people here. This is what I think as I drive for 5 hours all the way to the capital city of Canberra, looking at tall eucalyptus trees, herds of sheep, and the broad blue sky. Australia Story to be continued ~ ^^ | 
