New York City Lights October 23, 2018
Sunshine Lee's Culture Essay Written in Poetry
I Hear Father’s Voice
Coming to New York, a name comes to my mind. Kim Gwangsam.
I met my father’s friend’s son and his wife with my mother and father who came to New York around father's age of 60.
“My husband’s name Gwangsam means '3 lights' in Korean. One of the lights is his wife. Me.” At this word of that bold wife, we all laughed but she kept going on like that and we all leaned toward the quiet son of my father’s friend from Pyungyang University of Education.
After we had lunch together, he showed us his not so extraordinary pediatric clinic that was soon to be opened in New Jersey. We had dinner together again and he lodged us somewhere nearby.
Doing nothing special and wasting two days in such a fancy city as New York with so much to see and visit felt like a waste of my parents’ short stay in the US. It took me four hours by train to get there from Washington DC, and my old parents had come all the way from Korea. I felt sorry to spend less time together as a family since we lived far apart.
We had nothing more to say. Even my father who is usually a good talker had nothing more to say. It was a long and tedious time.
The next day after dropping us off at Broadway next to Columbia University where my brother was a graduate student, Gwangsam suddenly burst into tears with my father’s hands in his hand while saying goodbye. Wiping tears with his fist, he wouldn’t let go of the hands of my father, his own father’s friend whom he was meeting for the first time.
My father’s heart was pouring out with sympathy for Gwangsam.
Where was it, I wonder? It must be around here that my father showed his deep sympathy for Gwangsam and felt endless pity for his daughter’s immaturity.
A few years later, my father suddenly passed away in Seoul, and at Baltimore, I realized in my heart how my father and Gwangsam felt then.
It is a scene that I cannot help but remember as time goes by.
The gap between my father’s (he was 31 years older than me) and my mind was that wide.
Where was it, I wonder
Time has silently passed away In front of the University in the late Autumn
If there is anything good about me
If there is anything lacking about me
The landscape of Manhattan New York - from New Jersey 10 23, 2018 I hear father’s voice - New York Broadway 10 23, 2018 I hear father’s voice - New York Broadway 10 23, 2018 I hear father’s voice - New York Broadway 10 23, 2018 Dormitory of New York Columbia University Columbia Univ. facing Broadway - New York A poster for a lecture of Madeline Albright the United States Secretary of State The spot I and father took a picture - Columbia Univ. 10 23, 2018
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Lee Sunshine
Poet, Essayist, TV Personality, President of Son Hoyun Tanka Institute Graduate of the department of English Literature at Ewha Woman's University Graduate school of Georgetown University, Washington and Syracuse University, New York, Doshisha University, Kyoto
Voice of America, Washington D.C. Director of the International Committee at Korean Broadcasting Commission Senior Adviser at Samsung Media & Cheil Worldwide
Publications In A Journey of Healing and Awakening, Breathtaking, Colored by Okinawa How Could Anything But Blooming Spring Exists in Life? Because of Your Heart, a Flower Blooms, etc.
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