I like old trees.
It is very pleasant to look at those big trees that have grown thicker over time.
The thick trees at the entrance of Oswego NY, where I used to live, and those along the Oswego River—the trees with big bases and the tree tunnel along the road I could see from my house in Bethesda, Washington. Those images are still vivid in my mind.
The cluster of hundreds-of-years old, giant trees near San Francisco is a fabulous tourist attraction. The big banyan tree at the beach in front of Moana Surfrider Hotel in Honolulu Hawaii measures many meters from the side and it makes difficult to catch its spectacle with a camera.
In Koyasan near Kyoto, Japan, there are countless numbers of trees older than 2000 years.
In my elementary, middle school, and high school years, I used to walk to school all the way from my house in Pirun-dong. Carrying a heavy school bag with my lunch box on one side of my shoulders, whenever I passed by the entrance of Sajik park, I always touched an old tree, not very tall but probably older than five hundreds years.
The first thing I did after I came back to Seoul from the States was check on that tree only to witness that its inner hall was filled with cement and then it completely disappeared after a while. I was very sad because the tree knew all about my daily routine of touching the tree every morning.
Thereafter I had three long sycamore trees standing in a row in the same park in my mind but recently one of them—probably the one over one-hundred-years old—got chopped down. I wrote an essay about that upsetting incident that received a great response. I even got a call from a ward official. “The tree was eaten by worms and it could have fallen on pedestrians~” he made excuses.
At the time when the catastrophe hit Japan, 70,000 pine trees along the shore in Iwate-ken died after salt soaked into their roots and only one tree survived to be called, “a miracle pine tree.” When even that one was dying, the authorities put great effort for its permanent preservation in order to keep it as a symbol of hope and finally succeeded in bringing it back to life.
I just hung up the phone thinking he would not understand such things anyway.
In Chungun-dong, there is Gyungbok High school with a long history and tradition.
I have never been there even though it is close to my place and some of my close friends graduated that school.
Once I was searching for a church nearby because my previous church was too far away and found one that happened to be right next to that school.
After church, I stepped into the school where I had parked my car. At the end of the playground, there was the enormously giant Mountain Buk-ak supporting the sky and overwhelming the entire school and me. Being surprised, I cautiously approached towards the mountain and found in front of me a sycamore tree that seemed small in the distance standing with its enormous tree trunk so tall up to 20 meters and so thick that three person could surround with their fully stretched arms.
This is how I met him 11 years ago.
Whenever I touch the big tree, which I named Andre, whenever I lean on it and talk to him without words, he answers back amiably by shaking its leaves.
Whenever I stand under the tree, I feel like it is stroking my head and embracing me. Then I think I could deal with any nonsense or with anybody I can not possibly forgive.
At the church service, it is usually a young and powerfully voiced professional soloist who sings praise. Today, however, it was a duet of old men who seemed to be in their seventies singing with the chorus right in front of me.
One is President Park Young-il (known as one of 7 Princes of Korea in the 60s, married to actress Ahn In-suk who starred in Heavenly Homecoming to Stars and my senior alumnus of Georgetown University of Wash.DC) and the other is President Son Myung-won (a son of the first Navy Admiral Son Won-il)
I would like to put down all the sorrow of my mind in front of God …
I broke into tears, moved by that ample song, as I know the song, the lyrics and little about the ups and downs of their lives.
After the service, I went to the sycamore tree in the playground.
It was one blue autumn day with pleasant sunshine. Andre shook his countless leaves that just slightly turned yellow as if he were dancing and I embraced him with two arms and told him about the moving story by the two old men.
There are only few old trees in Seoul.
It is one of the reasons why I wish this tree that I can lean on, that always welcomes me could stand in this place for a long, long time.
It takes several times of the average span of human life to grow into such a giant tree.
We should, for goodness’ sake, end the business of chopping off such a trace of time in a single day and embrace and look after it with affection. as to receive its affection back.
