October 9-20, 2005 

This program was implemented in Korea for a group of eleven participants accompanied by the program coordinator, Yong Jin Choi, and Mark Peterson of Brigham Young University, who as usual served in the capacity of a docent. It was the 10th annual program in this series. The program got underway in Seoul with lectures on Korean politics, art and economy, issues in ancient Korean history (Koguryo) and geography. Interspersed with the lectures were guided tours of Leeum Museum and Kyongbok Palace. The group then went on the road traveling south with a stopover at the Samsung Electronics History Hall in Suwon, the Hoam Museum and Heewon, a traditional Korean garden, in Yongin. An overnight stay was arranged at the Samsung Human Resources Center in Yongin. The tour continued the next day with a visit to the Early Printing Museum in Ch'ongju, where the first moveable type invented in Korea in 1377 is exhibited. The group then continued on to Youngnam University in Kyongsan near Taegu. They visited a folk village in the vicinity and experienced an overnight stay at an ancient Confucian Academy known Kugye Sowon that is named after the famous Confucian scholar U Tak (1263-1342) of the Koryo Kingdom. Mark Peterson gave a lecture on the importance of Confucian heritage to Korean culture in the hall of the Confucian Academy. The group departed the next morning for Haein Buddhist Monastery. At the monastery they joined Korean worshippers in a Buddhist ritual and visited the repository of the Tripitaka Koreana. The group stayed overnight at a hermitage associated with the monastery. The next day, they moved on to the Yangdong traditional village in nearby Kyongju where they had a two hour long informal discussion with Jirak Lee, the clan elder. This discussion provided a unique opportunity to get a contemporary perspective on the relevance of the Confucian heritage and to learn about his role in a functioning rural community as a young clan leader. After having lunch at a traditional rural restaurant, the group visited Kyongju City, the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom where they toured the Kyongju National Museum. Jong Wook Lee of Sogang University in Seoul assumed the duties of a docent during the next two days, which were spent in Kyongju. While visiting the historic sires, he lectured informally on the developmental stage of Silla's state formation, its subsequent history and various aspects of Silla society. He also led a walking tour of Namsan, a mountain with many historic remains from the Silla period, which was an unforgettable experience for all the fellows. The next day the fellows took a flight to Jeju, an island off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, to participate in a conference organized by Cheju National University entitled "The First International Conference for the Globalization of Jeju." The conference drew over 100 attendees from academia and local government. In the morning session, the fellows had an opportunity to learn a great deal about Jeju, including its history and culture, industry, and distinctive tradition of women divers. In the afternoon, the group returned the favor by offering their own reflections on the theme of the conference: Ford M. Cochran gave a presentation entitled "Iceland: Isolated but Connected to the World;" James Millward spoke on "Globalization on the Peripheries on China;" Linda Menton on "The Island Edge of America;" and Mark Peterson offered his views on "Jeju Island and Its Multiple Roles in Korean History." The next day and a half was spent touring major sites on Jeju that illustrate its major attractions. As usual, the in-country costs of the program were covered by the Korea Overseas Information Service. The Korea Society covered all the administrative costs of the program in the U.S. as well as the international travel costs of the program coordinator and the docent with the funding provided by the grant from The Freeman Foundation. The expenses incurred for the visit to Jeju, a first for this program, were covered by the organizers of the conference held at Cheju National University.  

June 20 - July 8, 2005

This program was implemented in Korea for 20 participants accompanied by the program coordinator, Yong Jin Choi. It was the 17th annual program in this series. The program got underway as usual with a half-day orientation session, which included a visit to the Folk Museum in downtown Seoul by subway, to introduce the fellows to Seoul's excellent public transit system. The following day, the fellows made a series of visits to the Seoul Metropolitan government, Cheonggechon Restoration Project, Hwangi Art Museum and Leeum Museum of Art and joined a dinner with Fellowship participants from Australia and New Zealand. From June 22 to July 5, the fellows participated in an intensive workshop at Korea University. The workshop consisted of a mix of lectures and field trips to places of educational interest. Specifically, the lecture topics covered history, culture, language, literature, geography, religion, economy, society, women and family, the educational system, nuclear crisis on the Peninsula, the Korean War, movies, regional integration in East Asia and Korean Diaspora in the U.S. Field trips in the general vicinity of Seoul included visits to the Korea University Museum, the Korean Traditional Performance Theater in Chongdong, Daeil Senior High School, the Insa-dong District, Changdok Palace and the Korean Family Culture Institute. There was also a movie screening and the discussion with the director of JSA, a visit to the Demilitarized Zone and a home visit. From June 30 to July 4, the program included the usual tour to points of special interest in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, including visits to Haein Temple and Kyongju, and Hyundai Motors in Ulsan. Visits to the Koryong Daegaya Tomb Museum, an overnight temple stay at Hwaeomsa, visits to the Dolmen Park and Nagan-up Castle, and Suncheonman Ecology Tour were newly added experiences that everyone enjoyed. On Tuesday, July 5, the participants met again at the Korea University campus to evaluate the program and have the closing ceremony and farewell dinner with the program organizers. On Wednesday, July 6, the fellows met with Yeon Sook Lee for a discussion of women's issues in Korea. The participants were fascinated by her life story: she is a woman who was raised in a Christian family, married into a very traditional Korean household, raised two children, became an educator, a radio talk show hostess, a U.S. Embassy public relations officer, a leader of a major Korean women’s association, a member of the ROK National Assembly and the minister for women's during the Kim Young Sam administration. That evening the fellows met with seven Korean social studies educators. Rose Marie Duchesneau made a presentation on the standards of geography education in the U.S. and Charles R. Hammer described professional development education opportunities for teachers at the state level and district levels in the U.S. Park Sejin and Ahn Byungchul, who teach at Seoul High School and Banpo High School in Seoul, respectively, discussed the treatment of America in the world history and world geography textbooks in use in Korea. After a day of independent study and research, the fellows departed Korea for the U.S. on July 8.

Due to budgetary constraints at the Academy of Korean Studies, our partner institution in Korea for this program, we were unable to implement this program. With the authorization of the Freeman Foundation, we re-programmed the allocated funding to provide scholarships for our summer institute entitled "Korea and the Silk Road" to ten American educators residing outside of the greater New York area. The benefits of the scholarship included a tuition waiver, per diem expenses for five days (hotel room/single occupancy plus a $100/day allowance for meals, local transportation and incidentals), and reimbursement for actual travel costs up to a maximum of $300.