Today is National Daughters Day, which sounds completely made up to me. Also, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un recently returned from a trip to Russia, an attempt to reduce his own international isolation by taking advantage of an autocrat in Moscow who miscalculated spectacularly in the Ukraine. Yup, both these news items take Marc back and make him want to tell a Roo Tale… [screen fades to black…]
Dianne & I arrived in China, the last leg of our adoption journey to get our Ms. M. We spent May 27, 2011, walking around Beijing. I took a picture of lovely Dianne at Tiananmen Square, with the Great Hall of the People in the background. Little did I know that somebody was in the Great Hall of the People at that same time. A Korean fella on his own trip abroad attempting to reduce his own isolation. Kim Jong Un’s Dad, Kim Jong-Il.
Kim Jong Un & Kim Jong-Il aren’t the only Kims in this Korea story. A total of three Kims have ruled the totalitarian state of North Korea since its birth after World War II. The third is Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, whose rule began after the Japanese military’s overthrow in 1945. You may be surprised to learn: like many an Austin College Kangaroo, Kim Il-Sung was born a Presbyterian.
Kim Il-Sung was educated in a Presbyterian school and raised in an active Presbyterian family. His father was an elder in the Presbyterian church; his mother was a deaconess and daughter of a Presbyterian missionary. Both father & mother were also active in the resistance against Japanese occupation, which began just before Kim Il-Sung’s birth in 1912.
1912 also saw the arrival of the Hill family in Korea. Pierre Bernard Hill was a Presbyterian minister who was drawn to Korea because of the occupation. Western Presbyterians and native Koreans were strong allies during this decade, as both suffered injustices in the fight against militarist Japan. The injustices were so great that both the Kim & Hill families eventually fled Korea. The Kims left for China. After giving birth to a son David in Korea, the Hills left for Texas.
By the 1930s, Pierre Bernard Hill had traded Korea for Sherman. Hill, a trustee of Austin College, encouraged his sons Sam & David to attend AC. Sam followed in his father’s footsteps and entered the Presbytery after Austin College. David Lee “Tex” Hill, however, chose a different path after graduation. He earned international notoriety as an ace pilot with the AVG “Flying Tigers,” fighting to end Japanese colonialism in East Asia during World War II. That military success paved the way for Japan’s defeat on the Korean peninsula and the seizure of power by the Kim family.
Because of its association with anti-imperialism, Austin College Presbyterianism is common on the Korean peninsula. It is by far the largest Protestant denomination in South Korea, with nearly 7 million members. It is also one of only a few state-sanctioned churches in North Korea, primarily because of its association with the Kim family. The historic Presbyterian church where the Kim family called home continues to quietly hold services today and is dedicated to the Presbyterian deaconess who was also the mother of Kim Il-Sung.
Yes indeed. To put it mildly, the Kim family members are not “good people.” The includes the Kim family member walking around the Great Hall of the People in my May 27, 2011, photo of lovely Dianne at Tiananmen Square. But hey, the Japanese occupiers in the 1910s were not “good people” either.
And if you are an AC International Studies fella like me, you know that the world to varying degrees is full of a whole lot of not “good people.” Which is why we AC International Studies types tend to suspend simplistic “good people” morality tales and replace them with engaging “good fun” historical tales.
So, we can have some engaging “good fun” with history, imagining a toddler Kim Il-Sung hanging out with a toddler David Lee “Tex” Hill in some Presbyterian church in a Japanese-occupied Korea, with no clue how their own futures would affect the future of the Korean peninsula. And with no clue that they’d end up together in a random Marc / Korea Roo Tale.
Dianne & I avoided a run-in with Kim Jong Un’s Dad that day in 2011. We thankfully made it back to the States with our Ms. M., who later ended up on the cover of one of my Roo Tale books. Ms. M. is suddenly showing interest in her own Asian ancestry; we’ll soon learn whether her story includes the Korean peninsula.
Happy National Daughters Day Ms. M., even if that holiday sounds completely made up….. and just another lame Marc excuse for another boring Roo Tale. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilgol_Church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterianism_in_South_Korea