1987: Mother Park Chung Soo – ‘A new door began to open’

By Mary Lean

09/09/2021
Mother Park

 

Mother Park with Silvia Zuber in Caux
With Silvia Zuber in Caux

Mother Park Chung Soo, a Won Buddhist nun, has been called the ‘Mother Teresa of South Korea’. She was already involved in humanitarian work in Korea when she came to the Initiatives of Change conference centre Caux in 1987, but an encounter there added a new dimension to her vocation.

For 35 years, from 1910 to 1945, Japan occupied Korea. Mother Park was born in 1937 and had painful memories of Japan’s attempts to erase Korean culture. ‘We were not allowed to use our own language,’ she said. ‘We had to change our family name. We worked hard in the fields but we were not allowed to eat what we produced. Instead we had to eat pine tree cones and the husks of the beans.’

When she arrived in Caux, Mother Park was touched by the care her Swiss hostess, Sylvia Zuber, had put into making her room welcoming, with flowers, chocolate and cards. ‘I could feel with my whole body that this had all been prepared by Sylvia with her love for us,’ she wrote later.

Sylvia persuaded Mother Park to have lunch with two young Japanese, Kiyoshi Nagano and Yuki Miura. ‘Kiyoshi Nagano tried to speak in Korean,’ she recalled. ‘His attitude removed the feelings of hatred in my heart.’ 

‘With tears she told us of all the suffering she had gone through in the Japanese colonization of Korea,’ remembers Kiyoshi. ‘I was translating for my Japanese friend. We all began to weep. “These tears have washed away my bitterness,” she said to us.’

His attitude removed the feelings of hatred in my heart.

Mother Park 2020 IofC International Conference in Japan
At an international conference organized by Initiatives of Change in Japan, 2010

 

‘The two young Japanese asked forgiveness for the mistakes of their ancestors as if they had committed them themselves,’ Mother Park wrote later. She realized that she was feeling pain at hurting them. ‘A new door began to open to accept them like a close brother and sister.’ 

Mother Park had entered the Won Buddhist order at the age of 19. ‘When I was nine, my mother used to tell me that I have to help people throughout my life,’ she said. ‘That was my calling. The journey has been beautiful, if not easy.’

In 2010, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and reached the top ten in a field of 237. Her humanitarian work, through the Relief Foundation which carries her name, spans 55 countries.

When I was nine, my mother used to tell me that I have to help people throughout my life. That was my calling. The journey has been beautiful, if not easy.

Mother Park book launch 2015 in Korea
With Kiyoshi Nagano in Korea in 2015

 

In Korea, her work has focused on training blind people in life skills for independent living, supporting leprosy sufferers in St Lazarus Catholic village, and setting up two boarding schools – one for teenagers excluded from mainstream schools and the other for teenagers who have escaped from North Korea.

She visited North Korea three times, to see the living conditions there first hand, and sent relief to flood victims and refugees there.

 

Mother Park Cambodia Landmine Remove
Mother Park (second from the left) in Cambodia at a landmine removal

 

As Cambodia emerged from decades of war, she raised US$100,000 towards removing landmines, sent many container loads of clothing and medicines, and funded water pumps and wells. She worked with the Red Cross to provide artificial limbs for the victims of landmines in Afghanistan, and sent medical supplies to 15 African countries.

 

Mother Park in Ladakh
At a ceremony in Ladakh
Mother Park Ladakh
Visiting the boarding school in Ladakh

In 1992, she established a boarding school in Ladakh in northern India, for students who previously had to travel hundreds of miles to the south for education and were therefore forced to be away from their parents for long periods. By 2017, it had 835 students.

Despite being one of India’s largest districts, Ladakh only had one public hospital, in its capital city, Leh. Patients were often referred to Delhi or Chandigarh – a long expensive journey which few could afford. In 1996, Mother Park provided the initial funding for a charitable hospital, which serves patients in Leh and provides medical care to remote villages.

Her experience in Caux gave Mother Park a vision for what Japan and Korea could together give to the world, which she expressed at an Initiatives of Change conference in Japan in 2002: ‘If both Korean and Japanese people could open their hearts, we could become good friends. It would be wonderful if our two countries could cooperate more closely in peacebuilding for the developing countries.’ Her speech inspired young Japanese and Koreans to start a project to promote dialogue between their contemporaries.

 

Watch an interview and video extracts with Mother Park (by Arirang on YouTube)

 

 

With input from Yeonyuk Jeong and Kiyoshi Nagano

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

This story is part of our series 75 Years of Stories about individuals who found new direction and inspiration through Caux, one for each year from 1946 to 2021. If you know a story appropriate for this series, please do pass on your ideas by email to John Bond or Yara Zhgeib. If you would like to know more about the early years of Initiatives of Change and the conference centre in Caux please click here and visit the platform For A New World.

 

Photos courtesy of Yeonyuk Jeong, Kiyoshi Nagano and the Ven. Mother Park Chung-Soo Won Buddhist Relief Foundation

Featured Story
Off
Event Categories
75 stories 75th anniversary

related stories

This is us square 8.png

75 Years of Stories: Meet the team!

When we launched the 75 Years of Stories series in February 2021 about 75 years of encounters at the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux, we had no idea what an adventure we had embarked o...

Caux in snow 2021 credit Cindy Bühler

2021: Initiatives of Change Switzerland – Opening Caux’s doors to a new chapter

As our series of 75 stories for 75 years of the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux draws to an end, the President of Initiatives of Change Switzerland, Christine Beerli, and its two Co-Di...

Aad Burger

2020: Aad Burger – Struck by a virus

In 2020, the Caux Forum went online in response to the pandemic. Its organizers found that this made Caux accessible to people all over the world who could not have taken part in normal circumstances....

Marc Isserles 2017

2019: Marc Isserles – ‘We must save the children’

During World War II, the Caux Palace (later the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Switerland) provided a refuge for Jews fleeing the Shoah. Over the years, some of them – or their descendants...

Wael Broubaker climate actionist

2018: Wael Boubaker – ‘Climate change should be top top top priority’

When Tunisian economics graduate Wael Boubaker joined the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP) in 2018, he expected a conference which would look good on his CV, and some beautiful scenery. Inst...

Tanaka Mhunduru CPLP

2017: Tanaka Mhunduru – A home for the world

Tanaka Mhunduru from Zimbabwe is one of the organizers of the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP), a one-month programme for young people from around the world. He first took part in 2017....

Diana Damsa Winter Gathering 2016

2016: Diana Damsa – ‘It made me feel I counted’

The Winter Gathering of 2016 was a special experience for Diana Damsa – not just because she experienced Caux in winter, but also because, for the first time in eight years, she had no responsibilitie...

Philippe and Liseth Lasserre

2015: Lisbeth Lasserre – ‘The richness in art’

Lisbeth Lasserre came from Winterthur, where her grandparents, Hedy and Arthur Hahnloser, had built up a private collection of art at their home, Villa Flora. Amongst their artist friends were Bonnard...

Catherine Guisan

2014: Catherine Guisan – Europe’s Unfinished Business

Catherine Guisan is Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, USA. She has written two books on the ethical foundations of European integration. In 2014 she spoke at Caux’s first se...

Tom Duncan

2013: Tom Duncan – Restoring a healthy planet

2013 saw the first full-length Caux Dialogues on Land and Security (CDLS). These events, which took place at the Caux Conference and Seminar Centre, focus on the links between sustainable land managem...

Merel Rumping

2012: Merel Rumping – Going out on a limb

When Merel Rumping from the Netherlands first visited Caux in 2012, she had a goal in mind – ‘to explore how I could contribute to a more just world through my professional activities’....

Lucette Schneider

2011: Lucette Schneider – Choices which make the magic of Caux

For many years, Lucette Schneider from Switzerland organized the team which gathered in the early mornings to wash, peel and chop vegetables for the kitchens of the Caux conference centre. ...

Mohan Bhagwandas 2003

2010: Mohan Bhagwandas – Addressing the crisis of integrity

Mohan Bhagwandas is all too aware of his carbon footprint. In the 13 years from 2006 to 2019, he flew 17 times from his home city of Melbourne, Australia, to Switzerland to take part in the Caux confe...

Rajmohan Gandhi 2011 Caux Forum Human Security

2009: Rajmohan Gandhi – Bridges between India and Pakistan

25 distinguished Indians and Pakistanis came to Caux in 2009 with the aim of building bridges between their countries. The man who initiated the gathering was Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Ga...

Iman Ajmal Masroor

2008: Learning to be a Peacemaker – ‘An eye-opener to the world’

2008 saw the launch of an unusual course on Islam’s approach to peacemaking for young Muslims and non-Muslims, devised by Imam Ajmal Masroor from the UK. The course’s coordinator, Peter Riddell, descr...