The otherwise non-descript town, about a half hour west of Chŏnju, South Korea, is beautified by the many cherry blossoms that line the highway between the two municipalities. As the petals on the blossoms fall, they do so with such intensity that they mimic a snow squall in Ottawa.
In 1997, DW and I attended a cherry blossom festival with some of the secretaries and teachers of our hagwon, or private learning institute. Iksan is also famous for its wholesale jewelry stores, where Korean jade could be found for a bargain.
It was also the closest town with an immigration office, from where we picked up our work visas.
Because we were still relatively new arrivals to the country, DW and I were trying to learn the language—both speaking and reading. Because Hangul is a phonetic language that is composed by syllables, reading the written word was pretty easy, and DW and I had mastered pronunciation after a couple of days' studying, before we left Canada.
Comprehension came much later and was much more difficult.
At the hagwon, we taught both children and adult classes. While we endeavored to learn the Korean names of the adult students, all of the children were given Western names: Laura, Stephen, Kenny, Fred...
One day, during some free time in a kids' class, I asked each student his and her Korean names, and then I would practice writing the name out in Hangul on the whiteboard. While I made a few mistakes, the kids were overall impressed with my efforts.
"Teacher," Tony said to me, "can we give you a Korean name?"
I smiled. It sounded like a fun thing to do, but I had to be careful: the kids were sometimes prone to playing pranks on me. "What name would you give me?"
The giggling and muttering in Korean began as they huddled and made their choice. Finally, when the majority nodded their heads, Tony responded.
"Kim Min-Shik."
I repeated the name and then wrote it out, in Hangul, on the board. I had it right. I then stepped out of the classroom and approached our secretary, Mrs. Jung.
"My students gave me a Korean name," I said. The last time I consulted Mrs. Jung like this, I had asked her for clarification on a so-called bad word that one of my troublesome students had called me: gae sae-gi.
Literally translated, it was dog-baby. The implication was son of a bitch.
"What is the name?" asked Mrs. Jung, who was also suspicious of these pranksters.
"Kim Min-Shik."
Her eyes widened and she smiled. "Kim Min-Shik is TV star. Good name."
That weekend, DW and I found ourselves in Iksan, at the cherry blossom festival, and the flower petals were blowing around in the gentle spring breeze. People were wandering the grounds around vendor booths, buying food, drink, and crafts.
We saw the do-jung vendor and I immediately went up to him. A do-jung is a custom-made, stylized name stamp, often applied over or next to your signature on a document. He had a briefcase full of stamps of all shapes and colours, each of the stamps blank. He would carve whatever name you gave him.
I fished through his collection and pulled out a small, red-handled stamp. I handed it to him and said, "Kim Min-Shik."
Away he went to work.
The next Monday, during my afternoon class, I set the kids to completing exercises in their lesson books. Often, when I walked around the room, checking on their work, I would assign stickers to pages that were well-done. The kids loved stickers—especially, stickers from Canada, and I had brought hundreds with me.
This time, I had something else for them.
As I went around the room, I applied a stamp to each child's worksheet. Small and round, and in stylized Hangul.
My Korean name.
I brought my do-jung back to Canada but, for the life of me, I can no longer find it. Still, I'll never forget the name that those kids gave to me. Nor, how to write it.
김 민 식
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