Margaret Condon Taylor (PhD 1983, Psychology) has made a gift to the Nam Center for Korean Studies in memory of Young-sook Kim, Professor Emerita of English Education at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, Korea. The donation specifically honors Professor Kim’s generosity of spirit toward Taylor which made possible a remarkable friendship lasting more than fifty years. Taylor’s donation will support the Nam Center’s initiative to bring traditional Korean performing arts to the U-M and Ann Arbor community.
Taylor arrived in Seoul as a Peace Corps volunteer in January of 1969 with a BA in English from Cornell University and was assigned to teach English to students at Ewha University. She found herself in the Korean nation undergoing massive transitions while adhering closely to centuries-old social values and behaviors. Taylor coped by paying respectful visual attention to all of her surroundings and capturing them with her Nikormat camera: men and women going about their daily lives; older children looking after younger children; new construction and demolition occurring side by side; all in context of ancient stone walls and the ongoing restoration of old public areas and palace compounds. Some of these photographs, which document Taylor’s admiration of ordinary Koreans engaged in ordinary lives replete with personal joy, dignity and perseverance, were shown to the public for the first time at the University of Michigan in 2017 solo exhibition, “An Accidental Photographer: Seoul, 1969,” and were subsequently exhibited at Charles Lang Freer House in Detroit and at the University of Southern California. Taylor’s photographs as well as the Kodachrome slides from which they were made are now part of the University Michigan Library’s Digital Collections.
At Ewha University, Taylor met Professor Young-sook Kim who was assigned to be her chido kyosu, or faculty advisor. Taylor and Kim sat facing each other across adjacent wooden desks for the better part of the year, preparing lessons and engaging in the many routine activities during the work week. They remained at their desks while eating bowls of steaming Chinese noodles delivered from a nearby restaurant. Taylor spoke almost no Korean and Kim’s English, though fluent, could not convey all she wished, but the two women unexpectedly found in each other a kindred spirit despite linguistic constraints. “Prof. Kim saw me,” Taylor recalls, “simply as a human being” who needed guidance. This was especially welcomed by Taylor because Koreans in the 1960s typically assumed Americans were either missionaries, soldiers or spies. Despite their cultural and academic differences and asymmetries of power, genuine concern and respect prevailed, and the two women became life-long friends.
When Taylor returned to Seoul in 2016 after more than 50 years’ absence, she struggled to recognize in the exceptionally modern metropolis, with its endless rows of highrise apartment buildings and glittering commercial towers clad in steel and glass, the city she had photographed and loved in 1969. The most noticeable losses, as Taylor looked for some connection with her past, were the engaging warrens of narrow alleys and gatherings of uniformed school children at play or in transit. Gone almost was the balance between Koreans’ material impoverishment and their wealth of spirit. Taylor and Kim, however, had no trouble recognizing each other despite their changed appearance and retirement from their respective professions.
The women’s friendship, maintained through half a century of correspondence, attests to the power of mutual respect and understanding–the fundamental goals of the Peace Corps. Taylor’s donation to the U-M Nam Center for Korean Studies will continue the legacy of an enduring cross-cultural friendship.
