Decision
When I visited the native
reservation for the first time in 1993, I had planned to teach the Taekwondo
and prepared for a very long time to teach the Native Americans. I had studied
much about them: how many tribes, the number of reservation, and where they
are. My first visit was the Osage reservation where I met their government
officers and expressed my interested. The second reservation was Ute in New
Mexico, then Navaho, and last was Jicarilla Apache where I met Rod Velarde, a
tribal member.
Rod took me to his home and showed
all over the inside of the reservation, including sacred sites and pueblo pow
wow dance. He also gave a gift to each of my family members. Mine was a
Traditional 3 row choker made antique trade beads, leather, coyote bone and
teeth. He also has told me that it is battle dress choker and continued his explain
that the people wear it when they go to war. It will protect the neck. He asked
me if I had a good experience and asked for any impression at the last dinner.
His wife was making a fry bread and wrapping it around cheese. It was great
native food. It smells like made out of corn, make it biscuits, smash then thin
flat. His wife was using the skillet and some oil I did not ask what oil was.
When it sizzling, flip them over and waited a few second and it is my plate
wrapping it some vegetable ham, sausage and cheese. Usually corn tortilla was
used to wrap the meat, cheese, etc., but she did it with fry bread. So I
answered his question, “Fry bread.” He asked me back, “What do you mean?” I did
told him fry bread is yours but inside is European. I said this because I
realized there were a few churches in the reservation and most young people did
not know their language. The way of dress is not much different outside of the
reservation. I thought television must be strongly influential to the
reservation. He mentioned a couple of times that living outside of reservation,
he needed to deal with strong discrimination, but living inside is hopeless. I
decided to come back after four years of college to serve the people here.
I wore the choker I got from Rod Velarde
on the way back to home. We stopped in a small town for lunch. Nobody took our
order and no water was given to us. We wondered what was going on and I called
a waitress. Finally she came and took the order and asked me if I was Japanese.
I said no, I am Korean American. My wife told me that they thought we were
native because I was wearing the choker. After the lunch we gave a penny for
the tip.
Since then I visit every year to his
reservation, learning about their culture. What I liked most was dancing with
them and understanding the meaning behind it. Some of the dances are very
dynamic, such as the grass dance and fancy dance.
Back in 1993 before I visited the
reservation, Jinwoong Jung, a professor of cultural anthropology, had suggested
not teaching the Taekwondo and instead spending time with their culture. “Don’t
make them think another foreign culture is dominating them or exploiting them.”
I followed his advice even I wanted
open up a taekwondo academy immediately. It took eight years to impress them
enough for them to think they need the taekwondo.
I had told almost everyone I
knew about the trip, including my wife’s church members. There are a few Korean
churches in my area and my wife attends one of them. The church leader visited
my home because of my wife. After meeting, he asked me how things were going
with the native people. I told him the whole story. He listened patiently and
asked me if he could go next year. I asked him why, and he answered right away,
“I want to deliver the message of God.”
I told him how his people
systematically abused these people over the last 400 years, so you don’t
have to do it anymore. I explained to him that I do not understand why they are
considered children of Satan and why the church got involved teaching their children.
Furthermore, I said, without your god they have lived 4000 years and more.
He told me, “Man has the desire to
expand his will. You are doing it, and I want to.”
I lost my words. Did I do all this
to expand my will? Is that true? A few month later I realized that I did, in my
mind. I wanted to expand my horizons.
I met this pastor again and told him
that I was not going to teach the Taekwondo to native people. Instead I would
practice their traditional dance and martial arts. I took the professor’s
advice; not teaching Taekwondo was the best thing to do, not to bring foreign
culture to them. It is important to understand why I did this. If you
understand it, I hope you will understand the Dakota pipeline and native
people’s thought system.
Eight years later, Rod Velarde asked
me, “Can you teach us the Taekwondo?” I was honored and happy to hear that
finally they wanted to do it. I told them that we will start it next year but
we must use native language, not Korean and not English. I knew their language
is disappearing. If I used it for the Taekwondo, hopefully this would help the
language to survive.
I got the answer from Rod that he
would do it that way. When I came back to Champaign, I sent a message to all my
friends in Korea that Jicarilla Apache wanted to have the Taekwondo
lessons. My best friend Professor Gibum Lee congratulated my accomplishment. It
is a remarkable accomplishment with eight years of patience, waiting for this
moment. Finally, they wanted to learn.
A few year later I was invited to
the Sundance in South Dakota. It was in the valley a few hours south of the
Black Hills. Driving east, there were the Great Plains and then suddenly there
was a small mountain. Mount Rushmore National Park is in the Black Hills. It is
a well-organized site area and managed very well. One native friend asked me to
visit the Crazy Horse Memorial Park which I did. There was a site information
board which had too much damage from gunshot. It was very difficult to read
about Crazy Horse.
A day before the Sundance, we were
invited to the sweat lodge. In the middle of lodge, there was a big hole with
hot volcanic stones. It was really hot and red. I don’t know how many rocks
were there but I know it was a lot. We sat in three circles around the hot
stones. I was in the very last circle. It still hot. I wondered how hot it
would be for anyone sitting right next to the hole. The Medicine Man ordered
the cover for the entry to be closed, and immediately there was drumming and
chanting. The breathing was difficult; when hot air went through my nose it was
painful to take and my skin felt sharp pain all over.
Inside of the sweat lodge it was
dark. I could not even see who was next to me. When the chant was over, the
Medicine Man said open the cover. I saw the light from fire outside and was
finally able to see the people inside. Young men were chanting. They were all
on the floor and resting. I wondered how they were chanting in that hot air.
The Medicine Man was talking to everyone, thanking them for joining the ceremony.
He was saying that he is very happy to see many men and women from four
different directions such as Asian, Caucasian, African, and native people. His
talking continued: If we have only native people here, federal agents will walk
into the ceremonial site almost all every time and search for something. They
say they are looking for weapons and drugs. Actually they don’t like our
gathering and try to arrest me. When agents see other ethnicities in our site
from outside of the reservation, they do not do it. They know you are going to
talk story outside and spread it.
The lodge cover was closed and
chanting began again. It sounded like they were pulling all sadness out of
their bodies. The second round ended and the cover was opened up.
The Medicine Man talked again: In
our reservation, we don’t have any polluting factories so our land is very
clean as well as the water. White men ask if we are interested selling the
water. If we sell the water, our finances will be better. But the mother land
is seriously sick. Knowing Mother is sick, we cannot let them put the water
pipe into her. We are not going to have the pipe in our mother land. Even if we
don’t have the money, we are okay.
I listened and listened. This
message sounded like it came from the heavens. Mother land is sick, and knowing
she is sick, how can we let them put the pipe into our mother! Just to get more
money! I felt like I was listening to one of greatest philosophers and hearing
the greatest religious leader. I was thinking, you are a real medicine man. The
cover was closed and I don’t remember how I could have done it for all four
rounds. I was thinking and thinking: the mother land is sick. The mother land
is sick; knowing that she is sick how can we allow them to put the pipe into mother's
heart with the exchange of money?
How many of us really know what is
going to happen in the Dakota Access oil pipeline? Don’t we understand if we
damage the mother land, we are going to suffer from the damage? Don't you know
how the climate has been changing and why? We all know what and why this is
happening to this earth. It is time to listen to the native people who have
been communicating with nature and the mother land. They know how we are all
going to survive in the future. If it is damaged, we will see immediately we
will have a problem with water. Let’s forget the fossil fuels. Let’s protect
mother land and not damage the future any more so Mother can protect her
children. We are all children of earth.
