Martin Uden

Ex-US Presidents visit the Korean peninsula

Rather to my surprise, while on holiday in California recently I met somebody I knew here in Korea.  He told me that he was helping to organize a trip to Korea for President George W Bush and asked if I'd like to meet him.  And when he told me that it would be in Andong, where (eager readers of this blog might recall) I had been in April, I was more than happy to go down for the day.

It was a low-key affair, with the President giving a talk to students at a High School, followed by a little tourism and lunch.   I particularly liked one of his answers to the students.  When asked for a single piece of advice for students, he said simply, "Read!".  I hadn't realised that during one of his White House years he read 92 books, which he explained was possible because he didn't watch television or play video games.  Reading was his main leisure pursuit.
 
As a keen collector of old books on Korea, I have to agree with the President. While there may be no substitute for personal experience in many ways, reading allows you to draw on other people's experience and learn of things that you have no chance to visit personally - above all the past!  I certainly would not know anything like as much about Korea and the Far East if I hadn't been able to read so extensively about the region.
 
I find it interesting, incidentally, to realise that for a short time there will have been two ex-US Presidents on the Korean Peninsula - Clinton in Pyongyang and Bush in Seoul.

Posted at 09:32 07 August 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[1]