“THE LITTLE ANGELS” FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF KOREAN TRADITION

From the time the armistice ending armed conflict brought the Korean War to an official end in July, 1953, the people of South Korea and the Republic they established began to say “Thank You” to the 22 United Nations who had saved them from communist conquest and subjugation. They continue to do so today, in contrast to so many of this country’s “friends” and “allies” around the world who have also benefited from America’s generosity in blood, selfless service and treasure.

            In September, 1965, after three years of organization and initial training, a cadre of young Korean children christened “The Little Angels” came to Gettysburg to present their first world concert for an audience including President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Since that inaugural performance, succeeding casts, made up of girls (mostly) between the ages of 9 and 13 have toured 50 overseas countries, giving more than 6,000 performances in 70 countries.

            On February 8, “The Little Angels” came to Cedar City, Utah for their premier performance of 2012, filling the Heritage Center theater to capacity while presenting a display of talent and discipline designed to continue their country’s ongoing commitment to veterans who went to their homeland in the most trying of times, and who are now dying off at a rate of about 1,000 every week. For the “Little Angels” and the extended staff who make their “gift to the world” possible, the Korean War will never be “The Forgotten War”.

Photo No. 1    In its many forms and variations, the Bucheachum, or Fan Dance, reaches back 5000 years in Korean tradition, and while duplicating the beauty of flowers and butterflies, celebrates women in Korean culture.                                                                          Jim Case photo

 

Photo No. 2     The ancient Lion Dance or Bukcheong Saji-nori, requires the most intricate coordination of the two performers who share each animal and its dance movements.                Jim Case photo

Photo No. 3     The sanjo gayageum is a 12-stringed instrument dating from the 6^th century, and played in the horizontal by the “Little Angels” for their Cedar City audience.                      Jim Case photo

Photo No. 4     At the conclusion of the February 8^th concert, the “Little Angels” presented special medals of appreciation and a thank you hug to assembled Korean War veterans and special guests.

Photo No. 5     Dr. Bo Hi Pak, Chairman and President of the Korean Cultural Foundation and the heart and soul behind the “Little Angels” chats during intermission with MC Al Cooper while Mark Tobin, Western Assistant to Dr. Pak looks on.  (In the performance’s long history, this was the first occasion where the Master of Ceremonies was also a Korean War Veteran – as is Dr. Pak himself.)

Photo No. 6     On the morning following their concert the “Little Angels” gathered with veterans and public officials at memorial Park in Cedar City where they sang “God Bless America” and “Amazing Grace” at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Korean War memorial. The lone boy member of the “Angels” stands out in his blue slacks!  

Al Cooper can be heard on Cedar City’s KSUB 590 Talk Radio each Monday at 4:00 PM with “Provident Living – Home & Country”, now in its 10^th year.

 

HOW SWEET IT IS !

Dotting the back roads and country lanes of the New England I love, often along the margins of farm fields where the nearby forest begins, can be seen man-made structures of weathered gray boards beneath rusting tin roofs capped with a matching rust-stained cupola-like hinged dome.  Often, when time and circumstance permit, I stop and allow my eyes and senses to feast on the sight.  Sometimes, I even venture across the intervening field to touch and feel the honest siding of a piece of architecture whose very image speaks of long history and tradition, and a sense of place so distinctive that no road map is needed to know where I am.

It was local Indians who taught the first Vermont settlers how to boil the sap of the sugar maple into syrup and sugar, a gift which helped those colonists to survive their first unforgiving winter in a land whose harsh climate and thin soils defied easy conquest.  For more than three centuries, the thawing days and freezing nights of March have witnessed the reenactment of a ritual which both defines and enriches the lives of those who still love, respect and care for the disappearing maple orchards of this unique piece of geography.

Entering into the interior of one of these spruce-sided sugar houses is – for me – like walking into my own past.  I am standing on hallowed ground.  Immediately, my nostrils are filled with a delectable sweetness even years of abandonment cannot erase from the swaybacked structure.  Every square inch of wall and timber has been infused with the billowing steam of boiling sap over unfolding generations of time, and the air itself seems filled with that distinct forest-sweetness which is unlike any other “sweetness” known to man.

As the gathered sap boiling in the circulating pans of the “arch” is converted to steam which gathers under the high roof of the sugar house before being sucked outside by the venturi effect of the open-sided cupola, the remaining sap becomes sweeter and more concentrated, until finally being “poured off” as finished syrup.  Twenty-four hours a day, through the weeks of an all-too-brief gathering season, the process goes on.  And over the years, the interior of the sugar house takes on a lush saccharinity which is both delicate and unforgettable; unlike any other sweetness encountered in a lifetime.

And for those of us who grew up surrounded by the memories bound up in the dark of an old sugar house in March, that nectarious presence has the power to preach a sermon of life.

As I write these reflective paragraphs, the sap is running home in Vermont, and yet another “sugarin’ season” is underway.  It will take between 25 and 40 gallons of sap to produce each gallon of syrup, and despite some modern amenities such as vinyl gathering lines and automatic temperature controls, most of the half-million gallons the state hopes for, will be produced the old-fashion way – by farm families, tapping trees, gathering, hauling and boiling over long arduous hours of a labor born of love and tradition.

For Shirley and me, doing a visual inventory of our carefully-husbanded pantry supply of maple syrup gets intensely personal: Much of our inventory bears the imprint of Maple Crest Farm in Cuttingsville, Vermont, where our friends of thirty-five years, Bill and Donna Smith and their son tap trees planted by Bill’s great-grandfather, and where seven generations of Smiths have been doing the same thing.  Some come from the “Nickwackett Sugarbush”, nurtured by David and Michele Parker, a young couple who have lovingly revitalized a hillside dairy farm in North Chittenden.  And then there are several gallons of our highly-prized “Vermont Fancy” of the 1995 season harvested by our friends, the Hodgdons, now retired from farmin’ and sugarin’ but whose handiwork still graces our basement shelves . . . and today’s pancakes. 

  HOW SWEET IT IS !

Photos by Al Cooper