Korean Culture Evangelist Celebrates 102nd Birthday
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Evelyn McCune, the author of "The Arts of Korea", has spent her whole life being an evangelist for Korean culture and arts. It's been a very long, fulfilling life. Last month, the American celebrated her 102nd birthday at her home in Merced, Calif.
To honor her, the president of the University of California, Merced, Kang Sung-mo, paid her a visit. He told her that decades before becoming the head of UC Merced, he graduated from Yonsei University, where her father had taught for decades until 1940.
"I was so touched when Kang told me that",she said in an interview with The Korea Times USA.
McCune was born in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 1907. She was the first child of American Methodist educational missionaries, Arthur and Louise Becker. Her father built the foundation for science education while he worked as a chemical professor at Yonsei University from 1915 to 1940.
She promoted Korean culture and arts by teaching students at California State University Korean culture until the early 1970s. McCune wrote a number of books on Korea, including "The Inner Art: Korean Screens (1983)",and "Kim Rides the Tiger (1951)".
She still misses North Korea's picturesque landscape, which she experienced during her childhood.
"I swam at Wonsan Beach (in North Korea) all day long in summer. Mt. Geumgang is the most beautiful place in the world. The misty mountain wrapped with fog is still vivid to me", she said in fluent Korean.
She still reads books about Korean culture and art. "I still fall asleep studying 'Chochungdo' (a painting of plants and bugs) by Shin Saimdang (1504-1551)".Shin was a famous female artist in the Joseon Kingdom.
McCune recalled: "Korean people were poor, but they never lost humor. They overcome ordeals with optimism".
She married George McAfee McCune, who was one of her childhood friends in Pyongyang. Her husband, in 1938, collaborated with Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University in devising the McCune-Reischauer System, which was used as the official Romanization in South Korea from 1984 to 2000.
To honor her, the president of the University of California, Merced, Kang Sung-mo, paid her a visit. He told her that decades before becoming the head of UC Merced, he graduated from Yonsei University, where her father had taught for decades until 1940.
"I was so touched when Kang told me that",she said in an interview with The Korea Times USA.
McCune was born in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 1907. She was the first child of American Methodist educational missionaries, Arthur and Louise Becker. Her father built the foundation for science education while he worked as a chemical professor at Yonsei University from 1915 to 1940.
She promoted Korean culture and arts by teaching students at California State University Korean culture until the early 1970s. McCune wrote a number of books on Korea, including "The Inner Art: Korean Screens (1983)",and "Kim Rides the Tiger (1951)".
She still misses North Korea's picturesque landscape, which she experienced during her childhood.
"I swam at Wonsan Beach (in North Korea) all day long in summer. Mt. Geumgang is the most beautiful place in the world. The misty mountain wrapped with fog is still vivid to me", she said in fluent Korean.
She still reads books about Korean culture and art. "I still fall asleep studying 'Chochungdo' (a painting of plants and bugs) by Shin Saimdang (1504-1551)".Shin was a famous female artist in the Joseon Kingdom.
McCune recalled: "Korean people were poor, but they never lost humor. They overcome ordeals with optimism".
She married George McAfee McCune, who was one of her childhood friends in Pyongyang. Her husband, in 1938, collaborated with Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University in devising the McCune-Reischauer System, which was used as the official Romanization in South Korea from 1984 to 2000.
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