[Special contribution article 1]Arirang Nursing Home: Ethnic Koreans’ Last Home in Central
Asia
Moon Young-sook
Chairperson of the Choi Jae-hyung Memorial
Association
In 2019, I visited Central Asia along with delegates from the
Presidential Committee to Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the
March 1 Movement and the Establishment of the Provisional Government
of the Republic of Korea (chairperson Han Wan-sang). On the last leg
of a long trip covering Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, we visited the
Arirang Nursing Home.
The nursing home is on Alisher Navoiy Street in Ashmadyashai Village,
some 30 kilometers southeast of downtown Tashkent, the capital of
Uzbekistan. On both sides of the street, from Lotte City Hotel
Tashkent Palace to the nursing home, lie limitless cherry farms and
the occasional field of golden wheat. The vast, fertile land must have
been tended by the local goryeoin (ethnic Koreans), I thought.
The nursing home was operated by the Korea Foundation for
International Healthcare (KOFIH), affiliated with the Ministry of
Health and Welfare. In 2006, one year before the 70th anniversary of
the forced migration of Koreans (who would later be known as goryeoin)
to Central Asia, the governments of Korea and Uzbekistan agreed to
construct a nursing home for senior goryeoin who lived alone. The
agreement came to fruition in March 2010 when the Arirang Nursing Home
officially opened. With over USD 600,000 in funds from the Overseas
Koreans Foundation (OKF), the nursing home is said to have been
equipped to be the best institution of its kind in Uzbekistan.
Upon arrival at the nursing home, we were welcomed by Director Kim
Na-young. Kim introduced herself as a social worker who had graduated
from Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of Social Welfare.
Working at social welfare centers in Seoul and other parts of Korea
before coming to Uzbekistan to volunteer for senior goryeoin living
alone, she said that she had arrived as a 30-something but was now in
her 40s. As I saw her bright, cheerful smile, I trusted that the
seniors at the nursing home were in good hands.
The nursing home’s front drive looked clean and newly paved. Many of
the furniture items and appliances seemed new and the facilities were
equipped with CCTV and other high-tech equipment. Director Kim wore a
big smile as she explained why everything looked new and up-to-date.
In April 2019, when Korean President Moon Jae-in paid a state visit to
Uzbekistan, First Lady Kim Jung-sook had decided to pay a visit to the
Arirang Nursing Home. Upon learning that she would be coming, Uzbek
First Lady Ziroatkhon Hoshimova personally instructed Tashkent’s city
administration to update the old facilities and equipment. Upon our
visit, the garden was full of beautiful flowers — to enhance the
residents’ quality of life and overall happiness, Director Kim said
brightly.
There were 38 first-generation goryeoin — 25 women and 13 men — living
in the nursing home. Their average age was 86. Two of the residents
were 96 years old; they could remember the circumstances surrounding
their forced migration quite clearly as they were 14 years old at the
time.
When the chief delegate in our party expressed appreciation for the
residents “for having lived with all their might,” the two women, in
tears, responded immediately: “We didn’t know where we were going. We
were abandoned like we were burdensome. Many people died, and those
left alive were scattered and kept on living because they couldn’t
die. But now, aren’t we proud to be alive like this? Thank you very
much for not forgetting us and coming to see us.”
When Director Kim asked the two to sing, they started singing as if
they had been waiting for the chance. In trembling voices and in the
manner of young girls, they sang lyrics heavily laden with the
exhaustion of their lives and their longing for their home country:
The moon is bright. The moon is bright. In the clear sky, the moon is
bright.
Why does the moon not grow old like me?
Why am I this old?
The moon is bright. The moon is bright. In the clear sky, the moon is
bright.
The flowers bloom for only 10 days and I grow old in a moment.
The moon is bright. The moon is bright. In the clear sky, the moon is
bright
No sooner had the first woman finished singing, the other 96-year-old
resident followed with a song that she used to sing while working at a
kolkhoz (collective farm):
Scatter the seeds briskly.
Spring has come to this joyful village,
Rushing us into sowing.
Tt-rak-ttor tt-rr-rrung, plow the field.
Kun-drr-rum jan-drr-rum, let’s farm quickly.
E-he-ra, scatter.
Scatter the seeds briskly.
Let them suck up the earth’s milk and
Grow — wassak wassak — without a hitch.
Seeds scattered in this vast paddy field
Return in the fall of bumper harvest
Golden, golden ears of rice
Billow thick and grow thicker.
E-he-ra, scatter.
Scatter the seeds briskly.
Let them suck up the earth’s milk and
Grow — wassak wassak — without a hitch.
The women had such great memories that they sang without missing a
single word. We asked Director Kim if they had any secrets to
maintaining their health. She said that the residents’ health
conditions were unpredictable and that the most important thing was
laughing with them, listening to them, and being always close to them
like a friend or daughter. I had a strong urge to record all the vivid
stories the women remembered before they leave this world for good. I
was also reminded of the African proverb that when an elder dies in a
village, it is like a library burning down. I prayed for all the
residents at the Arirang Nursing Home to live for a long, long time.
Sadly, I have heard that the two women have since passed away. Their
songs still ring in my ears as we commemorate the 84th anniversary of
the forced migration of goryeoin to Central Asia this year.