An Open Letter to the Korean-American Club Members in the LW Village  
 (forwarded to the KAC President Kim Byung H.)*   Oct 31, 2012

 Greetings to those of you in residence at Laguna Woods Village.

 This fall season I am registered for an Introductory Spanish class, offered by Mr. Kim
Jae Kyung (a 1960 Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Graduate). He has volunteered to teach
this class of 23 students, currently registered, and meeting for 120 minutes regularly each week
in the PCM Pine Room. The main text book for the course is "Spanish Self-Teahing: the First
Step 1" (author: Park Chul). Few weeks ago, during a class discussion, I raised a question which
some students urged me to share with other fellow Korean American friends in the village. An
open letter was drafted and transmitted to the K.A. Club President Mr. Kim Byung H.

 I moved into this LWV about three years ago, and have taken a few foreign language
courses offered by various teahers, all of which I thoroughly appreciated and immensely enjoyed.
One of such courses was a "Conversational Chinese," offered by Grace Sams. During one class
meeting two years ago, I saw an interesting class scene, for which I was moved, and wanted to
share it with my classmates in the Spanish class.  One member in the class, a grandfather figure
of an American friend, mentioned and asked the teacher the following:  "I recently received a
Chinese young lady from Taiwan as my daugther in-law" but how do I say "I love you in the
Chinese?" 

 Listening to this exchnge my mind had a wide spin. I immediately felt that this story
would have a broader implication to other ethnic groups residing in this village community as
well. I felt as a retired person, with many years of teaching experience in the U.S. universities,
that this story is not an isolated case but would have a broad relevance to other ethnic groups
as well.  I immediately felt, for instance, as a Korean American educator, that my fellow Korean
compatriots would also have foreigners in their family ties, increasingly so in this age of globa-
lization. My first quesion was: "how come and why" there was no Korean language offered to
foreigners in this village.

 To achieve this objective we will need a set of volunteers who are willing to devote
their time as a Hangul language teacher. As a result of many e-mail exchanges and solitations
thus far, we now seem to have a set of volunteers who would offer their times and efforts to
team teach the Korean language and culture class starting on January 3, 2013. 

 This is a good news to celebrate. 

  Young W. Kihl
   2391 via Mariposa W., 1 H. , Laguna Woods Village, Ca 92637

*This is a gist of English translation version initially written in Hangul.