by
Apr 18. 2021
Manchoon C. Kang
A Life (1924. 12. 7. – 2021. 4. 7.)
Professor Manchoon Chung Kang (해암海岩 강만춘姜萬春) passed away on Wednesday, April 7th, 2021. He was 96 years old, and died of natural causes in his sleep surrounded by his loving family.
Mr. Kang was born in Bucheon (now incorporated into Incheon) in Korea under Japanese rule on Sunday, December 7th, 1924. He was the third oldest and the second son among the five of the ten children of his parents to survive childhood. His father, Rev. Moonho Kang, was a Methodist minister, and his mother, Aeduk Chung, was a most devout and passionate Christian.
Both of them were originally from Asan and got married in 1904. His father converted to Christianity in 1908, fleeing his own Confucius family and hometown for Seoul to attend the Pierson Memorial Bible School from which he graduated in 1914. About three years prior to his birth, his parents moved to Bucheon—close to Incheon, Korea’s prominent port city about 15 miles west of Seoul—where he was born.
He grew up in a few different cities including Hoengseong, Hongcheon, and Jecheon, following his pioneer pastor father who was committed to founding new churches wherever the Methodist Church called him. Coming back to Incheon, he entered the Incheon Commercial School (modern day Incheon High School) in 1938. During his time at ICS, he had to comply with the soshikaimei (創氏改名) policy of the Japanese Colonial Government of Korea, which forced all the Korean subjects to change their original Korean name into a new one that would sound like a Japanese name. His father, who once got arrested and imprisoned for his active engagement with the March First Korean Independent Movement, refused to obey such order. In order to avoid the risk of being expelled from his school, however, Mr. Kang had to acquiesce in the coercive policy. He consulted with a few experts and gave himself a new Japanese name. Tracing back to the origin of his family (Kang of Jinju), he made his new family name as Oyama (大山) referencing, albeit rather secretly, to 大鳳山—a sacred mountain in the city of Jinju for those early Kangs. As for his given name, he put an indicator that shows his place as the second son within his immediate family: 次. In the early 1940s, he was called Oyama Hiroji (大山広次).
After graduation from the ICS, he worked at a Japanese fishery company. Thanks to his wits and work ethic, he got promoted rather quickly to deputy manager. In 1944, however, Japan’s conscription was extended to Korean men. Soon, he became drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. Unbeknownst to him, he was first sent to Manchuria (China) and then to Khabarovsk (Russia). As the specter of defeat loomed large on the side of Japan, he and few other Korean soldiers seized the moment and escaped from their dire predicament. He walked hundreds of miles along the bank of the river and the railroad, hopping on the train from time to time, until he finally arrived at his parents’ house in Incheon safely via his uncle’s place in Seoul.
Mr. Kang entered the Methodist Theological Seminary, aspiring to be a pastor just like his father. Soon did he learn though that a life of faith and service should not be confined to the ministry. That acknowledgment, owing in part to his disappointment and disillusionment with those self-assertive pastors and professors who were concerned mostly with their factional interests, opened up new horizons. He first studied and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Hongik University. But it was in the middle of the Korean War when he came to embrace a special calling to minister to others’ needs, especially those of the war orphans, refugees, and the poor, in a more concrete and structured way. Since then, his commitment to social work and social welfare had continued undiminished.
He enrolled in a newly established social work program at Joongang Seminary, which was the only place to study social work as an independent discipline in Korea at the time. He was one of those who received a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work for the first time in the nation. After that, he won a fellowship, awarded in a national competition administered collectively by Korean government and the International Cooperation Administration—a federal agency in the United States created in 1955—which was for a team of scholars, government officials, and young professionals to be sent to the United States for their advanced study and training. He attended the University of Southern California and earned a Master’s degree in Social Work. Much later, he also studied social policy as a doctoral student at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. In 2004, he was selected as one of the two recipients by his alma mater upon whom the university conferred an honorary doctoral degree for the first time.
Mr. Kang taught social work and social welfare at a few distinct higher educational institutions such as Joongang Seminary, Ewha Womans University, and Chung-ang University, worked for numerous government departments and agencies, including the Central Commission on Community Development (Deputy Director) and the Department of Everyday-Life Improvement (Director) as well as acted in an advisory capacity for a variety of governmental councils and committees.
After relocating himself to Maryland in 1976, he devoted most of his time and energy to helping senior Korean immigrants/Korean-American citizens of the region via a number of organizations and associations that he founded and helped grow such as the Sang-rok Association, the Sang-rok Institute for Continuing Education, and the Washington Christian Association for Social Service. In 1994, he accepted an invitation by the founder of こころの家族—a Japanese social service company specializing in assisting senior Korean-Japanese/Japanese citizens in Osaka, Japan—to work as a counselor and a social worker. For his unabated, decades-long commitments to social work and excellent public service, he was awarded several citations by President of the Republic of Korea, Governor of Maryland, Maryland General Assembly, and Kangnam University Alumni Association.
As an academic, a government official, and, most of all, a social worker himself, he had spent more than half a century for introducing and analyzing new social and educational systems, drawing up plenty of social welfare plans as well as organizing local communities in Korea, Japan, and the United States to meet their pressing needs and protecting their rights without ever losing his characteristic down-to-earth view of social welfare. He will be deeply missed by his family, friends, neighbors, and will always be remembered by them as a man of faith and integrity, high-minded discipline, and extraordinary love and devotion.
Written by Juman Kim (外孫)
April 13th, 2021
