Local dignitaries (Suncheon mayor on the left) unveil a statue at Palma Stadium on Thursday afternoon. Photos from the Maesan High School photo gallery.
Suncheon's Maesan High School (매산고등학교) celebrated its 100th birthday on April 15th. That school, along with Maesan Middle School and Maesan Girls' High School, was founded by American missionaries F. Preston and Robert Thornwell Coit with the American Southern Presbyterian Mission. The three schools border one another in an interesting cluster of Suncheon missionary history, something I wrote more about in a a January 2008 post, and a heritage that's still visible up and down the peninsula today.
7 comments:
But wait... I thought it was the Japanese who brought all the modern schools and the modern medicine and everything. ;)
The missionary history is something that doesn't get much attention in Jeollanam-do, unfortunately, though they founded schools, hospitals, and TB clinics, and maintain them to this day.
ma san's Chang shin High is like 110 years old, I think. Ill have to check
BTW, the missionaries and such..they did most of the work to bring modernity to Korea.
from my studies, the huge burst in Christainity here came from the missionaries having the best goods after the war, ie provicians (sp, sry).
makes sense, these huge churches are just gye and social networking
I did some under-the-radar extra classes at Maesan Middle School. It was organized by one of the Korean men in the photo - this guy was amazing: He not only organized a huge Christmas party for the foreigner community (including not just English teachers - we were the minority, surrounded by Cambodians, Filipinos, Russians...), but also helped ex-pat women who had found themselves married to Korean men and lost in Suncheon. He gave them free Korean lessons, and would help them get to doctor's appointments etc. I wish I could remember his name...
Which man was it?
That's a nice story, Ms Parker.
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