Amazing Grace through Depressions by Hi-Dong Chai

TM

Amazing Grace through Depression
My American Journey
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2019 Hi-Dong Chai
v4.0

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the
opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal
right to publish all the materials in this book. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect
the privacy of individuals.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic,
electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.
http://www.outskirtspress.com

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-9772-0201-7

Cover Photo © 2019 David C. Chai. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my loving family:
Phyllis, my wife

David and Honey, my son and daughter-in-law
Julie and George, my daughter and son-in-law

Ellis, my grandson

Acknowledgements

Appreciation goes to:
Professor David C Chai for designing the book cover.
Dr. Lori Stone Handelman for editing my manuscript,

Jana Mcburney-Lin who mentored me in the art of
creative writing.

Friends who encouraged me along the way.



=

CHOOSE A MOUNTAIN TOP

START CLIMBING

=PERSIST



=

REMEMBER:
EVEN MONKEYS FALL FROM TREES.

IF YOU WANT TO SUCCEED,

=DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAIL



Table of Contents

From the Author.................................................................................... i
Chapter 1: February, 1953—Farewell.................................................. 1
Chapter 2: Spring, 1953—Shelton Middle School in New York .......... 7
Chapter 3: Summer, 1953—Lakeside Bible Conference, NY ............ 33
Chapter 4: Fall, 1953 to Spring, 1955—Stony Brook School, NY ..... 66
Chapter 5: Fall, 1955 to Spring, 1960—Austin, Texas .....................106
Chapter 6: Fall, 1960 to Spring, 1962—Columbus, Ohio ...............141
Chapter 7: Fast Forward, 1962-2002 ...............................................164
Chapter 8: Amazing Grace through Depression..............................177
About the Author .............................................................................199



From the Author:

It was 1953. The Korean War was raging with no end in sight. In
another year, I would be 17 years old and would be drafted to fight
the enemy. My mother already had lost several of her loved ones
through World War II and the Korean War. She did not want see her
last son going to the front line, to be shot by an enemy bullet, fall to
the ground and die.

At that time, the war-weary, hungry Koreans felt that America was
the kingdom of heaven on earth, where money trees grew in abun-
dance. My mother felt the same way. One cloudy February morning,
she put me on a freighter, heading for America, where I would be safe
and get a good education.

In America, I found no money trees that I could climb and pick
a few dollars to pay for my daily expenses. I washed dishes, thou-
sands a day. I started my life in Flushing, NY. From there I jour-
neyed to Stony Brook, Long Island, then to Austin, Texas, and then to
Columbus, Ohio, Andover, MA, Boston, MA, Binghamton, NY, and
finally to San Jose, CA, to study, work, and teach. After retiring in
2002, I decided to share my life experiences with the world. Since
then, I have published:

ƒ My Truest Hope, my born-again experience walking through
a major depression, published by Guideposts Magazine,
August, 2012.

ƒ Blossoms and Bayonets, a fictionalized story of my brother,
Hi-Seung, during World War II under Japan, co-authored with
Jana McBurney-Lin, Redwood Publishing, 2012.

ƒ Shattered by the Wars, a story of my family during World
War II under Japan and during the Korean War, Inspiring
Voices, 2013. In December, 2016, Christian Faith Publishing

i

published Shattered by the Wars with the new title, Sustained
by Love thru the Wars.
Amazing Grace through Depression: My American Journey, is a
story of a young Korean boy coming to America and overcoming ob-
stacle after obstacle to get a PhD and attain his childhood dream.
When he felt that he didn’t have to struggle any longer, he fell into a
major depression. This depression took him to the brink of no return.
Then in a therapist’s office, he experienced God’s amazing grace and
found the inner peace and freedom that he had never thought pos-
sible to experience in this world. This inner peace and freedom are
still with him to this day.
More information can be found at www.hidongchai.com

ii

Chapter 1

February, 1953—Farewell

It was a chilly afternoon, with temperatures hovering around 40
degrees F. The sky over Busan Harbor was overcast, with dark clouds
threatening rain. The wind seemed calm, but the dark blue waves
rocked the boats at the pier up and down as the Sea Serpent, a freight-
er, inched slowly out of the harbor.

Half an hour earlier I had stood on the deck of the Sea Serpent,
holding onto the cold railing, looking down toward the wet pier with
a forced smile, where my friends and family stood looking up to bid
me farewell. Dock workers scurried around with heavy loads, some
with A-frames strapped on their backs to carry freight and some with
clanging carts. The gray concrete pier was wet with puddles of water
from the overnight rain. I wanted to cry out and let go of the tears
welling up inside me, but I reminded myself that I was Tarzan, not
a mushy bean curd, as my brother Hi-Seung had taught me. A man,
not a child. A sixteen-year-old man ready to face life alone in a land
called America. I reminded myself that Hi-Seung had left home at
fifteen to save our father from a Japanese prison. Lucky you, I thought,
you are going to America to study, not to fight to kill Americans, as the
Japanese had expected Hi-Seung to do.

Stuffing aside the many emotions swirling inside me, I looked
down at my mother looking at me. She stood in her fifty-eight-year-
old feeble frame, leaning onto her daughter’s arm for support. The
hem of her gray, traditional coat almost touched the ground, and she
had wrapped a light brown shawl around her neck to keep warm. I
knew the wrinkles etched on her face—gifts of her years of hardship
and suffering—and I saw her eyes devoid of any expression. The Sea

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HI-DONG CHAI

Serpent rolled slowly sideways by the incoming waves.
I had watched the sailors busily untying the lines from the pier as

our 4pm departure time approached. One by one, the heavy ropes
were loosened and the huge, rusty anchor was raised from the sea.
With the help of several tug boats, the Sea Serpent, twice the length
of a basketball court, separated from the dock, moving ever so slowly
with the long, drawn-out moan of the fog horn, sounding like the
sound of doom. ‘Today is the last time you’ll see your mother,’ it
seemed to say. Mother had jerked toward me, but my sister held her
in place. She looked up at me, her face desperate and her eyes round
and her lips seeming to speak.

I wanted to jump from the boat and swim to Mother. My thoughts
raced toward her: Please let me get out of here, I don’t want to go to
America. I want to be with you, Mother. I want to be with you. With
the war going on, you may all be killed, and I may never see you
again. I wanted to jump into the dark, cold water of the sea and swim
back to join them, but another part of me scolded, Think of Mother,
how sad she must feel, sending her youngest son to a far-away coun-
try. She may be wondering whether she will survive the war to see
me again, but she is sending me away so that I will be safe and able
to get a good education. What a courageous woman she is. Bravely, I
put my left hand on the rail in front of me, lifted my right hand high in
the sky and yelled aloud, “Mother, please take good care of yourself
until my return.”

Already the boat had moved three ship lengths. As it picked up
speed, the separation between us began to widen rapidly. I took a
handkerchief from my pocket and waved it in the air. I could still see
the faces of those on the deck. Mother stood there without moving
while others waved their handkerchiefs. In time, Mother’s face be-
came smaller and smaller, and the fluttering handkerchiefs became
small dots. I couldn’t maintain my brave smile any longer. I felt des-
perate. I felt a strong urge to jump overboard and swim toward her.
The cloudy sky seemed darker, and the inky water seemed murkier.
The fog horn sounded again as Mother and all the people waving

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AMAZING GRACE THROUGH DEPRESSION

their handkerchiefs turned into nothingness. My heart tore with pain,
and I felt that it was the end of my life. I will not be able to see her
for many years, I thought. Worse still, I might never see her again in
this life.

The night before, she had held my hands and prayed for me
with a teary voice. She said, “Dear Father in heaven, You have given
my mangnei—my youngest son—the precious opportunity to go to
America to study and become the person that You want him to be. As
You have kept him safe through all these years, please keep him safe
in America. I know how hard it is for him to leave home. Please let
him know that You are always with him even though we will not be
with him. Please give him wisdom to know Your will and the courage
to carry it out. Dear God, please take good care of him.”

After the prayer, she had pulled off the gold ring from her finger
and placed it on my finger, saying, “Wear this and remember that I
will be with you in spirit and in my prayers.”

As I stood alone on the deck facing Busan Harbor, the memory of
her suffering during World War II and the Korean War flashed through
my head in full, living color.

I remembered how she had kept us from going hungry during
World War II, under Japanese rule. Father was in prison because he
was a Christian minister who had refused to walk up to the Shinto
temple and bow down to the picture of their emperor. In order to feed
and clothe us, she made dresses for her friends’ families until the wee
hours of the morning, while the rest of the family slept. She walked
miles to get a sack of rice from a farm because the rice near our home
was too expensive. Even as an eight-year-old child, I felt very sad to
see her coming home from the farm all exhausted and weary. But still
she managed to smile when she saw us.

I remembered her face, her look of helplessness, when her fif-
teen-year-old son, Hi-Seung, told her that he was going to Japan to
join the Japanese army in the hope of having our father released from
prison. When the war ended, she watched her eighteen-year-old son
return home as an injured man, and then she watched him die a year

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HI-DONG CHAI

later. During the early years of the Korean War, I remember seeing her
watch helplessly as her husband was taken away by the Communists,
never to return.

Minutes passed and the dock itself was no longer visible, but I
could still see the dirt hills covered with barracks, where refugees from
the northern part of South Korea were struggling to survive through
rain and cold, hoping that the war would come to a quick end. The
barracks were built with cardboard boxes and flattened metal cans
that the refugees collected from the GI trash bins. The roofs leaked
when it rained, and the pounding rain turned the roofs into drums.
Cold winter winds shook the barracks, and the people inside them
shivered without any heat. Lumber and roofing materials were not
available to build secure shelters; everything had gone into the war
effort to support the soldiers. I pictured my friends and their families
huddled together in those barracks, eating their meager meals and
shivering in the cold.

Goodbye, Mother. Your suffering has been my suffering. I am de-
termined to succeed in America. I want to replace your suffering with
pride and joy when your son comes back as a hero. When the people
of Korea welcome me, I will stand behind you and tell the people
that you are the one who deserves their accolades. Goodbye, Mother.
Goodbye, my people. I will be back and make you proud.

Farewell, my beloved country, the land of my birth, the land where
I have tasted the bitterness and futility of wars, and the land where

=my people have struggled for freedom under foreign powers for ages.

Farewell.

For more than two weeks, the Sea Serpent did not seem to go
anywhere except up and down, up and down, tossed by the giant
waves of the Pacific Ocean. I was bored. Bored seeing the dark, gray
waves day after day. Bored eating the same greasy food prepared by

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AMAZING GRACE THROUGH DEPRESSION

fat cooks day after day. Bored listening to the foul language of the
sailors at the table. Bored memorizing the words in Reader’s Digest.
Bored daydreaming about my new life in America. All I wanted was
to jump out of the boat, even praying, “Lord, please get me out of
here as soon as possible.”

After my seventeenth night’s sleep, I opened my eyes and gazed
out through the porthole, expecting to see the same old gray waves.
To my surprise, I saw a green mountain peeping at me. What’s this?
Am I dreaming? I looked around the room and saw the desk, the
chair, the door to the toilet. No, I’m not dreaming. What I see is really
a mountain!

I jumped out of the bed in my pajamas, rushed out to the deck
in bare feet, and beheld the vast panoramic view unfolding before
my eyes. I saw the land stretching from the north to the south, under
the blue sky dotted with white clouds. This was the America that I
had dreamed of since my childhood, and it seemed to be saying,
“Welcome, Hi-Dong. Welcome to the United States of America.”

I stood spellbound, watching the coastline stretching from the
north to the south. My journey would soon be over. I’d be landing in
San Francisco, the city I had heard so much about from my elders.
The Golden Gate Bridge. The tall skyscrapers. Chinatown. The Fish
Market. “A beautiful city just to walk around,” the elders had said. I
sure want to walk around the city when I get there. The sooner the
better.

I jumped up and down on the wet gray metal floor in my bare
feet, my hands tapping on the rail in front me as I sang my favorite
tune, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee… No
more seasickness. No more homesickness that had gripped me since
leaving home. In their places, excitement and anticipation filled my
heart. In a few hours, I will be stepping on the land of infinite possibili-
ties. The land where I will realize my childhood dream of becoming
the Edison of Korea, and make my mother and country proud.

As the boat inched closer to land, the golden sunlight from the
east was brightly coloring the clouds below the clear blue sky. I stood

5

HI-DONG CHAI
on the deck, marveling at the glistening skyscrapers turning larger and
larger by the minute as the boat moved closer to the San Francisco
harbor.

I rushed down to my cabin and opened all the drawers under
my bed, transferring my books, underwear, shirts, socks, and other
belongings into my suitcase. Then I remembered Mother’s words:
“Always clean up before you leave a place so that the next person
will feel comfortable.” With a damp cloth, I wiped all the drawers
under the bed, cleaned the floor and the toilet, and changed the bed
with fresh sheets. The place looked clean and nice. I picked up my
suitcase, said goodbye to my cabin, and quickly rushed out to the
deck to greet my new country, the United States of America.

6