Submitted by D.B. Campbell
(Pak, Sung Yi (pronounced Bach) Born – unknown, about 1955)
I’ve spent some time in seventeen different countries in my career and run the gambit of cultures; from having to step over dead dogs in the streets, using the Japanese train system to make it cross country to my ship, or to using Spanish as the only common language to teach solitaire to an apprentice bar girl in Taipei, Taiwan. And I have loved it all. But a Korean spirit was infused into my young family by one very special lady.
I was a U.S. Navy Lieutenant stationed in Seoul, Republic of Korea, as part of the U.S. Forces Korea, United Nations Command from 1982 through 1986. I worked for USFK Comptroller and later USFK Public Affairs Office. Laura worked for American Express International Bank and later for U.S. 8th Army Missile Command as the only secretary who could get a Top Secret clearance to type the ‘special’ stuff.
In only six years my career had already covered two major Navy schools, a ship overhaul, and two 10-month ship deployments. Since you can’t start a family by mail, this posting in Korea was the first time Laura and I had a chance to even think about it.
We were Korean Government approved to live in a large multi-national apartment 
complex for junior military and mid-level embassy officers. Many of the families had Korean maids or nannys working for them. When Dugald Andrew Campbell was born 8 January 1984, and while Laura was still in Army 121st Evac Hospital, I was interviewing a young woman recommended through my Navy connections.
Miss Pak was previously with the family of a fellow naval officer LCDR Bishop who was returning to the States. Pak, Sung Yi was the junior daughter of a small Korean family with an older brother who was a doctor, older sister married to a professor, and only her father still alive. The brother may have been the professor with sister married to the Doctor; I never fully understood. Miss Pak didn’t receive the breaks her siblings did but being a maid/nanny to a foreign family was considered very professional and high class. Her self-taught foreign languages and schooling illustrated only the tip to her drive and intelligence. She was an amazing woman and a treasure to our young family. There were some funny disconnects mixing the two cultures.
When hired the first thing Miss Pak did was to start stockpiling ice cubes in our freezer. When the freezer was full and I asked her what all the ice was for she was taken aback saying she understood all American families used ice constantly. I found out later that the Bishop family was LDS (Mormon) and drank oodles of Kool-Aid and Tang.
Unlike Armed Forces Europe Network which was all cable, AFKN broadcast low power TV to the quarter million US service personnel and dependents in country. There was also an estimated shadow audience of 3 million Koreans. As part of USFK-PAO I was privy to the weekly official Korean Ministry of Culture complaint about the broadcasting of our American soap operas; all the while knowing that my own maid was addicted to General Hospital. During that hour each day together they watched her favorite show; Andrew sitting bare butt in his potty chair with his bottle and Miss Pak making a list of any words she didn’t understand for me to explain when Laura and I returned from work each evening.
When Andrew was two and a half we somehow acquired a Nerf ball/bat set and 
would go out and play hockey in the long apartment corridors. This was great fun. One night on the list appeared the words “Hall Hockey.” Miss Pak had been completely stumped as to what Andrew insisted they should go outside and do.
With 37 different nationalities represented in the apartment complex there was a fantastic mix of cultures to savor. The family across the hall was a junior diplomat of the Japanese Embassy. They had a little girl slightly older than Andrew and a Korean nanny also. They kids played together most of their young lives. One morning while Laura and I were getting ready for work Andrew came in and rattled off a long sentence to his Mom full of mixed English, Korean, and Japanese words. Laura explained she didn’t understand and after two repeated attempts, a frustrated Andrew returned with Miss Pak by the hand, told her what he wanted, and then pointed at his Mom for Miss Pak to translate for him.
When Andrew was young we played this game we called “The Flying Garbanzo Brothers.” Andrew would sit on my shoulder while I held his legs. He would then, with no fear, launch himself out into thin air while I would swing him down through my legs and then back up to land on my shoulders to await the blood to drain back out of this head. When Miss Pak first saw this stunt she was outraged. You just didn’t take chances with your first born son like that! It went against everything in her culture not treat the ‘number one son’ as the prince on a pedestal.
We informed Miss Pak that parents were coming all the way from the U.S. for a visit. She started cleaning every nook and cranny for weeks. I asked her what was up and she said she may not have enough time to get the apartment respectable for “royalty arriving” like the parents of the head of the house. When I informed her that it was Laura’s parents and not mine she was so chagrinned. She never had to do all this work for ‘only’ the parents of ‘just’ the wife. During their two visits in the four years we were over there Miss Pak became great friends with Laura’s parents Bob and Maureen Brown.
Laura and I could trust her to accomplish almost anything for our family. We had a gas BBQ grill which was shipped over with our household goods but without gas for safety. But it turned out there was no way to get gas on the base. I explained one day to Miss Pak what the stupid thing taking up space on our balcony was for, but that it couldn’t work. A couple of days later she reported that the gas bottle was full. She had used her connections to get it filled somehow. This doesn’t seem like much until you understand that Korea cooks and heats with charcoal and gas was mostly unheard of. Also, Korea considers itself at war with its terrorist neighbor (North) and civilians would never be allowed to just buy “bomb makings” like that. She was amazing.
When Vanessa was adopted Miss Pak accepted her like a daughter also. It was sometimes painfully obvious that Miss Pak loved our children as if they were her own. She was an integral part of our family and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life when we had to return to the U.S. and say goodbye. Throughout their lives growing up I could see small influences left on Andrew and Vanessa’s personalities from their loving and caring nanny. There is a Korean Spirit that still touches my family.
While cooking was not one of her normal duties, maybe twice a month Laura would ask Miss Pak to make her delicious fried rice and fried chicken. She would cook the rice minus the meat from the recipe below since the fried chicken would be on the side. Where did this young Korean woman learn to make American style fried chicken? Miss Pak was a woman of many talents and self taught citizen of many cultures who had never ventured out Korea in her life. I still have the original paper recipe as she wrote it out for Laura.
Miss Pak’s Korean Fried Rice
Recipe will make six to eight cups of finished rice
for about 10 servings.
6 Cups Cooked Rice
1 Cup pre-cooked meat of some kind (strip sliced)
2 Cups Onion, chopped
1 Stone-leek, Welch, or green onion
4 cloves Garlic
½ Teaspoon Sesame oil
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Soy sauce
½ Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Whiskey
1. In a large wok or frying pan fry garlic in oil, sugar, salt, and soy sauce mixture. Reduce heat from high to medium.
2. Add chopped onion, leek and cook thoroughly.
3. Add meat to heat.
4. Add whiskey and then rice and stir-fry until liquid is absorbed and rice is well heated.
