Cho Hyun Su
Korea
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Transformation Translated in Korea
Years ago in Korea I remember feeling confined and pressured by my family (probably the kind of pressure you’d experience in any family) to get married, raise a family, and live the life they imagined for me. So I left my home in Seoul and moved to Singapore. I worked as an image consultant, and soon married a man I met there. A friend and mentor recommended The Landmark Forum to me -- I flew to Manila to participate in it. The Landmark Forum really changed my life. It gave me an opportunity not only to see myself in a whole new light, but also the opportunity to reassess my life and what was important to me. I guess I always knew at some level, but it became crystal clear to me that my marriage wasn’t working and I had to make a change. I got divorced and returned to Korea with my two children.
Because single mothers were not well thought of in Korea, it was the worst situation my aunt and my friends in Seoul could imagine. They were quite upset. My aunt would say, “Oh my goodness, you came back with your two children and you got divorced and you’re so young. How are you going to live in this country? How will you feed your children and make a living? What will people think?” But thanks to Landmark Education, I had a sense of myself -- I knew who I was and that I was able to design the life I’d always wanted to live. Instead of thinking I had to live somebody else’s life in terms of what I was supposed to do or should do, I was creating my own.
A year later, I met a man who became my husband, and now we have twins. My husband has done The Landmark Forum -- I took my father, my stepmother, my husband, my in-laws, some of my friends, and my four children to Bangkok so he could participate and so the others could see what it was all about.
Before my husband completed the program he was kind of frustrated with his relationship with his parents. They didn’t quite see things his way and he couldn’t see things their way, so he made them wrong. In Korea, a tradition is that we get together with family during the Chinese New Year. For my husband, this was always an occasion he dreaded – every year he said it was the worst day of his life. After he did The Landmark Forum everything changed. He began sharing his love with both his parents and Chinese New Year, from then on, was a great, great day. He saw his family -- not as the ones causing him all the trouble, instead he was able to see them as just doing whatever they were doing, and that they were truly wonderful people. It was a miracle, actually. Seeing him get free from something that had been so painful for much of his life was inspiring to me.
From seeing the difference The Landmark Forum made in my life and my family’s, I decided I wanted to be active in bringing the program to Korea, so more people could have that experience. With the support of Jerome Downes, the executive responsible for Asia and also a Landmark Forum leader, I took the initiative in the program being offered here, in Seoul.
I contacted other graduates who lived in Korea -- I think there were about 20 of us. Some of them did The Landmark Forum in Singapore, others in New York, others in Manila; Han Dana, a remarkable human being, had connections with many other graduates all over the world, and connected them to me. They gladly and immediately joined with me in the conversation to bring the program here -- and it came to fruition.
I also had the privilege of being the translator (from English into Korean) for The Landmark Forum. It really was kind of like being a Landmark Forum leader for me. It was just a pure flow from the Landmark Forum leader to the participants and from the participants back to the Landmark Forum leader -- but it went through me on the way. It was a remarkable and very moving experience.
Many of the participants shared with me at the breaks and after the program was over. For example, a 70-year-old man who was in the Korean War came up to share with me at the end that when he was very young he made a decision he had to be big, strong, and couldn’t show any vulnerability. He was “driven” to be successful and tough. Out of his participation, he let himself be tender, loving, and vulnerable, and now it no longer meant that he was a small or weak person. Instead, he could share his love and feelings for his family without holding back, and if anything it was a new strength and joy he was experiencing for the first time.
Even my husband’s ex-wife shared, saying that she’d been trying to be both mother and father for her children and she realized it wasn’t working. She said she could now give that up and just be herself. She realized that even if she was divorced, her children could still have their father in their lives, and that she could allow space for their father to be the father.
Seeing what happens in people’s lives leaves me very happy that this program is now available in my country.
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