Korea RPCV Mike Erickson worked in Tuberculosis Control
Read and comment on this story from The Grand Island Independent on Korea RPCV Mike Erickson worked in Tuberculosis Control. When vaccination clinics were scheduled for schools, the word would go out, "Come and see the American try to talk Korean." "I was kind of the opening act," Erickson said. He said he was taught to say a few jokes in Korean and sing several Korean songs. When he began speaking or singing, the school children's mouths would drop open and "it could get absolutely silent." That would allow the Korean nurses to go up and down the aisles, passing out literature on tuberculosis. It also made for a quiescent group of students who were relatively easy to inoculate. Sometimes he would hear teachers and nurses admonish students, "You don't want to cry in front of the American. Show him how brave you are." Read the story at:
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Peace Corps makes a difference
Erickson came back from time a changed man
Last modified at 12:30 a.m. on Monday, February 10, 2003 web specials
By Harold Reutter hreutter@theindependent.com
Mike Erickson has a theory about why the late President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps as his first official act in office.
Erickson, a teacher at Grand Island Senior High, said Kennedy didn't create the Peace Corps solely to provide aid to developing countries.
He believes Kennedy created the Peace Corps primarily so Americans would better understand other cultures and other countries. Erickson said he believed that in the processing of experiencing other countries, Kennedy hoped Peace Corps volunteers would come to better appreciate America.
Erickson said the experience worked for him when he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea from 1970 to 1975.
"I was a midterm graduate," said Erickson, who noted that he saw a poster about the Peace Corps about the time he graduated. "I'd had enough of classroom work. I thought it would be a nice way to travel and see the world."
He said he took a language aptitude test and was assigned to Korea. The very first Peace Corps volunteers to Korea went to the country to teach people to speak English.
Erickson said he was one of the very first Peace Corps volunteers to be a health worker: "I was a TB worker."
"TB (tuberculosis) was endemic to Korea," Erickson said. "About one out of every three Koreans tested positive for TB. You couldn't do a skin test, because everyone was already exposed to TB."
Erickson said his job supposedly was to help vaccinate children against tuberculosis. In reality, his job was something else.
"I was the only American in the area," said Erickson, who noted that made him something of a curiosity.
When he first arrived in Korea, Erickson spent time with teachers who taught him to speak at least some rudimentary Korean. That also made him a rarity.
When vaccination clinics were scheduled for schools, the word would go out, "Come and see the American try to talk Korean"
"I was kind of the opening act," Erickson said.
He said he was taught to say a few jokes in Korean and sing several Korean songs. When he began speaking or singing, the school children's mouths would drop open and "it could get absolutely silent."
That would allow the Korean nurses to go up and down the aisles, passing out literature on tuberculosis. It also made for a quiescent group of students who were relatively easy to inoculate.
Sometimes he would hear teachers and nurses admonish students, "You don't want to cry in front of the American. Show him how brave you are."
Erickson said he played a similar role on "market day" in town. He and his co-workers would go to the market. Erickson said he had been taught to sing "beer-drinking songs."
When he started singing and laughing, he quickly drew large crowds. The spectacle allowed health workers to hand out literature and do tests for TB. Test results took a while to develop, so health workers made sure to tell people to come back in a month because the American would be back.
That inducement drew people back to get their test results and receive any necessary medicine.
"People in Korea slept all in one room," said Erickson, who said the close quarters made it easy for TB to spread. Therefore, it was important for people to take their medicine.
"Did I save any lives? -- No," said Erickson, who noted Korean health workers could do their jobs much better than he could.
As a result, Erickson said, he gave Koreans a 2 percent benefit by working with the Peace Corps, while he got a 98-percent benefit in return.
"I went over there and came back a completely different person," said Erickson, who spent two years as a teacher for the children of U.S. military personnel in Korea following his five years of Peace Corps service.
Part of that was because he really lived in the culture. As a Peace Corps volunteer, he was paid the country's prevailing wage rate. He also was encouraged to buy Korean shoes, a Korean coat or other Korean-made items rather than try to buy American goods. He lived in people's homes and he ate the typical Korean diet.
He also learned about Buddhism, which ended up making him appreciate his own Christian faith even more.
He once saw an English-language version of a Japanese newspaper, with an article about the Vietnam War. It made him realize how other people do not always see things the same way as people in this country.
All those experiences were summed up by perhaps his best friend in Korea. Because of their limited ability to speak each other's language, the friend said, "we had to climb out of our skins to communicate with each other."
In other words, they communicated by learning to see things from new points of view.
Erickson said his Peace Corps days influenced the composition of his family. He and his wife have twins of their own. They also have adopted three children from Korea, a child from India and an African-American child.
Today, children from the families he lived with and met in Korea now come to see him and his family in the United States. He said those visits happen about once or twice a year.
"That makes me feel as though I must have been a pretty good ambassador," Erickson said. More about Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Korea
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Korea; Special Interests - Secondary Education; Special Interests - Tuberculosis; Humor
