Childhood Helping others and getting scolded for it

Father speaks on his childhood

Sun Myung Moon

September 2007

Helping others and getting scolded for it

When I was about eleven years old, I announced to my father that I would sell a huge bag full of rice (about eighteen liters' worth) to help someone. I remember even now carrying that enormous bag of rice on my back and walking a distance of twenty li. I should have had a rope or a cord to make it easier to carry such a large bag, but I just carried it on my back. My heart was quivering. [Father laughs.] My heart was beating fast and I had to go huh! huh! many times. I still remember that, even now. I'm sure I will not forget it for the rest of my life. All of these things allowed me to be in a position to go the way of the providence.

Our family was not that poor at that time. We were keeping bees then. We had several hundred beehives. In rural areas, there were places where people had no light because they had no oil for their lamps. I could not give them gasoline, so I gave them candles made from beeswax. At least then they could have candlelight. After doing that, though, I couldn't stand it because my heart was still not at ease. So I broke open most of the beehives to make beeswax and distributed it to all the villagers. Do you have any idea how much money that was worth in those days? I was only a child at that time; how could I know? My father severely scolded me over that. [Laughter]

Centering on our family, there was this kind of relationship with our neighbors in my home village. Did only Moons live in that village? No. People with other names such as Lee and Kim also lived there. As it happened, though, all the elders of the Moon clan tried to exclude other people because the majority of the people in the village were Moons. If, however, my father or my grandfather would not lend anything to someone, I always took it and gave it to the person.

When one of my poor friends brought a lunch box with only cooked millet or wheat in it, I could not eat my own lunch by myself. I exchanged lunch boxes with him and ate his lunch. Also, if one of my friends' mother or father was sick but did not have the money to go to the hospital, I went to my parents and begged them in tears to pay, so that they would be able to go to the hospital. I asked my parents, "Will you pay or not?" If they said no, I would tell them I was going to sell this or that thing and to please understand that I was in need of money.

If you go to a Korean rural area, they often make beombeok rice cake [made of mixed grains with the consistency of thick porridge] using a steamer. They put the steamer in a high place with a branch on it so that dogs or cats can't touch it.

When winter comes, the beombeok rice cake is allowed to freeze. If you put that frozen rice cake under the lid of a rice cooker and simmer it there, it becomes very soft and tender. I took our beombeok rice cake and gave it to the village children. We made enough to eat for a month, but it was gone in a few days. I was scolded because of that too.

I helped many friends and others. In doing so, I become very well acquainted with people. Not only with the people in our village but with people within ten li of my house. I was well aware of how various people lived.

When I was twelve years old, I was also good at gambling. After three games, I would win all the money. After the first game, I might win 120 won. During the time we were under Japanese rule, 120 won was a large amount of money. At that time, university tuition was 80 to 120 won a year and a cow sold for seventy to eighty won. A bag of rice was one won and ten jeon. [Jeon, a defunct monetary unit equal to one-hundredth of a won.] For poor, miserable village children, I made a final bet and used the money to buy a container full of starch syrup, all of which I gave to the children to eat.

I had an uncle who was very selfish. There was a melon field beside the road where the village children often went. All the children were crazy about the melon smell. My uncle made a lookout shed, so that he could look over the melon field. He also never picked even one melon for them. So, one day I said, "Anyone who wants to eat melons come with a sack." When midnight came, I told them to pick every melon in every row. [Laughter] I then hid the melons in a field of bush clover and told them when to come and eat them. The children came even before daylight and ate until their stomachs were full. After that, there was a big fuss. I was the only one who would do such a thing. [Laughter]

Also, I had an agreement with my sisters' husbands that whenever they came, no matter how much money I took and used from their wallets, they would accept it. They told me to come to their homes often. When I visited them, I had already made that agreement with them, so I was able to take money whenever I needed it. I bought candies and grain syrup for the poor children in the village. This was not a bad thing to do.

A stubborn personality

If I started crying, I kept on crying even for more than an hour. My nickname was the-all-day-crying baby. They gave me this nickname, because I would cry on and on.

Old men and women in the neighborhood all came and watched me cry. When I cried, I was so noisy that I woke up people sleeping throughout the whole village. When I cried, I did not just sob; I cried continuously as though something serious had happened. My throat swelled, my voice became husky and later I completely lost my voice. [Laughter] Also, I did not just sit there crying. Because I jumped up and down so much when I cried, I cut myself and started bleeding and the room became all bloody. You can now understand what kind of child I was.

Also, I never gave in. I would not give in even if my bones broke. I would not give in even if I died. Before I reached the age of discretion, in other words, before I reached my teens, if my mother scolded me for something that was clearly her mistake, I always replied, No! Even if she told me that she was right, I stood up to her and argued with her. Isn't that incredible? Once, I was spanked so many times that I fainted, but I still refused to give in.

I was like that to my grandfather as well. I would give advice to my grandfather. When he tried to teach me a lesson and he was holding his [tobacco] pipe. I asked him, "When you scold your grandson, should you be doing so with a pipe in your hand? Is that the tradition of our clan?" In that way, I threw my grandfather's words back at him. What could he say? In the beginning, he underestimated his small grandson, but later he said, "You're right. I should put this away." In ways like this, by the time I was twelve years old, my grandfather, my mother and father and my brothers and sisters were all under my thumb.

When I was young, when I fought a person, I could not sleep for three or four months if I could not make him surrender to the point that not only he but his parents also gave in. I did not leave that family alone. I'm a very tough man. I'm a person who absolutely hates losing. I've never lost. I did anything to win. I've never even imagined losing.

People said, "The younger son of that family that came from Osan, once he determines to do something, he will definitely do it."... If I said I would do something, I did it. People all knew that. If I got involved, for anyone who stood against me, there was no alternative but to give up. My mind was satisfied when three generations, including the person's grandparents, submitted to me...

Once, someone made my nose bleed and then ran away. I waited in front of his house for thirty days and at last, his parents gave in to me. They gave me a steamer full of rice cakes, which I took home. [Laughter]

People of my generation, in those days, played Ddak-ji a lot. [A still popular children's game where cardboard is folded, akin to origami, to form flat squares (with a printed design indicating front and back). The squares are slammed down on top of opponents' squares. The object is to overturn others' squares and claim them for oneself.]

Do you know what Ddak-ji is? [Yes.] I played it very well. Also, penny pitching. You pitch coins against a wall and whichever one goes the farthest from the wall wins. I used to play using a hole in the ground with the winner being the one whose coin got into the hole or closest to it. I was a champion at that.

When I was young, when I arm-wrestled with anyone my age, I never lost. I never lost at wrestling either. If a man can do those things, he is very useful. Don't you think so? [Laughter] To give you an example, there was a boy in my village who was three years older than I. I wrestled with him once but lost. I'm sure those who have experienced living in a rural area would understand. When spring comes, acacia trees suck up water, and if you peel the outside layer, it peels off completely just like pine tree bark. The peeled off layer of that tree is very tough. With the guy who had beaten me in mind, I wrestled against an acacia tree, saying, "Oh that guy! I'm not going to eat until I sit on him." For the next six months, I couldn't sleep well until I had knocked that boy down and sat on him. Until then, I forgot about eating and sleeping. I'm that kind of a determined person.

A sense of justice

When I was young, I often fought in one place or another. If I came across a big boy punching a small boy in my village, I exchanged places with the small boy and fought for him.

Whenever I came across boys fighting, I watched them fight for a while. If the bad boy was winning, I went in and fought for the losing boy. I went into the fight saying, "Hey you! You are wrong!" If I thought it was the right thing to do, I was a person who would fight at the risk of my life. Everyone in my village was afraid of me...

Before I was ten years old, all the kids within twenty li were my followers. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be in your village on such and such a day," and with all the other kids we went and had a group fight. We engaged in that kind of roughhousing. If a boy came to me in tears, saying he had been beaten up and told me who was responsible, I went, "Oh, yeah?" and confronted the bully myself, even if it meant having to go without sleep that night. When I found him, I'd call him out and protest against his behavior. "Hey, you!" I'd say, "You beat up my friend, didn't you? How many times did you hit him? I'll teach you!"

When young unmarried men harassed young women passing by, I stood up to them. I'd say, "Could you guys do that if she were your sister?"...

I had a very impatient and stubborn temperament. If I thought I was right, I never hesitated. I could only sleep if I had settled everything I'd intended to. If I hadn't, I just couldn't sleep.

Full of curiosity

When I was twelve years old, I visited the grave of my great-grandfather. I saw his corpse when it was dug up and moved to a different location. I was very surprised. I thought, "When a person dies, he becomes like that. The eyes and flesh have all disappeared, only the bones remain."

You have all seen a skeleton, right? When I saw the skeleton, I felt, "Oh, are those the bones of a human being? My parents or my grandparents explained to me what my great-grandfather had looked like, but looking at the bones, he looked terrible. I thought that if my parents look like that, I must also look like that. I agonized over this a lot.

If an old man in the village died, I had to ask why he had died. I just could not live without knowing. If I did not know why he had died, I was so curious about it that I always went even to the funeral and asked how he had died. That sort of behavior led me to know very clearly what was happening in the village.

I was so curious about everything that was going on. When I went to another village and saw an old man shoveling dung, I did not just pass by. Other people all held their noses because of the smell, but I was curious to know what kind of nose the old man had that kept him from being bothered by the smell. What had happened to his nose? I was so curious about that. I thought it was strange, so I had to go and ask.

When my mother gave me an apple or a melon, I always asked where she got it. My mother would say, "From where? Your brother brought it from somewhere." Then I'd asked, "Which field did it come from?" If he had brought it from a field, I'd ask if an old woman had picked it, a man, a young man, or a young woman? I was so curious about these things.

I had many sisters. There were six of them. There were six young women in my family, and they each had a bag. [Laughter] We all lived in the same house, but they all had individual bags. My elder sister's was the biggest. It was this big. The younger they were, the smaller the bag. I was in the middle.

It was so interesting to find out what was inside those bags. [Laughter] If you look inside an owl's house, everything is there. My sisters' bags were just like that.

An eight-year-old matchmaker

When I was small, if I said it would rain that day, it did. Once I sensed that someone in our village would die within a week, and an old woman from the village actually passed away. There were many episodes like this.

I was already different. Sitting in my village, if I sensed that some old man from a particular family from the upper village was not feeling well, he would become sick. I was right. I knew everything.

Since I was eight years old, I've been a champion of matching people. If someone brought two pictures for me to look at and if I predicted that the couples lives would not go well were they to marry, it proved to be correct. When I threw a picture away, it was because that couple's fortune was bad, and they would go wrong. If I just put it down, it meant things would go well. Those who married all had children and lived a good life... I have been doing this since I was eight years old. I'm now close to eighty, so I must be a professional by now right? Just by looking, or smelling, I understood. By simply looking at how a person sat down or smiled, I understood everything clearly.

How other Moons saw Father

I was the younger son of a family from Osan. I was the second son, born as Heaven's beloved who would be the savior and pride of the Moons. If you asked anyone, everyone knew this.

Not only our immediate family, but even my uncle respected me more than his own children. My uncle said, "Where's Yong-myung? [Father's name at birth] Where's that good singer, Yong-myung?" My uncle loved me more than he loved his own children. When we came home from school, my uncle wouldn't buy candy for his children even if they asked him to; instead, he would take money that might have gone for candy and put it in my back pocket without my noticing. When I asked, "What's this?" He said, "What do you mean, 'what's this?' I'm giving it to you for your tuition." So I asked, "Why? You are not even able to give your children an education." And he replied, "Yeah, well, my children are like this, like that, but if you do well, my children will be blessed." He thought that they would be blessed through me.

Moon Gyung-chun was my father's cousin. He lived next door to us. He was short and fat. My father was the oldest son in his family, and I was his second son. That cousin of my father's always said, "That young kid was born in the wrong age. That kind of a boy could only become a king or a traitor. He can't become a king nowadays, so there's nothing left for him to become but a traitor." Relatives of mine still sometimes tell this story too, right? [Yes.]

1926-1932: Studying Chinese Classics

When I was ten years old, I had to read a book a day at my village school. I finished it in thirty minutes. If I concentrated, I could get everything into my brain within thirty minutes. I then had to recite it in front of my teacher. If I could memorize everything in thirty minutes, how could I sit all day long in class reciting what Confucius and Meng-tzu7 had said? [Laughter] My teacher often used to take a nap during the day, so after finishing everything, I used to go and spend time in the mountains while my teacher was sleeping.

Originally, Korean life was close to Confucianism. I read The Analects of Confucius and Meng-tzu. [A Chinese philosopher (circa 371-circa 289 B.C.); he is also known as Mencius, which is what he was called in Latin.] I was a person talented in all directions. I was good at drawing pictures, too. When I was twelve years old, I drew stylish Chinese characters for my village school.

When I went to the village school when I was small, my teacher gave a lecture on several verses from The Analects of Confucius and Meng-tzu. The next morning, we had to recite that lecture back to the teacher. If we could not, we were punished. I remember being punished.

1933: Unyong Institute

In those days, there were prep schools for entering higher schools, such as college. Mine was in Wonbong-dong. You could go to a prep school before the government assigned you to a higher school, but you had to go and take a test before going being assigned to the higher school. A prep school was an in between educational institution. I encouraged my cousins to go to prep school.

We did research before choosing a school. In April, we all had to go to school. My parents had paid all the money for tuition to this village school, but I wanted to escape from that school without even going there for a year. I had persuaded my parents, my grandfather and even my uncle by saying, "When other people are building airplanes, I can't just be studying Confucius and Meng-tzu." I laid the foundation of my arguments in that way.

I was a very ambitious person. I thought I would die if I could not get three doctorates in my lifetime. However, I now think of a doctorate as among the easiest things to get...

1934: Osan Elementary School

I studied at Unyong prep school and then entered what was called a general school, Osan elementary school. I took an examination to transfer and entered the third grade there. I studied so desperately that my grades for the year were good enough for me to be permitted to skip to the fifth grade. [This was Father's first Western-style education after seven years of Confucian-style schooling.]

At that time, I walked twenty li to school. This was when I went to the Osan School. How far is that? [Eight kilometers.] I walked eight kilometers to school every day. Because I always passed the houses of other children who lived on the way to school at exactly the same time every day, if they left home with me, we were never late for school. It was almost scientific. Children were therefore waiting for me on every mountain pass. [Laughter] When I walked, I walked very fast. I walked the eight kilometers in an hour or even forty-five minutes. Those following me were working very hard! [Laughter] There are many stories like this about me.

My parents never had the need to prepare school things for me. I did everything by myself. Even when I had to take an oral examination in front of the headmaster, I arranged everything myself. I was a pioneering type.

Dukhung Presbyterian Church

I was born in a very stable Confucian family in a northern province of Korea. When I was a little over ten years old, my entire family converted to Christianity. Converting was for me deeply moving. I really loved my new faith, and I loved Jesus more than I had loved anyone else in my life.

When I was small, whenever I was late for a service, I could not raise my head. Without repenting for several days, I could not walk with my head raised. I still remember this clearly. I always felt that if I arrived late, it would inconvenience all the other people attending the service, so I always tried to arrive at the service a little before it began. I tried to be as helpful as possible.

I'm sure you all know that Korea then was a small, miserable Asian country under Japan's control. I did not grow up in an independent, sovereign state. I grew up under Japanese sovereignty, Japanese tyranny. That was how it was until I was twenty-five. I recall gradually beginning to understand the world during that important stage of my life, my youth; it was a time when as a Korean without independence I came to understand all of life's difficult circumstances. If I look at the situation from the providential viewpoint, I grew up within my nation's difficult circumstances. The misery of my people who were living under another nation caused feelings to arise from deep in my heart. My memories are of a youth spent thinking of how to deal with the situation of my country.

Transferring to the Fourth Grade

The Osan School prohibited the use of Japanese. We weren't allowed to speak that language. Lee Sung-hun, who was one of the thirty-three signers of the Korean Declaration of Independence from Japan, had established the school. With that kind of tradition as the school's foundation, we simply could not speak Japanese.

When I thought about it, I felt we needed to understand our enemies very well. Unless we thoroughly understood our enemies, we could not prepare to fight against them when we had to. For that reason, I took a transfer exam for Chongju General School, a public elementary school, where I had to enter the fourth grade, which I otherwise would have skipped. I learned to speak Japanese fluently there, and I graduated from there. During this process, I was thinking about all the difficult questions and basic problems of life, such as the proper way of faith.

At school, we all had to learn Japanese. It seems like only yesterday that I studied hiragana and katakana. [Japanese alphabets] I memorized everything in one night. I also memorized all the books of the first, second, third and fourth grades like a thunderbolt in just two weeks. After doing that, my ears were used to it.

At this school, for the first time, I hung up pictures I drew. I hadn't even been taught how to draw, but I knew it already. Before I began drawing, I divided the picture into thirds. I measured whether the picture fitted within the divisions of a plane. Based on the center point, I measured it. If my drawing paper was three times bigger, based on the center point, I drew dots first in the places that matched. That's how I drew.

In my early years, when I used a notebook, I did not start writing where the lines were. I always started from the white margin area at the top of the page. At times, I even wrote on top of what I had written before. In that way, I was able to write more things in a single notebook. We must appreciate the value of things.

From the time I was an elementary school student; I watched the school principal's behavior and continuously trained myself to live as he did. Even now when I pray, I focus on things I learned back then.

Have you all seen a kerosene lamp? [Yes.] It seems like yesterday that I studied while pouring the kerosene in like this. When I studied until two or three o'clock, my parents would say to me, "Hey! Go to sleep. You're going to ruin your health." They always talked like that. In those days, my closest friends were the night insects. I made friends with them during the hot summer season.

I still remember what happened at the Chongju Elementary School graduation ceremony. Many fathers, brothers, teachers and supporters came to Chongju to celebrate on graduation day. At that time, Chongju was a town. At the graduation ceremony there was a speech by the headmaster and then a congratulatory speech by a guest. After that, I volunteered to go on stage and speak. I gave an anti-Japanese speech. I still remember this very clearly. I can still see myself giving that speech in front of all those people. When I think about that, I realize I did not have the temperament of an ordinary boy.