Saturday, November 29, 2014

Surprises about my grandfather


I found a great bio of my grandfather on Baidu and I am having it professionally translated. Online translation sites just don't cut it. From what I can piece together, he was quite forward thinking, opening schools and organizing teachers unions. The biggest surprise? That he was a Communist in the 1920s. The book cover above is about a Dutch priest who was killed by Japanese soldiers when he refused to hand over girls who had sought refuge in his church. The priest is in the process of being beatified; his supporters want him to be the patron saint of victims of sex abuse. Apparently, my grandfather chronicled the incident and his writings are being used as documentary evidence in the Vatican application.

5 comments:

Sanchez said...

That is great. Would like to learn more things you discover about you grandfather so please us posted.

Don't you or your wife know Chinese good enough to translate it on your own?

Sanchez said...

your* keep us posted*

Maxichamp said...

@Sanchez: Unfortunately, we can't read Chinese.

Ed Kim said...

What an amazing trip of discovery you're taking. It's great that there's actual documentation about the things he did. Since I have never spoken Korean, there is so much about my grandparents I don't know, even though I know there were many amazing stories about all of them.

Anonymous said...

This is so amazing! I hope you keep sharing your findings on your grandfather. And that we can all feel motivated to learn more about our past, and thinking about those that came before us more complexely.