"There was a tale well known to children

all over Africa.

Abu Kassem, a miserly Bagdad merchant,

had held on to his battered, much repaired pair

of slippers even though they were objects

of derision.

At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight

of them. But his every attempt to get rid of

his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed

them out of his window they landed on the

head of a pregnant woman who miscarried,

and Abu Kassem was thrown in jail; when he

dropped them in the canal, the slippers

choked off the main drain and caused flooding,

and off Abu Kassem went to jail...

Another prisoner, a quiet, dignified old man,

said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special

room for his slippers. Why try to lose them?

He'll never excape.' The old man laughed,

and he seemed happy when he said that.

That night the old man died in his sleep."

"The old man was right.

The slippers in the story mean that

everything you see and do and touch,

every seed you sow, or don't sow,

becomes part of your destiny."

The above story is a quote from the fiction,

"Cutting for Stone," that I introduced

on this page.

I couldn't help asking myself a question,

"What would be my slippers?

I thought for a moment,

then I said to myself,"

"Being a Korean,

being one of alumni of SNUCMAA,

being one of immigrants to this country,

being a husband, a father and a grandfather,

and being a doctor

certainly would be my slippers.

I should build a special room for them

in my heart and embrace them all and

accept them all all the time."