My parents went to South Korea today for the first time. They have visited many countries after their retirement. I think the number of the countries where they visited would be more than 20. The local travel agency that they often use organized a tour to South Korea and invited them to participate in the tour.
They visited South Korea today for the first time but it's not the first time they'd talked with Koreans. This incident had already become null and void, so I'm going to talk about it here. It was about 40 years ago. See also; http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2006/11/travel-for-me-c.html
When my family lived on a very small island between Shikoku and Kyushu (you can see it with Google Earth, 33°10'10.34"N 132°17'15.32"E), a few Koreans were camping and poaching shellfish. Japanese people who were on the island knew of their existence but got to have nothing to do with them and didn't report the matter to the police. It's unthinkable at present. Anyway, Koreans were doing their jobs. It was a tranquil time. There was no concept of smuggling on the island in those days.
One day, a middle-aged lady came to my house. She couldn't speak Japanese. Something unusual seemed to have happened to them and they needed a lot of water and some medicine. It was supposed that someone got badly burnt judging from my present knowledge. There was no police, no hospital, no pharmacy and no fire department on the island. She and her daughters had only 3,4 small pans and buckets as containers of water. My parents went to the elementary school where they were working, opened the sickbay and took out some first aid kits for them. After that my parents and I carried as much water as possible to their camp and gave a few bigger buckets with lids to them. Next morning they disappeared.
A year later, that lady suddenly dropped in at my house at midnight with a lot of shellfish. My parents was so happy to see her again and gave her as much water as they needed. Our family moved to another place next spring so it was the last time they saw her and her family.
Before starting for Seoul, my father said to me, "I'd like to see her family again. Look for them on the internet." I'd like to, but both entering a country secretly and giving some help to undocumented people are illegal. I explained that to him.
I wonder what impression my parents are getting in present day Seoul.
(Vocabulary)
null and void （法的に）無効な
poach [他] …を密猟する, 密漁する [自] 密猟する, 密漁する
unthinkable 考えられない, 想像もできない
it is unthinkable that …とは考えられない
tranquil 穏やかな, 静かな, のどかな
smuggle …を密輸する, 不法に持ち込む［持ち出す］
sickbay (船・学校などの) 医務室
undocumented 正式な文書記録のない, 文書による証明のない 証明書類［許可書］を持たない
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