SAN DIEGO — Thanks to Mimi Pollack, who teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) at Grossmont College where I am teaching journalism this semester, my grandson Shor and I had a wonderful outing over the weekend with two young South Koreans who are in this country to polish their English skills and to pursue post-graduate studies.
Mimi conceived the idea of inviting people whom she knew in the community to serve as penpals for students who take her ESL classes. Foreign students often don’t have the chance to practice their English, so informally corresponding with people can help acquaint them with idiomatic expressions, unfamiliar words, and grammar. Penpals also can introduce the students to American customs and lifestyles, and if they click, even become friends.
So I began corresponding with Seokki Lee, a young man who has a master’s degree in computer science, and learned that he and his wife, Eunjung Park, often use the American nicknames of “Bobby” and “Belle” in order to make it easier for the locals to pronounce their names. While I appreciate this courtesy, I think it is important, and respectful for us Americans to learn to say people’s names in their own languages. So for me, this very nice couple are “Seokki” and “Eunjung.”
Although we had corresponded for several weeks, we hadn’t actually met until this weekend, when my grandson Shor and I picked them up at their apartment in the Hillcrest area of San Diego, and drove to Cabrillo National Monument, our first stop of the day. We walked first to the statue of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the Portuguese sailor who claimed San Diego for Spain in 1542. The statue and its plaza command a view of San Diego that offers North Island Naval Air Station in the foreground, San Diego Bay and downtown San Diego in the middle ground, and the mountains to the east in the background. If you haven’t been there, go on a clear day such as we experienced this past weekend; it is a wonderful panorama that even affords good views of northern Baja California, Mexico, and its three Islas Coronados.
I believe that the bay is as good a place as any to help visitors understand San Diego. It has only one entrance, and when Cabrillo planted Spain’s flag here, he did so near the entrance on the spit of land known today as Ballast Point, where there are still the remnants of the U.S. Navy’s submarine base. One can squint one’s eyes and imagine that the land around the bay has been shorn of its development, so that it appears as when Cabrillo first saw it. One can envision how unspoiled it was in those days when the Kumeyaay Indians hunted and fished from its shores.
From the standpoint of many of those Native Americans, Cabrillo was an irrelevancy — he was someone who sailed in on a big ship, planted a flag, named the place “San Miguel” and then sailed out again — never to be heard from again. Sixty years would pass before Spaniards under the command of Sebastian Vizcaino returned to the bay in 1602, repeating the ritual, with the exception that Vizcaino named this place “San Diego” instead of San Miguel. Diego, a doctor who had saved the life of a prince of Spain, wasn’t even recognized as a saint during Cabrillo’s day; his elevation to that status came after Cabrillo, on the same voyage that brought him here, died in the Channel Islands off California’s central coast.
Like Cabrillo, Vizcaino sailed away, and some eight generations of Kumeyaay were allowed by Europeans to live in peace. Not until 1769 did the Spaniards get around to settling this area, and that was because they were afraid that Russians–who had been exploring Alaska and the Pacific Northwest coast –might put in counter-claims if there were no Spanish settlements here. So, as school children like Shor are taught in the fourth grade, the Spaniards sent up from Mexico the expedition led by Father Junipero Serra and the soldier Gaspar de Portola, and the era of California’s colonization began.
I explained to Eunjung and Seokki that the Spanish explorers named places by checking their calendars of feast days for Catholic saints; whichever saint’s day was closest to the date of discovery would provide the name of the place. Thus California’s coast is dotted with places with names like San Diego, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, and so forth.
Shor, having heard me lecture before, smiled indulgently; in truth, he found the lizards running around the Cabrillo statue’s little plaza far more interesting.
Next, we toured the visitor’s center, including the museum in which exhibits show Cabrillo’s route, what his ship the San Salvador looked like, and what kind of lives were led by the Kumeyaay who were here to observe Cabrillo’s landing. Onward to the gift shop, where Shor’s interest perked up. A good big brother, he persuaded me to purchase a jig saw puzzle featuring the animals of Cabrillo National Monument for his brother Sky, 3.
Eunjung and Seokki have nieces and nephews and they took right to Shor. They won the nine-year-old’s gratitude by providing two quarters and a penny for a machine to squeeze Abraham Lincoln’s copper image into that of a soaring hawk. We imagined the penny talking during the process: “Fourscore and seven years ago SQUAWK!”
From there it was up to the Lighthouse, the signature monument of the Point Loma area, for a climb up the spiral staircase and a peek into the rooms once occupied by the lighthouse keeper Robert Israel — who, despite his Hebraic sounding last name, was Christian, not Jewish. Next it was down to the tidepools, near where the high lighthouse was replaced by one situated at the Coast Guard station. The elevation of the higher lighthouse resulted in it often becoming lost in the fog and of no use to the ships below. Seokki and Eunjung savoured the ocean breezes, the smell of salt, and the feel of the sand by the tidepools.
Then we decided to cruise in the car down the spine of the Point Loma Peninsula, paying a respectful call through Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. As we slowly drove past the gravestones which stand in formation and at granite attention, Seokki and Eunjung noted appreciatively from their inscriptions that many of the military veterans buried there had served in Korea, having fought in the 1950s conflict to prevent communist North Korea from taking over western-leaning South Korea, The couple had grown up in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
Eventually we arrived at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, with Shor by this time so hungry, he could barely talk of anything else. Taking Seokki and Eunjung to the restaurant at Fiesta de Reyes was a sentimental moment for me; a native New Yorker, I remember the first time that I was introduced in California to Mexican food, at a restaurant near Los Angeles International Airport called the Red Onion. My hosts were my wife Nancy’s parents, and I think I might have had a chile relleno as my first dish. I was a little nervous about eating Mexican food, expecting it to be too spicy for my East Coast taste buds. But I loved it. I also remembered the first time we took Shor’s father, Shahar, for Mexican food in San Diego, I believe at a restaurant on Mission Gorge Road, near the Admiral Baker Golf Course. Shahar, an Israeli, found Mexican food “very heavy” but not for long–now, slim though he is, he eats it regularly, and there appears to be nothing he likes better than bean and cheese burritos.
I explained to Seokki and Eunjung the basic components of Mexican food, and they chose respectively a chicken burrito and a quesadilla, which they seemed to enjoy along with guacamole. As much as they liked the food, they also liked the ambience, which included costumed Mexican dancers on a stage adjoining the outdoor restaurant.
We walked through the shops of Fiesta de Reyes, and Shor found for himself a package of fake moustaches, a different style for each day of the week. Now how can any boy resist that? For Seokki and Eunjung, we found a souvenir tile–to be used as a refrigerator magnet — and they insisted as well on purchasing my book, Louis Rose: San Diego’s First Jewish Settler and Entrepreneur and having me autograph it for them right there. The shopkeeper smiled at them appreciatively; the paperback probably had been on the shelf a long time!
We drove back via Presidio Park, Heritage Park (where the first Temple Beth Israel and other examples of Victorian architecture are located) and Mission Hills, before returning to Hillcrest, where we dropped off these two charming people with whom we had enjoyed sharing a sightseeing adventure. They said they would like us to come to their home some time for an authentic Korean meal. How great is that?!!!
“Grandpa did most of the talking,” Shor later reported accurately to his grandma, and I guess that is the peril of being a tour guide. But we did learn a few interesting facts about Korean customs. For example, we learned that Korean women retain their surnames after marriage; that people with the family names “Park” and “Lee” are among the three largest groups in Korea along with those named “Kim” and that in Korea it is not uncommon for multiple generation of the same family to live in the same house. We now have the enjoyment of anticipating the learning of much more.
So, thanks Mimi Pollack! May all the pen pals of your students be so fortunate to make such interesting friends.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World