<Begin Segment 17>

GH: And I don't know the details of that, but my current wife got real interested, partly because -- we just had that yesterday. I wasn't home, but she told me, "Open this up on the morning of April 25th," when I'm leaving. I was on the plane yesterday. She said -- it was in my suitcase. "Open this on April 25." [Laughs] It was happy thirteenth anniversary. [Laughs]

BF: Oh.

GH: Wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago we got married. And, '80, I guess that makes it '85 or '86, someplace around there. And I had told her earlier when I was courting her, "I never expected to be remarried." I was seventeen years between the marriages. And during the '70s and early part of the '80s, I was traveling a lot, doing research, taking contracts that brought me to all sorts of things, and being available for that sort of thing. I was, took a job. Seven weeks, six weeks they said first, but it took about seven weeks, being the social scientist in a project -- World Bank project, where they required at least one person must be a social scientist as part of the deal, grant. They were water engineers, this outfit, and they were hired for improving the water system or sanitation system, and so on in developing areas. And while they were doing the research in the Caribbeans, they were on Canadian grants, granting outfits, governments and so on. And they used to do this social survey by themselves. But World Bank required that you gotta hire a social scientist to do it. So they came in to -- somebody gave them my name as somebody that might do it. They came in and I listened to their project and I said, "Well, sounds interesting." "Well, if you're interested, how about considering it?" Says, "Well, I'm willing to do that. How much time do I have?" Says, "Well, like tomorrow?" [Laughs] They had to turn the application in. The deadline was the end of this week. And so they really had to... that's the only thing they didn't have. And, so I just decided it right there. I said, "All right, I'll take it then." And they just, we just worked out the financing and so on, and I took off. It took about seven weeks, but, that one... and it was a real challenge. But I found some United Nations surveys of that area. That was really helpful to me, so I didn't have to be completely in the dark. But I was working for a month with, you know one of those international fevers, Roman, "Roman runs," "Turkish trots," they call 'em. You know, tippy stomach, eating stuff that came out of human fertilizer and so on.

BF: Oh.

GH: That is human diseases. If it's an animal disease, it wouldn't come through even though you're using fertilizers, manures. But human fertilizer, you gotta watch it 'cause you're vulnerable to it. And you have to wash your, you know, use detergent to wash your vegetables and so on, and boil water. But I got lured. I was embarrassed to get this, because I'm internationally trained and experienced. And here I come down like a rookie. And I was trying to figure out, how come? And it's, it, when I got to Seoul I stayed in Hilton Hotel, couple days. And then I went out, on the train. I could see these villages, farmhouses, looked just like Japanese ones with tile roof and so on. And, eventually, I could see myself thinking, "It's just like Japan." Japan used to have these people who collected manure and, in villages. But they had changed, and they, so that previously you had to watch yourself eating raw vegetables and so on, and water, drinking water. But they had, by the time I visited, they were safe for us. So seeing those places that looked like Japanese houses, and Japanese villages, I wasn't so careful. And I came down with it in the middle of the first week, and it never left me, 'til 'bout fifth week. And by that time I was overcoming it. Nothing would stay. There were Koreans who were cooking in the hotel, and I just asked one of 'em, "Did you go to school during the Japanese, when they were in charge?" And he says, "Yeah." And I saw that he was making sushi and so on. "So, you learned sushi from the Japanese?" He says, "Yes." I said, "Have you ever heard of a thing called okai?" You know it's gruel, rice gruel. And I said, "Can you make me some?" [Laughs] He says, "Sure." I said, "I'm suffering, stomach problem and I can't eat anything, nothing stays in. And I've always had this... I grew up with it for illnesses. It's like juice and chicken soup, sort of thing." And so he made it for me. And 'bout that time the Canadian engineers who were there earlier, and had applied to the U.S. base for associate membership to the army officer's quarters for using the club, you know for restaurant, as a restaurant -- and they said, "We got our membership. Anybody interested could join us." And so I started eating out there. And you could, you could literally smell the detergent.

TI: On the salads and all?

GH: Yeah, but it felt like a welcome taste. [Laughs]

BF: Yeah.

GH: You know. And about that time I was getting better. So I didn't have problems. But I worked through the first five weeks or so, with half energy. I never was bedridden. But, I didn't have a lot of -- and it was summer, real hot and humid in South Korea. So, I did that sort of thing and got fooled by superficial things that led me to relax my care of myself. Well, I'm explaining all of this because I grew up with a certain background, and, and I used some environmental impacts for making my final decisions. I would go into programs.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.