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| Looking back on it now, it was over 10 years ago. I had been looking for a large piece of land for four years before I located it on a mountain in Hamyang. Fortunately, I found an appropriate site. (The reason why I chose Hamyang is because the name means 'the land which receives sunshine evenly' and also because my father wanted to be in the area.) I bought 198,000m2 of open forest looking southeast which has a gentle slope and a view of Cheonwangbong Peak on Jirisan Mountain. And I reclaimed 75,900 out of the 198,000m2. The reason why I reclaimed that amount of land was to enable about 20 households to live there. I thought that about 2,145m2 for one household was enough to build a house and do rice or dry-field farming. |
Reclamation!
Now when I think about it, I was really bold. No, I was ignorant. I had been visiting public offices to acquire permission of reclamation for 1 year and had a lot of difficulties before I got permission for construction. Even when people in a village submit a civil complaint, unless you have strong willpower, it will be hard to endure.
I paved a road more than 1 kilometer long with asphalt, with even defensive walls, and supplied electricity and phones. All the things that I did at that time are not calculable as money.
Being unknowledgeable, I started this job with just my will. I bought a used 2008 forklift and left it to an experienced person to operate. But he said a used one was difficult to operate, so I bought a new 2010 forklift. For this, people say I was stupid. Not only for buying equipment, but I was also stupid for leaving construction to others and just believing in what other people said. Anyway, it cost a lot. After reclamation, the whole area was a quarry. A 25-ton dump truck carried and dumped soil every day.
Despite the huge money and extreme difficulties, I could do the work with a happy mind. This is because I had a strong will. I had a thought that all the answers in this age rest in nature, and I had a will to live with people with the same thinking in one space on a mountain, cultivate goods things with different methods, and live by sharing those good things with a healthy body and mind.
I wanted to collect natural medicine, Oriental medicine and Western medicine in one place so that anybody could choose the way they took care of their health. For this, I had to build a red clay treatment center, meditation training center, herb complex, forest trail, and Oriental/Western hospitals so that people could solve all their economic life and health problems. At the thought of it, I might not have been feeling hard.
I thought that people who were not rich would worry about making ends meet when they left urban life and started living in nature. So, I came up with the idea that I could solve economic problems by producing health food using the processing of all herbs in nature and the animals, plants and vegetables each house raised and cultivated. Then, all the members of the village could live a healthy life, enjoying nature without worrying about economic problems.
I reclaimed another 3,300m2 with government funds and built a plant on a 660m2 site. When I was about to start my business, an acquaintance asked me to appear on the TV program "Hometown Report." So I appeared on the program. But due to this, an unimaginable thing happened in my life. In the interview I said, "I will make money and help all people in need later," but the producer edited the interview and only the words "I will help all people in need" were televised without the words "I will make money."
I said "I will help all people in need" on TV, with a large plant built in nature with a good landscape. And the reporter put in the helping words "Come to Dabyeot Village" (I named it so because it was a pure Korean word for Hamyang). Soon after it was televised, the phone started to ring. And then I jumped out of my skin.
As the five phones in our factory were all connected to the main telephone, even if one phone was called, all the phones rang. People whose business collapsed, people who were fired from work, and people who were in agony due to their wife who ran away from home, leaving the children because they were fired, all these people came to us. People who were at the point where they were just thinking of how to die while living in a car with children for a week, people whose house was put up for auction and became homeless, and people who were headed for the sea holding a medicine bottle to commit suicide who watched "Hometown Report" on TV in the waiting room of a train station. They all came to this deep place in the mountain with their individual, unbelievable stories. So, it was a really hard time for me. I couldn't even have one meal for many days.
I could refuse the people who called because I did not see their faces, although my heart was sick. But I could not turn away the people who came holding the hands of their children and told me they could not help but die except for coming here.
For three years, I lived with those people who rushed here that way. Although more than 600 people lived here and left, nobody died. People who had destroyed bodies and minds. What they needed was the space and time to take it easy.
I thought that an environment that could heal their destroyed bodies and minds, medicine to get healthy again, and work to restore their mentality were the first things that they needed. As I had an ability to make health food, I could provide it to the people who were dying first and help them get on their feet again. It was an unconditional mercy.
Money! It's a very important thing. It dominates us as if it could solve the problems of both of our mind and soul. But I still think that money cannot be more important than human life. That is why I had been doing the helping work till I went bankrupt without a penny.
As a result, people did not believe it, and some people even sneered at me. Making money is busy work, but going bankrupt is also busy work. All that I had was put up for auction and I suffered the aftermath for 8 years.
The financial world including credit card companies did its best to hassle me.
Nevertheless, I thought I was something because I was not distressed, even though I was hassled like that. I could be peaceful because I spent money not for myself, but for others. "If there is a person who is happy when you give something to him, you should give it. If you give your food to others, treasures are accumulated in a heavenly storeroom."
This is a saying from my father's heritage. And I stick to it upon my life.
The happiness of going bankrupt! This is possible because of the saying from my father's heritage.
Reclamation!
Now when I think about it, I was really bold. No, I was ignorant. I had been visiting public offices to acquire permission of reclamation for 1 year and had a lot of difficulties before I got permission for construction. Even when people in a village submit a civil complaint, unless you have strong willpower, it will be hard to endure.
I paved a road more than 1 kilometer long with asphalt, with even defensive walls, and supplied electricity and phones. All the things that I did at that time are not calculable as money.
Being unknowledgeable, I started this job with just my will. I bought a used 2008 forklift and left it to an experienced person to operate. But he said a used one was difficult to operate, so I bought a new 2010 forklift. For this, people say I was stupid. Not only for buying equipment, but I was also stupid for leaving construction to others and just believing in what other people said. Anyway, it cost a lot. After reclamation, the whole area was a quarry. A 25-ton dump truck carried and dumped soil every day.
Despite the huge money and extreme difficulties, I could do the work with a happy mind. This is because I had a strong will. I had a thought that all the answers in this age rest in nature, and I had a will to live with people with the same thinking in one space on a mountain, cultivate goods things with different methods, and live by sharing those good things with a healthy body and mind.
I wanted to collect natural medicine, Oriental medicine and Western medicine in one place so that anybody could choose the way they took care of their health. For this, I had to build a red clay treatment center, meditation training center, herb complex, forest trail, and Oriental/Western hospitals so that people could solve all their economic life and health problems. At the thought of it, I might not have been feeling hard.
I thought that people who were not rich would worry about making ends meet when they left urban life and started living in nature. So, I came up with the idea that I could solve economic problems by producing health food using the processing of all herbs in nature and the animals, plants and vegetables each house raised and cultivated. Then, all the members of the village could live a healthy life, enjoying nature without worrying about economic problems.
I reclaimed another 3,300m2 with government funds and built a plant on a 660m2 site. When I was about to start my business, an acquaintance asked me to appear on the TV program "Hometown Report." So I appeared on the program. But due to this, an unimaginable thing happened in my life. In the interview I said, "I will make money and help all people in need later," but the producer edited the interview and only the words "I will help all people in need" were televised without the words "I will make money."
I said "I will help all people in need" on TV, with a large plant built in nature with a good landscape. And the reporter put in the helping words "Come to Dabyeot Village" (I named it so because it was a pure Korean word for Hamyang). Soon after it was televised, the phone started to ring. And then I jumped out of my skin.
As the five phones in our factory were all connected to the main telephone, even if one phone was called, all the phones rang. People whose business collapsed, people who were fired from work, and people who were in agony due to their wife who ran away from home, leaving the children because they were fired, all these people came to us. People who were at the point where they were just thinking of how to die while living in a car with children for a week, people whose house was put up for auction and became homeless, and people who were headed for the sea holding a medicine bottle to commit suicide who watched "Hometown Report" on TV in the waiting room of a train station. They all came to this deep place in the mountain with their individual, unbelievable stories. So, it was a really hard time for me. I couldn't even have one meal for many days.
I could refuse the people who called because I did not see their faces, although my heart was sick. But I could not turn away the people who came holding the hands of their children and told me they could not help but die except for coming here.
For three years, I lived with those people who rushed here that way. Although more than 600 people lived here and left, nobody died. People who had destroyed bodies and minds. What they needed was the space and time to take it easy.
I thought that an environment that could heal their destroyed bodies and minds, medicine to get healthy again, and work to restore their mentality were the first things that they needed. As I had an ability to make health food, I could provide it to the people who were dying first and help them get on their feet again. It was an unconditional mercy.
Money! It's a very important thing. It dominates us as if it could solve the problems of both of our mind and soul. But I still think that money cannot be more important than human life. That is why I had been doing the helping work till I went bankrupt without a penny.
As a result, people did not believe it, and some people even sneered at me. Making money is busy work, but going bankrupt is also busy work. All that I had was put up for auction and I suffered the aftermath for 8 years.
The financial world including credit card companies did its best to hassle me.
Nevertheless, I thought I was something because I was not distressed, even though I was hassled like that. I could be peaceful because I spent money not for myself, but for others. "If there is a person who is happy when you give something to him, you should give it. If you give your food to others, treasures are accumulated in a heavenly storeroom."
This is a saying from my father's heritage. And I stick to it upon my life.
The happiness of going bankrupt! This is possible because of the saying from my father's heritage.