Here’s to April’s Holiday Foursome!

By Park Nahm-sheik

April is home to four beautiful holidays in Korea: April Fools’ Day, Arbor Day, Easter Sunday, and April Nineteenth Pro-Democracy Day. The month is almost like a ticker-tape parade of these holidays for throngs of curbside onlookers to feast their eyes on.

April Fools’ Day leads off this procession with little fanfare. It is an LOL party loaded with laugh riots, though. Everyone indulges in tons of innocent fun, making a fool of each other at no particular cost to anyone. And plenty of laughter piggybacks on the day’s fun fest. Given that laughter is the best medicine, April Fools’ Day is not just a fun day but a wholesome one as well. Whoever dreamed up this intriguing holiday must have been a genius with a beautiful mind.

Arbor Day follows April Fools’ Day by just four days. Dedicated to public tree planting, it is a true friend of the environment. It is still remembered for the legendary role it had to play in Korea’s acclaimed reforestation campaign of some sixty years ago. This storied national project owed most of its success to the entire country rising to the occasion with passion. Volunteers came forward in droves helping morph every nook and cranny of Korea from brown and bare to green and lush. Achieved in a relatively short span of time, this stunning feat was nothing short of a miracle.

In an unfortunate twist of destiny, though, we already need to turn to the Arbor Day playbook of yore for another round of all-out national reforestation. Our hand is forced this time around by the ever-growing threat of an imminent climate collapse.

As we ponder how best to deploy this Arbor Day blueprint, we would do well to take a look at some trend-setting urban centers of the world. We can begin by noting that they all have vast tracts of land set aside as their hearts and lungs. Washington, D.C., has its Rock Creek Park; New York City has its Central Park and company; London has its “Royal Fleet” of parks, gardens, yards, and heaths; and Paris has its “Imperial Legion” of green urban oases.

The obvious takeaway for us here is this: Korea also may need to have a generous portion of its land area given over to forests. In undertaking this venture, however, we would be well-advised to take the long view and make haste slowly. It is always best to play it safe, no matter how urgent the mission may be.

Next up in the procession of April’s grand holidays is Easter Sunday. Honoring the day Jesus Christ came back to life from the dead, it is a bona fide holy day on par with Christmas itself at the very least. The Resurrection is truly the holiest red-letter day in all Christendom. No wonder the day is celebrated in grand style by Christians everywhere.

Last but not least, on the secular side of this equation is the tale of Korea’s April Nineteenth Pro-Democracy Uprising. A major milestone in the annals of Korean democracy, this heroic revolt is memorialized in much of the country to this day. Much to our regret, however, April Nineteenth was quite unceremoniously pulled off the list of legal holidays in early 1973.  Shame on those responsible for this dastardly act of betrayal against all those brave young souls who laid down their precious lives so that democracy may survive and thrive in this country.

The Author

Park Nahm-sheik has a BA in English from Chonnam National University, an MA in linguistics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, U.S.A., and a PhD in applied linguistics from Georgetown University. He is now a Professor Emeritus after a long and illustrious career at Seoul National University as well as President Emeritus of the International Graduate School of English.