7.2 A child with much curiosity

Because someone's hometown is the place that contributes more than 80 percent of the important educational materials in life, one's connection to one's hometown can't be severed. (187-290, 02/12/1989)

I want to conduct education in the land in which I was born, the field I grew up on, the neighborhood I played in, using those things as textbooks. You will know my history once you have heard from me directly about the time I played under the mountain. (50-172, 11/06/1971)

You must know that you can liberate and indemnify the truth that no one celebrated my birth and no one followed me, through going to Jeongju, in North Korea, where I grew up. You can do this by drinking the water I drank there when I was young, and playing in the garden I ran around and played in as a boy, and through your children singing holy songs and raising a toast to God in that place.
I want to use my homeland and that neighborhood as textbooks to educate you. Once you hear my explanation of those times under the mountain directly from me, during your life, you will surely know my history. There will anyway be a time when you must visit the mountains and rivers in your teacher's homeland while you are alive. All of the animals and plants on the mountains of one's homeland, the natural world can help to grow abundance in the heart of a person. That's why we miss the mountains and rivers of our homelands, and we love nature.
From the time I was young I would look at a mountain and think, "What's the name of that mountain? I wonder what's in that mountain." I always went to see those places I pondered about. So I knew well all the things within an eight-kilometer radius. (43-173, 04/29/1971)

The limits of my activity when I was young were great and wide. There was almost nowhere in Jeongju that I hadn't been to. I had been to all of the high mountain tops. But I even felt that I had to go beyond that. Only then could I know what was contained in all that was visible in the morning sunlight. All of those places were the mountains and rivers in which I cultivated the devotion of my faith. The water of my homeland, the trees of my homeland, the land of my homeland, the spring breeze of my homeland, all the things that I experienced in the past are vividly alive to me.
There was no flower among those I saw that I didn't directly touch when I was young and going around the mountains. There was no flower I didn't know. There were many times when I stayed out in the creation after the sun had gone down. I would fall asleep and, at midnight, I would be found by my parents who would take me back to the house. I liked nature so much. (221-71, 10/23/1991)

At my house, there is a great chestnut tree which is around two hundred years old, and is so beautiful. I don't know if it was because I was born in the year of the monkey, but I was very good at climbing trees. It was such fun to climb chestnut trees and knock the chestnuts to the ground with a wooden staff I had made. (141-33, 02/16/1986)

I only let the birds flying in the mountains fly in peace after having examined them. I didn't let any kind of bird be free until I had examined it. If I saw a pretty swallow for the first time, I would first wonder what the male and female of that kind of bird looked like. Was there a book I could use to figure that out? No. So I had to go to the birds and study them directly. I would wait for a week without eating. (162-213, 04/12/1987)

At one point, I wondered about crows laying eggs. I couldn't sleep until I knew for sure. I would go in the evening, and then again in the early morning before the crow would leave its nest. After visiting this one crow everyday, I became familiar with it. At first, it would caw a lot at me, but after I had visited it everyday without doing it any harm, it just stayed calm. So I watched what it would catch and feed its babies, and everything it did. (51-264, 11/28/1971)

Because I lived in the country, I caught a lot of insects. There was probably no kind of insect I hadn't caught. Moreover, there was no kind of animal I hadn't caught and brought home. Well, I didn't catch a tiger! I caught wildcat, raccoon and rabbit, among other animals. It was of such a great interest to me. I thought they were living alone but they all had partners. All things come in twos. (140-296, 02/14/1986)

When it snowed, I hunted at night for weasels with my staff, in a garden that stretched for tens of kilometers, and in the day for rabbits. Or I would make a dog bark at me and make him follow me, and after having gone up the hill a way, I would get a stick and throw it for him to chase. (202-296, 05/25/1990)

During the vacation, I went out to the sea to learn about it. I examined all sorts of places - dirty ponds, marshlands and crab holes. Then I would fish. I was a champion at catching eels. (144-294, 04/26/1986)

If a guest would come and we needed an eel for supper, it would only take me thirty minutes to an hour. I was a good runner. I would run around six kilometers to a pond and within 15 minutes catch five eels. (214-124, 02/01/1991)

We did a lot of beekeeping. Acacia honey tasted so good. When a bee sits on an acacia and sticks its head inside and feeds, it spreads its front and back legs and sets its behind under it and sucks. If you try to pull its behind with a pair of tweezers, it won't let go even if its behind falls off. How serious is that bee? The guy who is pulling the bee so that its body will fall off may be brutal, but the bee that won't let go of the flower for the taste it's experiencing is so serious! I saw that and thought that's how I should act as well. (186-303, 02/06/1989)

I can't live with the knowledge that there's something I don't know. If some old person in our town died, I would ask from what disease he had died. If I was curious about why someone had died, I would go to where they were doing the funeral ceremony and ask. So I knew what was going on in my town. (164-312, 05/17/1987)

I was very interested in everything. If there was an old person defecating in a neighborhood, I wouldn't just pass by. I would wonder why, when everyone else covered their nose to keep out the smell, this old man could not smell what everyone else smelt. So I would ask. (50-297, 11/08/1971)

Even if my mother would give me an apple or a melon, I would ask my mother from where she had got it. Then my mother would say, "What do you mean, Where did I get it? Your older brother bought it in the market." Then I would ask my mother which orchard the fruit was picked from, if it was an old lady who had picked the fruit, or if it was picked by a middle-aged man, a young man, or a young woman. I was very curious about that. (33-279, 08/21/1970)

Do you know how many teachers ran away from me when I asked them questions they couldn't answer? I would ask questions like, "Who worked out this physics formula? I can't accept it. Please explain it so I can understand. (203-329, 06/28/1990)

I believed nothing before I had made sure it was right myself. If a math teacher taught me a formula, I would get on that teacher about that formula. I would think, "Who created such a formula?" I felt bad that someone had made the formula before I had. I thought, "I should have made this formula before so-and-so made it." So I would examine and look at the formula from many different angles to figure it out. There was nothing I did in a half-hearted way. (162-277, 04/17/1987)

What I studied the day before the test my mind was always on what was on the test. I picked the three things that had the most chance of being on the test and only studied them. I would always put those as answers on the test. I would analyze the teacher psychologically and guess what he or she was going to put in the test. Studying like that, I got 70 percent right on the test. (229-116, 04/11/1992)

I never lost in a wrestling match. I was also good at soccer. Even with my large body, I am fast. When I was young, I did iron bar exercises. I trained myself with many kinds of exercises. I even exercise now, with exercises no one else knows. I devised some exercises of my own. (192-151, 07/03/1989)

For six months, I went into a room by myself and practiced pronunciation from the basics. I trained myself until I got all the sounds right. So I learned to speak faster. I also practiced my delivery. (25-336, 10/12/1969)

A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I liked music a lot. The person who owned the house I was staying in was the first son of a rich family in Kang-won Province, who even owned and drove a car. Someone who could drive a car thirty years ago was from the elite. There was no place in Korea this person hadn't been to. He knew all the folk songs, and owned hundreds of records. So I decided to make myself into someone the landlady would always listen to. I brought in the food tray every evening. I did anything she asked me to do. After I had done this according to my plan, the landlady was very pleased to have me there. She even said that she wanted me to be her son-in-law. Well, why wouldn't she be?! And she let us listen to all of the records she had. She let us listen to a few at a time. After having listened to some of the records, we would get to listen to a few more. So in the end we listened to all of the records there. I decided to listen to all the records within a few days and would leave the records on all day.
There are good points to being able to sing well. A filial son drums on his mother's back while singing. If a young man and woman sing to each other about their hearts of love for each other, they reach that level. Shouldn't a person standing on the front line trying to bring about restoration be able to achieve his wishes, no matter how? This is all a part of making oneself into a whole person. It's a necessary process. I would stay up all night listening to music. When I went to sleep, I had the volume on low, and with a blanket over my head, listened to the music. That's how impatient I am. No matter what I do, I try not to lose to anybody. (46-297, 08/17/1971)

When I was in high school, I was a wrestling champion. There was no sport that I wasn't good at. I even boxed. If some bad person came and punched me, I could land him a hook and he'd be on the floor! I even did such training. Why did I do that? Not to fight. Since I had the determination to make a great revolution, to repair this world and initiate a world of peace that follows natural laws, I had to have a healthy body. (85-18, 03/02/1976)