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After being shuffled around through some nine different living spaces, I came to rest at age eight in the care of my very English granny, my favorite
person in the whole world.
One single possession followed all my moves: a foot-locker that had belonged to my father.
He had been a doctor on freighters going around the world, and the foot-locker contained a collection of small objects from
China, India, Japan, Egypt, Rio de Janeiro, and Alaska.
Perhaps this first fed my wanderlust.
Voraciously reading both books and maps, I zeroed in an such intriguing names such as Kashgar, Samarkand, Taklamakan and UlanBator.
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After college (University of California, Berkeley), plans to teach in Korea shifted so that instead, I married into a large and close-knit Korean family,
and the travel bug hit in earnest.
In my first visit to Korea, back in 1964, we lived on a farm with no electricity and no running water,
and this city kid fell in love with traditional Korea.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve been equally in love with the people and places of other times,
and my bedtime reading became the academic books of Korean history. Out of this
accumulation, came journal articles and books.
Now, a bundle of terrific years later, I am still married to the same
family, have three grown children and two grandchildren, am retired from my
profession as a Special Education teacher, and busier than ever continuing my research in Korean history as a Research Fellow,
Center for Korean Studies, University of California at Berkeley.
Happiest when traveling through Europe or Asia, I have hiked the Swiss alps, ridden my bike across southern France,
stayed in an ancient Buddhist temple in the mountains of Korea, and most recently, explored the ancient trade routes across the
Gobi and Taklamakan deserts of China and from Khiva to Samarkand in Uzbekistan.
The search for Queen Sindok
During trips to Korea in 2002, 2003 and 2004 we filled our time to the brim with research
(archival, interviews, and excursions) to find every possible bit of information relating to the queen.
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