Sun Shik Shim
My name is Sun Shik Shim.
Congratulations to Canada 150.
I would like to share a few stories, looking back on the history of Korean immigrants to Canada.
I moved to Vancouver, Canada on July 21st, 1961 with my wife and young children.
I was offered a faculty staff position at UBC Medical School at Vancouver General Hospital. And I worked as a Professor of Orthopaedic for 30 years and it’s been over 25 years since I retired.
The diplomacy between Korea and Canada started on 1965 so when I arrived here in 1961, there was only one Korean (Prof. Rimhak Ree at the Department of Mathematics) in Vancouver area. So I was known as the ‘Pioneer of Korean immigration history’ or the ‘Grand Old Man’.
After a bit of time has passed, more and more people immigrated to Canada and I played a leading role in establishing a Korean church in 1966. I reached out to Rev. Sang Chul Lee, who returned to Korean after studying at the Vancouver seminary for a year on the year I moved to Canada, to invite him to the United Church of Canada and to start a Korean United Church. After the successful attempt in inviting Rev. Lee, he moved to Canada near the end of 1965 and Korean United Church of Vancouver celebrated its first service on March 6th. On August 15th of the same year, I spearheaded establishing a Korean Association and Rev. Lee assumed the role of first President, and I served as the first manager. After 4 months, Rev. Lee resigned from his position, and in 1967, I became the 2nd President of the Korean Association. In 1974, the President of that time was Sung Woong Cho. He, I and Rev. Byung Suk Ban started Vancouver Korean Language School and I served as the first Principal.
As more people immigrated to Canada, we saw growth in Korean community and many organizations such as Diplomatic offices and KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency) appeared. In the early days of immigration, many Koreans met their partners in Vancouver, and many brides asked me to walk down the aisle with them as a ‘godfather’. I told them that I would be honored to do so, and walked down the aisle as the godfather to brides more than 10 times. When the brides sent their photos of us walking down the aisle to Korea, people who saw the photo thought I was the groom and commented: “The groom looks very young”. Hahaha.