Song Nai Rhee – författare

Reared in a palace and educated at Gakushuin, the elite Peers School, Princess Masako was elegant, refined, and proper in all things royal and Japanese. She was also stunningly beautiful. It was therefore only natural that she was being groomed to be betrothed to a princeno less than Crown Prince Hirohito, the future Emperor of Japan.The rulers of the newly emerging Empire of the Sun, however, decided to offer the beautiful princess as a sacrifice on the altar of Japans imperialism. She, they conspired, must marry Yi Eun, the crown prince of Koreas Joseon Kingdom, whose national independence they were strangulating with their conquest ambition. As Korea was forced to become a part of Japan, so was Masako forced to become a part of Korea in order to symbolize the union of the two nations in mortal conflict.Like a fish in a net or a bird in a snare, Princess Masako turned and twisted to live, to be free, and to be happy. Painfully aware that events in her life were beyond her control, however, she decided to accept her destiny. Even so, the imposed destiny would not control her, for she decided to become a heroine, not a victim of her misfortunes, driven by her passion for love, life, and happiness.Masakos story is about the human spirit empowering a victim of misfortunes and an unwanted destiny to become a hero, transforming adversity into patches of paradise as beautiful as the rainbow.

This is Song-nai Rhee''s personal memoirs of an eighty-seven-year-long life between a pine grove of Songki-riin, Korea and the bank of the Siuslaw River on the West Coast, covering his early life during World War II; his existential crisis during the Korean War; his life transformation from Confucian to Christian; coming to America and Northwest Christian College; his formal education in America (resulting in two bachelors, four masters, and two PhD degrees); thirty-seven years of professional service at NCC (now Bushnell University) as a professor of history, Bible, and archaeology, as well as academic vice president/dean; and as a father, grandfather, and writer/publisher, retiring as a farmer/fisherman on the bank of the Siuslaw River. Most of all, this book is about the people, beginning with Bill Peterson in a war zone, who helped make all this and Rhee''s life possible--the meaningful connections.