Uden recounts his 33-year Korean connection with sadness, optimism


For British Ambassador Martin Uden, who is leaving Seoul next week for his next assignment, Korea was more than a posting.

This is a place he first arrived at in 1978 and has kept strong links with for 33 years.

Personally, Seoul is the city where he met his wife Fiona and the ambassador’s residence is the place where they shared their first kiss when he was a junior level diplomat.

“For me and my wife, it’s going to be an enormous sadness to leave because so much of our lives have been in this country,” he said.

“For us, it really is a second home; we’ve lived here longer during our married life than we have lived in the U.K,” Uden added.

After he left Korea in 1982, Uden began an extensive collection of foreign language books about this country.

From book store to book store, and eventually through the internet, Uden amassed an impressive collection of about 600 books and magazines.

“Some of them are analysis of Korean culture but most of them are travelers’ first hand accounts of what Korea was at that time. I have accounts that go as far back as 1818,” he said.

Uden recently sold his book collection to the chairman of Standard Chartered’s Korean unit, who will in turn donate the books to London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

“This collection will fill the gaps they have,” he said about his alma mater.

Before the books exchanged hands, Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo took on the time-consuming task of scanning every single page of the collection to create a digital record of it.

“It cost more than buying it,” joked Uden.

Kim will soon distribute hundreds of DVD copies to schools, universities and libraries across the nation.

Uden believed it was the right time to sell his valued collection but that does not mean he is severing all links with this country.

“When I finish my time in the Foreign Office, I will get involved with Korea one way or another, maybe just from London. My wife insists that we will come back, so that’s official,” he said.

But addictions being what they are, Uden has a feeling he will restart his collection again.

Besides the people, Uden will miss visiting the Seokguram grotto in Gyeongju, which he described as the world’s great historical site and recommends everyone to visit it at least once.

Unfortunately, due to an incredibly busy schedule, the Udens will not have a chance to visit their special spot.

“I will miss the challenges of this job; it’s a fantastic job to do. We are given as ambassadors here a remarkable and completely unjustified amount of respect which is very kind and it’s great to have,” he said.

As British ambassador for the last three years, Uden has witnessed “horrible” issues as well, such as the sinking of the Cheonan, the unprovoked attack of Yeonpyeongdo by North Korea and the ongoing financial crisis.

Concerning the sinking of the Cheonan, the British government sent experts to assist with the international investigation.

“With Yeonpyeong, we released a very speedy statement condemning this unnecessary action by the North and in both cases have supported the South’s actions at the United Nations,” he said. “I’m pleased that the United Kingdom was there for you.”

Uden arrived to Korea during the final part of the negotiations of the Korea-European Union free trade agreement.

During his tenure, one of the things that the embassy has been doing is to ensuring that companies on both sides are in a position to take advantage of the pact

“It doesn’t matter how good the agreement is, if companies don’t know about it, it’s not going to do much good, so I hope that’s been a big success.”

Uden suggested it was best not to look too deeply into the numbers yet as the real figures of trade and the benefits of the pact will only be seen about a year after the deal comes into force.

“The figures in July showed a sudden increase in trade, but as traders, companies would wait until the deal came into affect to take advantage of the reduction of custom tariffs,” he said. “I’m very confident that it will have very positive effects particularly on consumers in both countries to have better and cheaper range of goods.”

Uden also revamped the previously static website and starting a blog and Twitter account, making it possible for the world to read his thoughts on an almost weekly basis.

Apart from the regular day-to-day engagements online, the embassy conducted a few exercises surrounding the Copenhagen climate change conference and the London conference of the G20 to engage more with young Koreans, “which has been very successful.”

An avid activist for the protection of the environment, Uden said that the only way to tackle climate change effectively was through a binding international agreement “which is a long time off but we still believe it will be achieved.”

“It won’t look like the Kyoto Protocol but I think we really do need something like that so that countries like Korea can see that they are not alone in this battle.”

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)