A small boy's understanding is limited by his experience. When young JOUNG RYUL KANG’s father, a strict and frugal man, gave him what appeared to be an enormous amount of spending money for a school trip to Seoul, the boy decided that pleasing his father was more important than pleasing himself. He carefully limited his excursion expenses while in the city so that when he resumed to his village there was a sizeable amount of money left to return to his parents. Instead of praising him, however, KANG’s father was annoyed. "I gave you money to spend and you did not do it," he said; "a man must know when to spend as well as when to save!" It was KANG’s first lesson in the difference between thrift and miserliness, and one that he only fully understood much later in his life when circumstances led him to an interest in credit unions.

JOUNG RYUL KANG was born October 8, 1923 in the tiny village of Woljiri, located in what now is North Korea. Situated on the western side of the Korean peninsula, Woljiri is in the province of PyongannamDo, the center of Christianity in Korea. In the latter part of the 19th century Pyongyang, the provincial capital and largest city, housed over 100 Christian churches and was said to have more Protestant missionaries than any other Asian city. KANG was reared in the strong Protestant atmosphere of his village. He was the last child and only son of Hyun Bum Kang and Chang Ok Kim, reasonably well-to-do farmers. Instead of spoiling his son, as many families did, KANG’s father deliberately maintained strict discipline over the boy, insisting on hard work, obedience, honesty and thriftiness. KANG remembers that the first time he was allowed to spend money on candy was when he was in his sixth year of school, and that other villagers marveled at the tight rein that the father kept on him. In contrast, KANG’s mother blindly adored her boy.

Although his father and two of his three sisters had been baptized by the Presbyterians, KANG did not affiliate with the denomination because, as a schoolboy, he was confused and frightened by the competition existing between rival Protestant churches. He attended local elementary and secondary schools and Chinnampo Commercial School in the nearby town of Chinnampo, from which he graduated in 1941. His formal education was completed in 1943 when he finished correspondence courses in economics and commerce and English literature from prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo. With textbooks provided for study at home due to the war KANG was able at the same time to teach at Samsung Missionary School in Chinnampo, a Methodist elementary school where the father of a friend was headmaster.

On April 15, 1944, at the age of 20, KANG married Song Yup Lee (Monica), daughter of a scholar, Young Dae Lee, who before his death in 1968 taught oriental history at Seoul Technical College. Six weeks later KANG fell ill with pleurisy and, as he says, his "life of rest-cure began." In the winter KANG moved in with his parents in Woljiri while his wife lived with her family in Chinnampo.

Military service had been compulsory for Japanese but voluntary for boys of Korean parentage until 1944 when the compulsory rule was applied to Korean boys, starting with those born in 1923. KANG’s chronic pleurisy, however, prevented his induction into the Japanese army; on August 15, 1945 when Japan surrendered, he was sick in bed.

At the end of the war KANG’s village was in the territory north of the 38th parallel controlled by the Korean communists and their Russian advisors who had taken over at the time of the Japanese surrender. KANG’s continuing ill health kept him from conscription by the North Korean government and on the sidelines while political stances hardened as communist-led Peoples' Committees grabbed more and more power at the village level. Some of his friends, who were Marxist theorists, began to realize that the new government they had welcomed was only a mask for "Slavic imperialism" and began to slip away to the south— testimony to their disillusionment.

KANG was impressed by the uncompromising resistance of the Catholic community to the new regime. Communist authorities had advised Christians to organize themselves under state auspices, promising religious freedom, food rations and seats in the congress if they followed the state guidelines. Some Protestant leaders defied the government, others complied; but the entire Catholic hierarchy refused any cooperation. KANG believes the Catholics were guided by the lessons learned by the Russian Orthodox Church—that compromise only led to endless concessions to the state. The solidarity of the Catholics in upholding their principles led KANG to follow the example of his father and two of his sisters who had converted to Catholicism. In 1947 KANG was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and given the name of AUGUSTINE. "It is interesting," he muses," whenever pressure is weak people drop away from the Church, but whenever pressure is strong then people come back to the Church because they have to be ready to meet the last moment—at any time it may come."

A growing unease with the communist regime led KANG in March 1947 to ask his wife to take their two year old son and join her parents who already had sought refuge in South Korea. Escape required avoiding the surveillance net of communist guards at the 38th parallel which KANG felt was too risky for him to attempt until he was in better health. He was still convalescing in his parents' home and suffering periodically from slight fever in the afternoons. In 1949, when his health was good enough for him to do light work, KANG became a catechist at the Woljiri Mission under Reverend Leo Sweeney, a Maryknoll priest, and helped on the family as much as his strength would allow. He kept to a "very strict and regular living schedule" and most of his time was spent "meeting young people about religious subjects," he reports.

The beginning of the Korean War in June 1950 caught KANG up in the crosscurrents of hostilities in his area. When the United Nations forces' counterattack in September 1959 swept into North Korea, the retreating communists brutally murdered anti-communist fellow villagers. The relatives of the victims, in turn, took their revenge by murdering those whom they considered communist sympathizers. The idealistic KANG became emotionally concerned with what he describes as "the killing business" and sought to stop the terror. He gave talks exhorting the villagers to stop killing each other. "If you kill communists," he pleaded, "you are helping Stalin, because this is Stalin's gimmick— causing friction among the people—and then they conquer. If you kill fellow Koreans you are supporting Stalin!" Although the talks were momentarily successful, when KANG left the scene the revenge murders continued.

KANG’s work in the village attracted the attention of the American military governor who asked his help in identifying the legitimate residents of his village from the host of Koreans detained by the army until their combatant status could be established. He was offered a job with the military authorities in Pyongyang but fumed it down because it would take him away from his village. He also was offended by the salary offer being raised when he hesitated, which seemed to him a crass interpretation of his motives.

The tide of war changed again and the North Koreans, reinforced by their Chinese allies, swept down the peninsula. KANG had been warned that his activities of the past months had drawn attention and now realized that he had to seek safety in the south if the communists returned. An unexpected opportunity to escape occurred in December 1950 when he was visiting his uncle in Chinnampo and the uncle asked him to join his family on a small boat chartered to take some 50 Koreans to Inchon. KANG left without a chance to say goodbye to his parents, which has troubled him throughout his life. His feelings of grief were somewhat assuaged when he later found out that on the very day he left North Korea his mother had sent a village friend to try to find him and persuade him to flee.

KANG celebrated Christmas at Inchon Cathedral and a few days later moved on to Kunsan where his wife and child had found shelter with her uncle, Dr. Young Chun Lee, a prominent parasitologist and the director of the Rural Health Institute in that city. For several months KANG rested until he regained the health that had been so damaged by stress and the pleurisy that had invaded his lungs. By mid-1951 he was well enough to work at the Rural Health Institute as Lee's secretary. In 1953 Dr. Lee recommended he assist the Quaker Friends' Service Unit which had come to Kunsan to help with the flood of refugees from North Korea. KANG was put in charge of the Korean staff working with a Quaker medical team at Kunsan Provincial Hospital. In the summer of 1955, again plagued by pleurisy, he was put on complete bed rest for three months and thereafter allowed to work only half days for another three months.

The Quakers' plain speaking and unequivocal morality made a deep impression on KANG. He remembers instances when the Friends refused to drink black-market coffee, or trade American dollars illegally even when others did so without scruple if they felt the profits were to be used for a good cause. When a member of KANG’s staff was hauled off to jail on suspicion of stealing bicycles, one of the Quakers refused to leave the imprisoned man until an investigation took place. The police chief finally released the suspect when faced with the prospect of holding him and his guiltless English Quaker boss, and was thoroughly embarrassed when the culprit turned out to be an ex-policeman.

KANG chose to work with the Quakers until they left Korea in 1958. His employers, worried that he would not have a job after their departure, tried to interest him in a position with the American aid program, but KANG let the opportunity pass because he wanted to stay with the Friends until the last possible moment so that large supplies of medicines and vitamins which they were leaving at the hospital would be properly distributed, rather than looted and sold on the black-market. When they left KANG and a trusted hospital staff member hired a truck and by night distributed the medical supplies directly to Korean orphanages.

Before leaving Kunsan the Quakers had informed Msgr. (Monsignor) George M. Carroll, Director of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Pusan, of KANG’s capabilities. Hired by Carroll to work in the Relief Services' office in January 1959 KANG was to remain with CRS until July 1969. It was through the CRS that KANG met Sister Mary Gabriella Mulherin who became of pivotal influence in his career. From her he learned of the credit union movement.

Sister Gabriella had been involved with relief programs in Korea for some time but realized that charity alone could not solve the enormous problems posed by the postwar dislocation of the South Korean economy and the presence of over a million refugees. Searching for solutions which emphasized self-help, she attended a 1959 meeting on Korean relief in New York where she learned of courses in cooperative education which were being given at the Coady Institute founded by Msgr. Moses Coady at St. Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Msgr. Coady, a Canadian priest and teacher, had devoted himself to the propagation of cooperative training and ideals through adult education and had inspired graduates of the institute to disseminate knowledge of cooperatives through what became known as the "Antigonish Movement." Coady believed that social ills could be attacked most successfully through self-help and cooperation, particularly through the institution of credit unions. He believed that economic problems had to be solved through management of individual finances in order for the poor to gain control of their lives and build a better society for themselves. The credit union offered a means of teaching thrift and promoting service to others—concepts which Coady believed ultimately led to self-reliance and improvement in character. Training at the Coady Institute emphasized the practical mechanics of establishing credit unions, as well as the philosophical principles underlying the contemporary cooperative movement.

The credit union movement traces its origins to the principles of the first "modern" cooperative society established in the 19th century by the Rochdale Community in England and the efforts in credit union organization of Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Germany. The first successful North American credit union was established by Alphonse Desjardins, a Canadian journalist, who in 1900 founded the La Caisse Populaire de Levis (People's Cooperative Bank of Levis) in Quebec. After some initial difficulties the caisses populaires began to spread through the industrial and rural areas of Canada. In 1909 Desjardins and the parish priest of Manchester, New Hampshire, formed the first credit union in the United States. At the same time Desjardins conferred with the Banking Commissioner of Massachusetts and a group of interested citizens including Edward A. Filene, the owner of a large Boston department store, who became the benefactor of the credit union movement in the United States.

In 1920 Filene hired a charismatic lawyer, Roy F. Bergengren, to be the managing director of the Massachusetts Credit Union Association. Devoted to the principles of the movement and a tireless worker, Bergengren organized more credit unions and the Massachusetts Credit Union League. With financial backing from Filene, Bergengren became the head of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau and campaigned for the enactment of state credit union laws and the formation of a national credit union association to be supported by the state leagues which were being set up as the number of individual credit unions increased. Within a decade 11 state leagues, encompassing 500 credit unions, were formed. Bergengren's Extension Bureau became the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) when his efforts were given official recognition by the passage of the Federal Credit Union Act in 1934.

Financed by the league assessments based on small per capita charges and voluntary contributions, CUNA provided resources for the entire credit union movement by conducting educational seminars, issuing publications, engaging in public and government relations, providing research facilities, promoting credit union formation and offering other services which eventually included sending CUNA representatives throughout the world.

Imbued with the principles of the Antigonish Movement, Sister Gabriella drew on CUNA's help to start the first credit union in Korea. In February of 1960 she arranged for a seminar in credit union organization for interested Koreans in Pusan. In March Carlos Matos, the Assistant Director of CUNA, came to Korea and gave a special lecture on the credit union movement. KANG was among the participants at both meetings.

KANG became convinced of the usefulness of the concepts being discussed, recognizing that their application would help break the hopeless pattern of indebtedness of many Korean workers who were unable to obtain conventional bank loans and were forced to borrow from loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates. The credit union philosophy of self-help and democratic control appealed to him and he was drawn by the movement's insistence that it was "not for profit, not for charity, but for service." He translated into Korean the credit union by-laws furnished by CUNA and took his first steps toward a career as a self-described "credit union fanatic."

In May of 1960 Sister Gabriella, with the help of KANG end nine others, organized the Sung-Ga (Holy Family) Credit Union; there were 28 original members. KANG was elected president and Sister Gabriella treasurer-managing director of the infant association. KANG volunteered in the evenings, on weekends and holidays to help spread the movement. He was fortunate, he says, to be working for CRS "because we closed the office on Korean, U.S. and church holidays."

As a result of the missionary work of Sister Gabriella, KANG and their associates, two other credit unions were soon formed. The first step was always personal contact with prospective credit union leaders to describe the aims of the association—the establishment of a cooperative society for promoting thrift among members and creating a source of credit for emergency or productive purposes. The second step was the education of the leaders in the practical techniques of organizing and running a credit union.

At first johap, the Korean word for union, was not used to describe Sung-Ga to Koreans. Instead the organization was called a credit kye. Kye was an ancient Korean form of mutual aid society in which money was pooled in advance for specific purposes such as weddings or funerals. While the kye was a useful, time-honored means of meeting predictable needs for relatively large amounts of cash, it had severe limitations in that there were no guarantees for the safety of deposits and often there was not sufficient capital. There were no clear principles guiding its organization and it was unable to serve large numbers of participants. The credit union, in comparison, had organizational checks and balances to protect the members' money and could handle a larger membership.

Credit union by-laws provided a uniform organizational pattern. The members had to have a "common bond" which was usually occupational, social or determined by neighborhood. Within the bond membership was open to all regardless of race, religion, economic or social status. Each member had one vote regardless of the amount of his savings. Control of the credit union was held by the members who elected a board of directors. This board was to serve without compensation and was responsible for establishing the basic policies of the association. The board elected a president, one or more vice-presidents, a secretary and a treasurer. The general membership also elected a credit committee which acted on loan applications according to the policies established by the board of directors. A supervisory committee, which could be elected by the general membership or appointed by the board of directors, was responsible for periodic audits of the credit union's accounts and for insuring that the charter and by-laws were followed. By unanimous vote, the supervisory committee could suspend any member of the board of directors, but members of the committee were themselves subject to suspension by a majority vote of the board. Both suspensions had to be ratified by a majority vote of the general membership within a specified time. All elected officers served without compensation with the exception of the treasurer who also acted as general manager. The treasurer was bonded and made responsible for the maintenance of records of the financial transactions of the credit union. If funds allowed, a professional manager could be hired to conduct the business of the organization.

An education committee, often headed by a vice-president, was appointed by the board of directors to educate members and prospective members in the philosophy and conduct of the credit union—by lectures, publications or whatever form of communication funds and time allowed—and of the need to elect responsible officers and to participate actively in meetings.

Members of the credit union paid a small initial fee to join and were asked to make regular deposits in what were called "shares"; their money could be withdrawn at any time. The money received was placed in financial instruments from which it could be withdrawn easily to make it immediately available for loans to members; the treasurer was not allowed to keep cash longer than 48 hours before depositing it. Loans were to be granted at reasonable rates of interest and dividends paid on shares from profits after a capital reserve had been established for emergencies. For the credit union to achieve its highest purpose of, not only providing money for its members, but instilling in them a sense of service through cooperation and democratic participation, constant reinforcement through education and training were required. The temptation for a successful credit union to move toward becoming a profit-oriented rather than a service-oriented organization had to be guarded against. Credit committees were urged to give priority to small loans over large loans when capital was limited, and character alone could serve as security for loans up to a specified limit.

Directors and members of the credit committee personally collected loan payments. If office space was not available, credit union records were kept in the treasurer's pocket or wrapped in the large cloth square

called a podari which Koreans often use to carry things. Indeed, credit unions were characterized as pocket, podari or desk types, depending on the size and sophistication of their operations. As their finances and membership increased the credit union could and did hire auditors as well as managers, but at first these functions were conducted by the members themselves without compensation.

The credit committee and other members of the board often found that they had to assume counseling functions. KANG uses the example of a general membership meeting that he called to discuss the difficulty of refusing a loan to a family which needed money to provide for an extravagant but traditional ceremony honoring deceased grandparents. The members' discussion led to a consensus that the grandparents, if alive, would approve of thrifty and responsible descendants and be quite content with modest and less ruinous observances. Everyone's "face" was saved and a new and more rational tradition was established, among the credit union members at least.

By 1962 the number of Korean credit unions had increased to 27, with a membership of 3,621. In Pusan an organization was formed to afford union officers an association to share experiences and to help organize new credit unions. That same year Sister Gabriella started the Voluntary Cooperative Center in Pusan which conducted intensive training courses in credit union leadership and became the source of officers for new associations.

While Sister Gabriella and KANG were working in Pusan, Jesuit Father Basil M. Price at Sogang College in Seoul was spreading the credit union message through the training courses in the college's Labor Management Institute which he headed. Rev. Price was a member of the Cooperative Promotion Committee, a subcommittee of the Korean Association of Voluntary Agencies (KAVA) of which Sister Gabriella and KANG were also members. In the mid-1960s the first students' credit union was organized in Sogang College with the help of Rev. Price, and many Sogang College graduates are now working for the Korean credit union movement.

The continued growth of credit unions led 51 unions in March 1964 to form the Korean Credit Union League, with headquarters in Seoul. KANG, who had been influential in the formation of the league, was its first president, serving in 1964 and again in 1966. The league affiliated itself with the CUNA, thus participating in the benefits of belonging to an international organization. (CUNA had established a World Extension Department in 1954 and under the terms of an amendment to the American Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 sponsored by Hubert Humphrey, then senator from Minnesota, had obtained a contract from the American government's Agency for International Development to provide technical assistance in organizing credit unions throughout the world.)

Shortly after the formation of the league, Sister Gabriella relinquished her position as general manager, turning the operation of it over to Korean credit union leaders. These leaders resolved to break their dependence on the Catholic Church for financial assistance and guidance by taking over decision-making responsibilities and by financing the league through dues. League offices were moved from the premises of the Cooperative Education Institute (the Seoul-based successor to the Voluntary Cooperative Center in Pusan) and visual identification with the church was thereby reduced. The Archdiocese of Seoul, however, continued to support the training activities of the Cooperative Education Institute which, with both teaching and residential facilities, continued to be a primary source of trained credit union leaders throughout Korea.

The league began working toward the enactment of a national credit union law. The wording of the legislation was modeled on the cooperative principles and practices embodied in the United States law governing credit unions which guaranteed the legitimacy and the autonomy of the movement. After a disappointing failure in 1970 to obtain approval of the legislation, the law was finally passed in 1972, a rare example of a law which had been presented by volunteer leaders being accepted by the National Assembly. It took eight years of continuous efforts in education and lobbying to obtain the law and represented a major accomplishment for the league.

The league also started an "interlending" program in 1969, establishing a central credit union to enable unions in need of extra funds to borrow from the pooled surplus capital of all members of the league.

KANG, who had worked enthusiastically for the aims of the league, was sent in 1967 to the International Cooperative Training Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where the World Council and CUNA are headquartered, to take a three-month course in Cooperative Education. He spent another three months studying Social Leadership at the Coady International Institute at Xavier University, Antigonish, Canada, where his mentor, Sister Gabriella, had been introduced to the credit union movement. The CRS paid KANG’s salary during this training period and also some expenses of the training.

The following year KANG was appointed the Far Eastern Representative of the World Council of Credit Unions. It was his first salaried position with the movement after almost a decade of volunteer work. Until this time he was paid as an employee of the Catholic Relief Services. The World Council consists of representatives of various regional confederations. It provides financial assistance to these confederations, arranging for loans and grants from governments and private sources throughout the world to help in the extension of credit unionism. In its triennial meetings it provides a forum for international credit union leaders to discuss problems and plans for the future.

KANG’s first job was to form an Asian Confederation. Contacting national leagues and credit union leaders, KANG brought together their representatives from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand to form the Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU) in April 1971. In addition to his work with the World Council, he became the confederation's general manager and, with funding from the Council and other grants, he set about the confederation's business of promoting the spread of the credit union movement throughout Asia. Meetings, seminars, personal contact with leaders and government officials became his routine. He traveled well over half the time, visiting leaders, answering requests for specific needs, bringing leaders together in seminars, talking "credit union" with government officials, explaining, educating, exhorting, constantly reiterating the cooperative principles and motivating others by his enthusiasm and dedication.

The range of credit union activity in Asia is wide—from an infant movement in Singapore encouraged recently when KANG inspired the creation of a credit union for social workers, to the self-sufficient, highly developed movement in Korea which now includes over 1,400 credit unions and some 800,000 members. The major thrust of KANG’s work has been in education and training through regional and local seminars and workshops. KANG has paid particular attention to the need for improved legal status in those Asian countries which have existing legislation governing credit unions and for the generation of positive laws in those which have none; in some countries cooperative laws generated at the national level have inhibited grass-root credit unions, and in others the movement has suffered from lack of sensible national legislation. A successful seminar on credit union law was conducted by the ACCU in 1980 in Seoul with participants from Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and with credit union leaders from Germany, Ireland and the United States. KANG drew government officials into the seminar both for exchange of information and in preparation for further activity to amend or inaugurate appropriate legislation.

ACCU advice and assistance has been extended to encourage the formation of national credit union leagues m Indonesia and Malaysia. Active support has been given to the creation of a credit union interlending facility in the Philippines where a long established credit union movement has suffered from regional schism. A program for exchange of information and expertise between leaders of the vigorous movements in Korea and Taiwan has been conducted. Sub-regional seminars have been organized and attended by representatives of countries both within and outside the confederation's membership. Papua New Guinea, a member of the ACCU, has become the focus of a new Pacific Confederation which, with KANG’s blessing, will become a separate member of the World Council, duplicating the ACCU's work in the island nations of the Pacific.

A bimonthly ACCU publication, Asia-Con News, keeps confederation members abreast of developments both within the area and internationally. Not only has KANG established the ACCU as an important resource for the area, he knows personally all of the credit union leaders in Asia and is constantly arranging opportunities for them to share their expertise. He sends volunteer credit union technicians to any country which expresses a need for special services and is himself a participant at most seminars and all regional workshops.

KANG has set certain objectives for the confederation—which include mobilizing expatriate Asian credit union leaders to establish credit unions among their communities. KANG is assisting Vietnamese living in Korea to organize a credit union and is urging the World Council of Credit Unions and CUNA to pay more attention to credit union programs for Asian immigrants in the United States and Canada. He has supported the allocation of funds to create separate rural credit promotion departments within national leagues. Another of his aspirations is the creation of an interlending service for all members of the Asian Confederation.

From his earliest days with the tiny Holy Family Credit Kye in Pusan to his work with the Asian Confederation, KANG has inspired confidence and trust among his associates and has been extremely effective in settling disagreements, soothing ruffled feelings and persuading others to work amicably toward clearly defined goals. Although thoroughly competent to discuss the most arcane credit union matters, he speaks in down-to-earth terms, avoiding the rhetorical phrase and using homespun, easily comprehended analogies to illustrate his points. With confidence that rational dialogue and education are the best ways of overcoming misconceptions, KANG has brought together technocrats and workers, ecclesiastics and laymen, and government officials and credit union leaders and helped them work together in a common cause. He has reassured bank officials that credit unions are not competitors, emphasizing that credit union money is channeled through banks, and has convinced government officials that the credit union movement is an integral part of national economic development. When credit union organizers have parented their organizations too long, he has urged them to let go and let the members manage on their own.

Without sacrificing the principles and tested practices of a movement which traces its origins to Europe and North America, KANG has succeeded in relating credit unions to Asian needs and institutions. A devoted Christian himself, he has emphasized the nonsectarian philosophy of the credit union movement. At the same time he has drawn upon religious groups of all faiths for leaders and financial support for the movement. In his view religious idealism has proven fertile soil for the nurturing of credit union leaders, providing the spiritual income which is the volunteers' only salary.

KANG is a single minded propagandist for the credit union movement both professionally and domestically. In his own family his wife Monica has been a credit union organizer and president of a parish credit union. His eldest son Don Bosco was president of a student credit union, his second son Frank is board member of the Lee Family Credit Union which was organized by relatives of KANG and his wife, and his other four children are members of both the family and the parish credit unions. KANG humorously describes family meetings in which his youngest son has cited parliamentary procedure to rule his mother out of order and gain the presidency himself.

Despite the proliferation of executive titles, the KANGs live simply. KANG is a warm and sympathetic husband and father to his large family of three boys and three girls. The children often accompany him to meetings and criticize his speaking style—criticism which he takes in the best of humor. A robust man whose body shows little evidence of the bad health that racked his youth, KANG has boundless energy and a genuinely optimistic attitude toward life and his fellow men. He takes his profession and his family as joyful challenges, openly displaying his love for both. As an active Catholic layman, he is deeply involved in the Church's idealistic "Better World Movement," which stresses the importance of dialogue between churchmen and laymen to strengthen Christian faith and brotherly love. He spent 10 years as a volunteer m the movement. He also serves as a director of the Sacred Heart Women's College in Seoul.

KANG’s career in credit unions has seen the movement spread through Asia where the confederation now serves over 1,000,000 members. He is content to see the movement grow by its own impetus, without special encouragement or regulation by governments other than the protection of credit union laws. "We just start slowly, through education, trying to change society by changing people," he says. Although the leagues, confederations and the World Council exist to help by education and by providing solidarity with the world movement which serves over 66,000,000 members in 57 countries, it is at the primary level of the self-managing credit union that the members receive the fullest social and economic benefits of the association.

Whatever failures there are within the credit union movement KANG sees as coming from deviations from the movement's fundamental tenets. The weakening of the common bond when credit unions grow too large for individual members to have an active share in their management, the temptation for elected officers to expect remuneration for their services which KANG feels should be voluntary, the tendency to increase profits rather than serve members' needs and loss of interest in the common purpose, all represent pitfalls which can easily occur. KANG accepts the failings of human nature: "It's a constant fight against selfishness," he says. Voluntary service has been an exhilarating experience for KANG and he believes that such service is essential to maintain the health of the movement. He firmly believes that the movement, "a development for man, not for money," is an instrument for obtaining social justice through the bettering of individual lives.

The creation of capital available to the poor is the result of credit unionism, but not necessarily the most important benefit of the association. The inculcation of the values of thrift and of internally imposed discipline, the practices of decision making, democratic participation in group endeavor, assumption of trust and the practice of management skills can produce a new sense of self-reliance and confidence in individual members. While the securing of a better life without exploitation is demonstrated by the successful operation of the credit union, less apparent but nevertheless important effects can be perceived in the growth of the participant's positive attitudes toward the values of cooperation, service to a community and control of his own life.

The Canadian credit union pioneer Desjardins wrote that the credit union "is an expression in the field of economics of a high social ideal." It is to this high social ideal that AUGUSTINE JOUNG RYUL KANG has made his fullest commitment and from which he derives his deepest satisfaction.

September 1981
Manila

REFERENCES:

Asia-Con News. Seoul: Asian Confederation of Credit Unions. July-August 1981.

Asian Confederation of Credit Unions Report to the 5th Intemational Conference on Cooperative Thrift and Credit. New Delhi. February 16-20, 1981.

Credit Union Movement in Korea. Seoul: National Credit Union Federation of Korea. 1980. Henderson, Gregory. Korea: the Politics of the Vortex. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1968.

Korean Credit Union League 20th Anniversary Book. Seoul. April 1980.

Manual for Credit Union Officers. Manila: Institute for Social Order. N.d.

Melvin, Donald J., Raymond N. Davis and Gerald C. Fischer. Credit Unions and the Credit Union Industry. New York: New York Institute of Finance. 1977.

1980 Asian Regional Credit Union Law Seminar. Seoul: Asian Confederation of Credit Unions October 5-14, 1980.

Osgood, Cornelius. The Koreans and their Culture. New York: Ronald Press Company. 1951.

Park, Yong Duck. Cooperative Education Institute. Seoul. 1980.

Seminar for Improved Cooperation October 11-17. Seoul: Asian Confederation of Credit Unions. 1980.

Song, Vo Kyung. Study of the Development of the Credit Union Movement in Korea. Seoul Cooperative Education Institute. 1976.

West Asian Regional Credit Union League Training Conference March 19-27. Bangkok: Asian Confederation of Credit Unions. 1978.

World Council of Credit Unions International Annual Report 1979/1980. Madison, Wisconsin.

World Reporter. Madison, Wisconsin: World Council of Credit Unions. Quarter 1, 1981.