This article aims at directing attention to some mistakes and errors concerning biographical facts of Younghill Kang, who has been recognized as the first Korean American writer. His birth date and place, his education in Korea and abroad, his activities immediately after Korean liberation from Japanese rule, among other things, have been inaccurate and incorrect. A close examination of available internal and external data shows that Kang was born at Woonhak Myun, Hongwon County, Hamkyung Province in 1903, neither 1896 nor 1899. He has been inaccurately described as being educated in Japan; it is, however, a mere story founded on his first novel, The Grass Roof. Educated at first in the Confucian tradition, he later attended such Christian mission schools as Osung Middle School in Seoul and Youngsaeng High School in Hamheung. In Canada he went to Dalhousie University, not Pine Hill College. In the United States, the final degree he received was not a Doctor of Philosophy in English, but a Master in English Education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education. During United States Army Military Government in Korea (1945-1948), Kang criticized Syngman Rhee and his followers for tyranny, corruption and strong will to political power on the one hand; and he spoke out against the post-liberation policies of the U. S. Government on the other. It is worthy of note that in 1947 Kang joined his Korean literary friends, such as Kiusic Kimm, J. Kyuang Dunn, Ik Bong Chang, In Soo Lee, Young-tai Pyun, and Young-ro Pyun, in publishing a collection of poems in English entitled Grove of Azalea. Edited by Young-ro Pyun and published by Kukje Publishing Company in Seoul, the book is the first collection in book form of poems in English written or translated by Korean poets.
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