By Joo Han Kang

SAN FRANCISCO?he English proverb, "Speech is silver. Silence is gold," reminds me of two men of contrast I encountered as a young teacher in my early 20?.

K. was the principal of a large public school in my hometown in North Korea almost half a century ago. He was an exceptionally small man in his 50?. He had so few hairs on his head that some malicious people described him as a "meju" (beancake) made by a careless "mossum" (hired hand).

Despite his appearance, the man was as proud as any good-looking man. Whether he was in his office at school or at home, he had total command of the place. He was a voracious reader and he loved to talk.

We had three meetings a day?orning, noon and in the late afternoon. At each meeting, the principal did all the talking.

Each meeting was supposed to last l5 minutes, but usually went over an hour. Many of the teachers did not like the sessions, but of course, nobody dared complain.

I was not bothered by the interminable meetings, however, because I thought the man? theory of elementary education made sense to me.

Principal K. admired a handful of teachers who played with the children in the playground. But he scolded those teachers, who sat at their desks, avoiding the children on the playground as they prepared their lessons or graded test papers.

Once, one of the teachers fell asleep and started to snore while the principal was talking at one of the late afternoon sessions. When the principal noticed this he became extremely angry and raised hell.

We all sat silently. When he had calmed down, he left the office, with a few more words of admonition. The minute the principal was out the door, we laughed. Even the poor teacher who was scolded for falling asleep laughed.

One late afternoon, during another of his speeches, our principal said he would give a reward to anybody who would set fire to the school building and burn it down so that a new modern school would be constructed in its place. Of course, we thought it was just a joke or perhaps his way of keeping us awake.

Strangely enough, however, about l0 o?lock that very night, fire broke out and more than 20 classrooms were destroyed. Nobody knew the cause of the fire.

Soon after the fire, the principal was transferred to a small school in a rural area, and a new principal named U. arrived.

Unlike his predecessor U. was a tall man with few words. He didn? share the office with his teachers. He abolished all the meetings. We were supposed to meet only when necessary.

Weeks passed without a meeting. Everybody wondered what the new principal was going to do with us.

Once a day he made his rounds of the classes which were being held in temporary accommodations. But he merely looked into the classrooms once, then left without saying a word.

Some teachers complained about the new principal? seemingly indifferent attitude, but I didn? mind.

With donations and support from the local government, a new two-story brick building was completed several months after the fire. There was a big celebration to mark the completion of the project.

Principal U. had to deliver a speech. He found his way to a small platform overlooking the audience. With his unusual height, his appearance was quite imposing.

But his speech was certainly the poorest and shortest one I had ever heard. Everybody was disappointed.

Yet our happiness with the new school building was marred by a series of new troubles. Someone kept breaking into the building at night and walking off with school supplies, sometimes even with money that teachers kept in their drawers.

As a preventive measure a team of teachers was assigned night watchmen? duty, but to no avail.

But one morning the whole school was talking about an incident that took place the previous night. The principal had caught the thief.

Apparently, the principal had been hiding behind a big tree near the school every night since the first incident.

Finally, that night he saw somebody approach the building, break the glass and enter.

When the thief came out the building with an armful of stolen goods, the principal suddenly grabbed the fellow from behind shouting, "Thief!"

The thief was arrested and punished, and the troubles stopped.

The news of the intrepid principal traveled near and far. As a result, people? opinions about this uncommunicative man changed.

Speech may be silver, and silence may be golden, but action is better.