SEOUL:  10th November '04 --  Some twenty years before the Salesians officially came to Korea, Fr Vincent Cimatti was there, giving concerts on honour of the canonisation of Don Bosco in 1934!  Cimatti, who in his lifetime but especially in Japan wrote nearly one thousand pieces of music from opera to simple piano accompaniments for songs, visited four Korean cities at the time: Shin Oi Ju, Pyong Yang, Seoul, Daegu.  He also visited China, Manchuria at the time.

    In the coming week, the Salesian Family will have an opportunity to attend conferences on Cimatti's life and spirituality in three centres: Seoul - Dae Rim Dong, Daejon, Kwangju - Shin An Dong and the CSM provincial house in Kwanju as well.  The conferences will be conducted by Fr Gaetano Compri, the vicepostulator of the Cimatti cause and rector of the Cimatti museum at Tokyo - Chofu.  They are the result of a move by the Korean province's Jubilee Committee to make a study of models of holiness within the immediate Salesian region in that part of Asia.

   The first Salesian came from Japan to set up a community at Kwanju.  He was Fr Archimedes Martelli.  That was just twenty years after Cimatti's visit and fifty years ago this year.