Dr. Emma Kim Volunteers Dental Expertise

With 28 suitcases among her nine-member team, you would have thought that Dr. Emma Kim was on her way to Outer Mongolia. In fact, in July, Kim traveled to the storied realm of Genghis Khan. In Ulaanbaatar, the capitol and largest city in Mongolia, she spent seven days providing dental care at a missionary hospital and teaching dental students basic procedures that we in the West take for granted.   For Kim, who has maintained a dental practice in Pacific Palisades since 2000 (, the short-term medical mission was her second voluntary outreach trip to the vast, landlocked nation that lies between China and Russia.   ’My focus for this mission was prevention and infection control,’ Kim explains while recalling the experience of the year before. ‘Many of the patients I treated last year had rampant caries. What I saw from the remote clinics and hospitals was sub-par infection control protocols. Half-used anesthetic carpules were being reused, and the instruments were wiped with alcohol, which does not kill hepatitis or HIV.’ She added that hepatitis B and C are reaching pandemic proportions in Mongolia.   The simple things that we in the West expect, such as gloves, masks and clean instruments, are not always available in a remote, developing country like Mongolia, Kim point out.   Mongolia, which is slightly larger than Alaska, is 90 percent pasture or desert. The climate is harsh with sharp seasonal fluctuations. The people, over half of whom are Buddhists, with a sprinkling of shaman, Christian and Muslin, are predominantly Mongol and historically semi-nomadic. With a history of dominance, alternately by the Chinese and Russians, the country is reckoning with the economic and cultural challenges of a changing culture.   The pastoral economy, historically based on herding and agriculture, is disappearing as mining, particularly of copper and gold, accounts for much of the economic growth. And, not withstanding the efforts to build a strong economy, Mongolia continues to be heavily influenced by its nearby neighbors but also through relations with Japan and South Korea that are bolstered by trade, economic assistance, and humanitarian missions.   Kim traveled under the auspices of Young Nak Celebration Church in Los Angeles, which has committed to missions all over the world. Her team, which consisted of a pathologist, an intervention radiologist, ophthalmologists, a pharmacist and non-medical support, were assisted in Ulaanbaatar by David Park, a missionary at New Life Church of Ulaanbaatar. Kim was born in Korea, and moved to Los Angeles when she was 11, attending elementary school and university in L.A. She received her dental training at Tufts University.   Kim’s 8-year-old son Niko accompanied her again on the mission, and education she believes is an important component of her commitment.   ’I feel that I have a responsibility to show him, a boy who is growing up in a well-to-do environment, that we have the obligation to show our love to our less fortunate neighbors with our prayers, monetary means, or with the gift of our profession,’ she says.   Three years ago, she was very ill with a cyst on her ovary. ‘My whole life was upset,’ she says, ‘but I had good medical care and recovered. At that time I made a promise to God that I would go to wherever I am asked.’   Through the health professional ministry of her church, Kim began to exchange e-mails with Pastor Park and agreed to participate in the mission. While the team commits for only a week, planning for such an undertaking takes time, for fundraising, ($3,500 per person) and for planning the trip halfway around the world. Kim paid half the cost for herself and Niko, while the other half came from individual contributions. She then began assembling the equipment, which ranged from mobile units’-a dental chair, generator and hand pieces) and instruments, to toothbrushes and toothpaste.   While the time of year guaranteed warm weather, the working conditions were challenging.   ’We set up a mobile clinic at Bethel Church, working jointly with another mission team from Korea,’ Kim says. ‘There was no running water or indoor plumbing. At the government health clinic, when I asked for water for sterilizing my instruments, I was given a bucket of water.   ’We saw many patients for cleanings, extractions and fillings,’ she continues. ‘There was also a team of traditional Chinese medicine students from Yonsei Univesity in Seoul, South Korea, who performed acupuncture therapies for patients with various pains. It was amazing to see how people although Koreans but from two different countries and two languages came together for one purpose and served the people of Mongolia.’   Kim and her assistant worked long days, sometimes returning to their dorm after midnight. One patient she treated held a special place in Kim’s heart.   ’I wanted to go this year to follow up on a woman who had worked with me as a translator last year but who herself needed dental care. I was only able to extract bad teeth, which is about all you can do, but felt bad about leaving her. There are no root canals because there is no money, so there is no way to fix them. This year I came back and gave her care. She was the last patient I saw the day we worked straight through till 12:30 a.m.’   The majority of the population in Mongolia lacks knowledge about oral hygiene, tooth brushing and oral hygiene accessories. Kim says that poverty, diet and a paucity of resources contribute to oral disease. ‘A lot of people eat with pain. The children are in pain and they won’t listen to you. Sometimes I see every single one of their teeth is bombed out.   ’Mongolia needs more resources in order to grow,’ Kim continues. ‘I felt this deeply when I was teaching a Mongolian dentist at Yonsei Friendship Hospital how to do root canal therapy. She had all the knowledge from studying. However, she didn’t have anyone to teach her how to a do root canal therapy on a live patient.’   Upon reflection, Kim looks upon her mission with clear eyes, focusing on the small gains that one-on-one care can make in an individual’s quality of life in a country, where the life expectancy is 64. Her focus is rightfully on her son, whom, she believes, learns important lessons about the wider world.   ’In Mongolia, he walked in the plains, walked next to a camel and tiny horses, drank horse milk, got stung by a nettle bush and used the outhouse for the first time. He also saw other children with medical issues who couldn’t continue to pay for their medication after our departure. He witnessed many people with dental pains who were glad to have treatment, finally. Further, he saw his friends from last year and made some new ones.’   Niko is a student at Palisades Elementary.

Culture Clash throws everything they’ve got, even a kitchen sink had one been available, into ‘Peace,’ Aristophanes’ blasphemous indictment of war, now on the outdoor stage at the Getty Villa through October 3.   The partnership between the famously raunchy theater troupe and the equally irreverent 4th-century B.C. playwright proves to be devilishly subversive and hilarious. Enveloping the simple plot, from preamble to intermezzo to conclusion, is a wheelbarrow full of vulgarity, carnality and political incorrectness, sparing no one.   This is the second foray into the world of Greek comedy for Culture Clash, who staged Aristophanes’ ‘The Birds’ for the Villa Theater Lab in 2007. The group, featuring Herbert Siguenza, Ric Salinas and Richard Montoya, eagerly tackled this commission, sharing as they do Aristophanes’ social commentary and satire. The trio each plays a handful of characters during the 90-minute production. A stew of sketch comedy, classic adaptation and sheer unpredictability, this production leaves no time for rumination.   Culture Clash’s Montoya, dressed in full charro regalia, welcomes the audience. Playing off the group’s Chicano roots, he cautions us to keep the noise down. ‘Laugh on the inside,’ he says. ‘If you’re too noisy,’ he warns, ‘you’ll be taken to the herb garden and shot.’   With that, the rumpus begins and the plot revealed. The world is a mess, fires and earthquakes have been unleashed by the gods, and now War has abducted Peace and sequestered her in a cave. A simple farmer, Trygaeus (known as Ty Dye), an inglorious Quixote, emerges from a dung heap atop a beetle prepared to ‘rescue’ Peace. ‘I want peace, where is it?’ he laments. ‘As if fire and earthquakes weren’t enough, War squeezes all the human juice from the countryside.’ Dressed in a tie-dyed tunic, actor John Fleck affects a disarming charm and conviction in his starring role. The story line unravels, confounded incessantly by the jokes and pokes of a cast of rascals and rustics.   Ty mounts his ‘methane-powered’ beetle (‘Oh, a hybrid!’). Leaving his disaffected son, dressed ‘ la Michael Jackson (his pop idol), the farmer ventures to Mt. Olympus to demand that Zeus release Peace. He rides across the stage above the audience like E.T. to the balcony of the museum, where he is stopped by Hermes, dressed appropriately in winged tennis shoes and a gold lame loincloth. ‘Herm’s,’ if you please, he corrects Ty, while offering to reveal the whereabouts of Peace in exchange for a ‘feel.’ All the characters, by the way, are equipped with eye-popping balloon phalluses.   ’All the gods have gone on vacation,’ Herm’s says. ‘Zeus told War to have his way with the humans.’ War interrupts the proceedings, appropriately dressed in a bloodstained apron, a chest full of medals and a conquistador’s helmet embellished with a rainbow of ‘feathers’ in the shape of dead men. His rancor, his robust disdain for humankind and overall glee over human suffering is based on his conviction that ‘whining mortals are always carrying on about how they miss Peace.’ This play bounces along on balloons and buffoons, and a surplus of Westside in-jokes, including sly asides about gardeners and the Getty itself. There is an amusing interlude with KCRW’s Bookworm Michael Silverblatt interviewing Aristophanes, and the hilarious interruption from a Villa neighbor, played by Amy Hill. She storms down the main aisle’pink robe, furry slippers and hair curlers’cuddling her pooch and inveighing against the racket down below. Persuaded to help retrieve Peace, she dons the mantle of Chorus Leader and joins the Peaceful battle. All is resolved, albeit not until every pratfall and insult have been exhausted. Peace is restored in the hope of a little girl, who pronounces simply ‘War sucks.’ The production, under the direction of Bill Rauch, features choreography by Ken Roht and original songs and music performed by Las Colibr’ mariachi band, directed by Suzanne Garc’a. The band provides the Greek chorus commentary coached in amusing serenades. After the lowbrow and the belly laughs, the stage is silent, the evening over. ‘It’s weird, isn’t’ it? says Ty. ‘Peace.’ (For tickets ($42-$36), call 310-440-7300. Performances continue Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.)

Theater Review

As the audience collapses in laughter over the oversized gestures, the affectation and the unabated avarice in Moliere’s 1668 classic, ‘The Miser,’ now on stage at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum through September 27, we forget, for a couple of hours, the grim parallels in our national life. Nevertheless, this comedy of manners, directed by Ellen Geer, must have been waiting for Alan Blumenfeld, starring as the miserly old Harpagon, whose simple, single focus on money is surprisingly complex and fodder for humor. Feigning poverty is his game. He stashes his hoard in secret places’in the garden, under the house, behind the bidet. Harpagon calls it ‘diversifying his assets.’ Harpagon’s consistency in his undivided ambition is the root of this comedy. He’s a tyrant to children Elise and Cleante, arranging their marriages as a good business deal, which not only saves him from feeding two mouths, but benefits him by marrying them to decrepit, wealthy suitors. Elise (Samara Frame) is in love with her father’s steward, a young man of unknown lineage (Chad Jason Scheppner), while Cleante (Mike Peebler) is in love with a village girl, Mariane (Willow Geer), whom Harpagon himself intends to marry. The miser is such a skinflint that he steals oats from his starving horses. When planning a dinner party for 10, he directs his cook to prepare for eight. He even doubles the number of fast days. Blumenfeld plays Harpagon straight; there is no need to embroider on Moliere’s stinging satire. A big man with a rubber face framed by black glasses (‘ la Groucho Marx) and a wispy pate, Blumenfeld’s physicality adds to the pleasure. He’s unctuous when he seeks information, lascivious and pathetic when ‘wooing’ the horrified Mariane. Sometimes, he storms the stage when berating his would-be dandy of a son, creeps off to check on his loot, then rages at the audience for our lack of sympathy. As with any ensemble, Theatricum Botanicum’s gifted regulars are superb. The production is joyfully enhanced by original songs composed by Ellen Geer and Peter Alsop.   ’The Miser’ is delightful in every way. For tickets ($10 to $30), call 310-455-3723. Theatricum Botanicum is located at 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd.

The Formalist Quartet comes to Villa Aurora for three concerts during the 2009-10 season to present programs of music by Villa Aurora composer Fellows and California composers. Inaugurating the series on Saturday evening, September 26 at 8 p.m., The Formalist Quartet offers three works of transfixing beauty: ‘A Twin of Mume Blossoms’ by current Fellow Pei-Yu Shi, ‘…lux…’ by 2003 Fellow Makiko Nishikaze, and ‘100 Cadences’ by Los Angeles composer Arthur Jarvinen. As Villa Aurora’s intimate main hall boasts of beautiful acoustics that opens to a balcony view of Santa Monica Bay, with Santa Monica twinkling in the distance, there is no better way to hear new works by contemporaries who live here together with those who live in Germany.   ’The series will accomplish several concerns I’ve had to bring high quality chamber music to the villa (whose acoustics are wonderful) and open our programming to the California composers who villa composers should meet, while introducing them to the local community as contemporaries of our Fellow composers,’ said Daniel Rothman director of programs.   The Formalist Quartet is an ensemble dedicated to the performance of adventurous and relevant repertoire focusing on contemporary pieces and world premiers as well as exploring a diverse spectrum of early music and the standard repertoire.   The quartet was born on the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich and since then has been playing frequently across the United States in concert halls, festivals, art galleries, cafes, and houses, including the Roy O. Disney Hall at CalArts; REDCAT at the Walt Disney Concert Hall; the Wulf, Los Angeles; UC San Diego; Stanford Universityand University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Their recordings include Jarvinen’s ‘100 Cadences’, music for several small films and pop records, and an upcoming CD including works by Aaron Helgeson, Carsten Hennig, Tim McCormack, and others.   Concerts will begin at 8 p.m., with audience members shuttled from Los Liones Drive beginning at 7 p.m. A reception with the Formalist Quartet and attending composers will follow. Admission: $20 for non-members & $15 for members and students with valid ID.