1994 QUAKE, GESTURE OF GENUINE FRIENDSHIP UNITED TWO FAMILIES.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

NORTHRIDGE - It was seven years ago today - when fear ruled every neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley - that the Gosting family first laid eyes on the Jun family.

It marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship that would meld two families from two different cultures into one close, extended family.

``Look at that,'' Ruth Gosting said to her daughter, Manon, watching a Korean man roller-skate down Labrador Street in Northridge with his two small children.

On any other day, she wouldn't have paid much attention to a father laughing and playing with his kids, but this wasn't any other day.

This was the day after a 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit Northridge, and everywhere you looked in the Valley, you saw fear and devastation, not parents laughing and playing with their kids.

But Jack Jun and his wife, Nicole, who had moved to the Valley from Korea in 1992, were savvy parents. They knew the only way to fight a child's fear is to make them feel that everything is all right, even when it isn't.

So Jack took his 5-year-old son, Ike, and his 4-year-old daughter, Hidy, roller-skating. And while he didn't know it at the time, he put a big smile on the face of a woman named Ruth Gosting living across the street.

Ruth and her husband, Richard, knew all about fear - the fear of racism. The way they saw it, it wasn't hate or mistrust that kept people of different cultures and races apart, it was fear.

``People are afraid to step across the line and find out about people different from them,'' Ruth said Wednesday, remembering that day seven years ago when she stepped across the street after an earthquake to see whether some scared Korean kids would like her to read some children's stories to them in English.

``The Juns' town house had been destroyed, and they were living in a tent on the front lawn of their cousin's house across the street from us,'' Ruth's daughter, Manon, said Wednesday, waiting for the Jun kids to visit her mom, the woman they call their ``third grandma.''

``I remember how scared we were that day, and our father taking us roller-skating,'' says Ike, now 12, a student at Chaminade Middle School in Chatsworth.

``I also remember Grandma Ruth walking across the street carrying a book to read some stories to us,'' he said. ``Soon, she was helping teach us English, and becoming another grandma.''

It was an act of kindness and concern that was not lost on Jack and Nicole Jun, who offered Ruth and Manon some soothing ginseng tea to calm everyone's nerves.

The young Korean couple were intent on following their families' advice and maintaining the best of their Asian culture - especially respect for older people - in raising their children. But they also wanted to adopt the best of Western culture, too.

``Here was this American family extending a hand to us, trying to ease my children's fears, and watching out for us at a very tough time,'' said Nicole Jun.

``We became friends, then we became family. My children have grown up calling her grandma and calling Manon aunt. Even my mother-in-law in Korea calls Ruth her sister.''

It is a title of respect from a Korean mother to an American mother for watching over her son's family while she is so far away in Korea and unable to be close herself.

``Even though they are Buddhist and we are Christian, we have found out we have so much in common, so much to share and learn from each other,'' Ruth said.

``They go to church with us on Easter and Christmas, and we observe their Buddhist traditions. We also spent last Thanksgiving together. It's been a blending of two cultures, and we have all grown and learned so much from it.''

And last year, when her husband died, it was two families - one Korean, one American - grieving for him as a loving father and grandfather.

``To think that something so beautiful as this family has come out of something so devastating as an earthquake is incredible,'' Manon said.

All because Jack Jun and Ruth Gosting met on Labrador Street to overcome fear seven years ago today.

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Photo:

(color) The Gostings and Juns have become friends since just after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. From left, seated, are Nicole Jun, Ruth Gosting and Hidy Jun; standing are Manon Gosting and Ike Jun.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer