Dear Friends and Family,

Post-travel laundry is fogging up the windows of my kitchen, the lady that peddles my favorite soup has scolded me “long time, no see,” I’ve met with friends to celebrate my birthday, and sated my craving for kimchi. It feels good to be home in Korea from Beijing. Now falling into routine, I took myself for my usual morning run at the gym, placing myself on a treadmill in front of multiple television screens flashing Val Kilmer in The Saint (although it is a bit of a mystery how I identified an 11 year-old movie that I have never seen). Handsome as Val Kilmer is, I quickly became distracted by other TV screens featuring a news story of black roof tiles licked by destructive orange flames. That news story continued and continued past the hour that it took me to complete my run. Korean news is presented a lot like our news; that burning building had to be important.

It was. Last night, South Korean National Treasure Number 1, the Namdaemun Gate, considered the oldest wood-built structure remaining in Seoul, burned ‘til it collapsed. Completed in 1398, the southern-facing Namdaemun Gate was built to protect the people of the new Joseon Dynasty capital, Seoul, against thieves, attacks and wild tigers. In fact, building city walls must’ve been en vogue during that time as just a few years later, in 1435, the Ming Dynasty of China completed its city wall. The southern-facing Qianmen Gate from that wall has been much renovated and yet remains just south of Beijing’s famous Tiananmen Square.

"People's hearts will ache," Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak was quoted this morning. Although the gate’s age must be debatable (it had been renovated as late as the 1960s), nonetheless that gate was important to Koreans. And having returned from a week of pouring over a multitude of historic artifacts in Beijing, my sensitivity is rather high. So even I felt the prickle of tears unrelated to the pace that I was running when I realized what had been destroyed. How easily historic relics vanish.

The Times of London Story
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BBC Pictures from the February 10, 2008 fire

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Of course, Korea and China have a lot more in common than stylish city walls and gate buildings. The history of both countries has been entwined for millennia. Over time, Confucianism, the lunar calendar, art, architecture, and language, amongst other things, flowed from China to Korea. The two states were especially close during the 500 years or so that Korea spent as a Chinese tributary state. China’s influence on Korea is marked, pervasive.

Knowing about that influence, but not truly understanding the details, I’ve been split on the notion of visiting China. Geographically, I am amazingly close to China. How could I not seize the opportunity to visit The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, eat Dim Sum, Peking duck, and hand-shaved noodles? Yet on the other hand, China is the least modern state of the Asian Triad (as I’ve mentally dubbed Japan, Korea & China.) I find the governmental situation and cultural norms of the country unsettling, its geographical size daunting, and its language inaccessible. And after months of discomfort with Korean cultural norms, I began downright fearful of placing myself in the middle of even more intense Chinese cultural norms.

One day I admitted my fear aloud. During a travel discussion, I confided to my co-worker, “I am really scared to go to China.” His reaction was to wrinkle his brow, his wordless method of telling me that I am illogical. He does a lot of this which causes me to walk away mentally pulling apart my thoughts in order to examine and logically reassemble them. But in the case of China, my fear did not stand up to logical assembly. Also, since departing the States it has been my resolution to not let illogical fears stop me from experiencing life to the fullest. I greatly fear climbing to heights but up Angkor for the majestic view I went. I fear scorn but cannot let that stop me from engaging with people, even when I do not speak their language. I am terrified of motorcycles but I spent a day motoring myself around on one in Sumatra. But most of all, I’m petrified that I will let life slip by without living it to the fullest. I had to go to China.

So I bought the LP on China, wrangled an agency out of a Visa; I eyed the calendar for travel time and surfed the web for specials to Beijing. And I arrived in Beijing with an overarching question: how much of Korean culture is related to Chinese culture? Or, asked another way, how are the Chinese and Koreans similar? How are they different?

I have spent nearly 485 days in Korea. I spent 7 days in Beijing. While in Beijing, I soaked in everything I could and while I was able to make many observations, I cannot be certain about the accuracy of my conclusions. Because here’s the thing: one cannot establish an understanding of a country, especially one as large and complicated as China, merely by doing a bit of reading and visiting its capital for seven days. This would be like a Chinese person coming to Washington D.C., staying for a week, visiting the White House, the Smithsonian, taking a tour to Mt. Vernon, and feeling that no further understanding of the United States is necessary.

Pithy descriptions of China say things like, “From the treasures of dynasties to economic dynamo, China presents a culture of the astonishing…” OR “China isn't a country - it's it's own world. From shop-till-you-drop metropolises to the epic grasslands of Inner Mongolia - with deserts, sacred peaks, astounding caves, and imperial ruins - it's a land of cultural and geographic schisms.” OR “Animated by a palpable sense of pride, and with the Beijing Olympics on the cusp of arrival, the Chinese are reveling in their country’s ascendancy.” And indeed, I did feel evidence of what these glowing descriptions were trying to speak to. It did seem that the atmosphere of Beijing felt rife with possibility. The city felt like a flower, long closed to the world, now spreading its pedals while the world is bending over to peer at it. I found the atmosphere somehow different than Korea, a country that continues to deeply want the world to peer at it while it is mired to it ankles in habits leftover from when Korea was otherwise known as “The Hermit Kingdom.” Possibility doesn’t feel rife in Korea, but then, economically Korea has already produced its own miracle.

Historically, the Chinese have a lot to brag about their creations benefiting mankind: the development of iron and steel, silk-making, kites, wheelbarrows, noodles, paper, umbrellas, playing cards, moveable printing, suspension bridges, acupuncture, and gunpowder, amongst other innovations. And of course, China was one of the first nation-states in the sense we identify them today. China centered and even linked the nations around it through trade and diplomatic relations, and influenced a region-wide understanding of the principles, norms, and rules that regulated interactions of their world. Korea, as a tributary, acted as a Confucian-style little brother state to China, benefiting from those contributions, and modifying those contributions to suit their needs. Koreans are very good adopt and modifiers – to this day – but they are not particularly good innovators.

One day in Beijing, I was on the way to Tiananmen Square when I found myself in a pleasant conversation with a university student. When I told her that I teach in Korea she asked, “Don’t Korean people look like Chinese people?”

I had already considered this and didn’t pause before replying, “Not really.” Meaning both that I don’t think all Asians are alike as well as meaning that I do not think that Chinese and Koreans look alike. Generally, I find the Chinese shorter (although not all short – I did see a Chinese man tall enough to remind of Chinese-born NBA star Yao Ming), their faces looked careworn, and they sported fewer do-dads and less quality clothing than Koreans. Which made the plethora of rhinestone studded, obviously plastic boots that seem currently popular with the Beijing subway-riding set a bit incongruous. In comparison, Koreans are taller in stature, are able to take better care of their facial skin, and the quality of their clothing is better. Koreans adore rhinestones although happily (in my opinion), studding their boots with them has yet to become the rage here. And I’m hard-pressed to explain how, but I felt that Korean and Chinese facial features and body shapes also differ. I find Koreans the more attractive.

Many people in both countries intensely dislike Japan; the atrocities during the early part of the 20^th century are far from forgotten. This was made clear to me by my Great Wall tour guide when I asked him what the Chinese thought about Koreans.

“People our age are learning to like Korean fashions and their music.” He replied.

“Really?” I was intrigued. “I often think that Korean fashion and music is influenced by Japan. Is Chinese pop culture interested in Japan too?”

“No.” He replied. And then he lowered his voice in deference to my then-sleeping Japanese tour companion. “We Chinese cannot forget the bad things that Japan did not so long ago. And we are very angry that to this day, textbooks in Japan do not tell the truth about that time.”

I was surprised. Many Koreans harbor a very similar sentiment towards Japan but I get the sense that Koreans are willing to overlook or move on from the past for economic reasons. And because Japan produces super-radical Hello Kitty products!

Although generally I believe that both China and Korea have a hate-love relationship with foreigners. The Chinese look like a more diverse lot than the Koreans. China is comprised of a “Han people” majority but other groups in China include the Manchus, the Mongols, the Tibetans, and other groups that I’m not familiar with such as the Zhuang, the Hui and the Miao. I don’t know if this makes Chinese a tad kinder towards other Asians but I hope so. As for how I, a definite Westerner, was treated in China, most of the time I felt rendered invisible. Service people were dull-eyed and uninterested and preferred, when possible, to ignore me. Almost no one wanted to talk to me. Few people on the street would even go so far as to make eye contact with me and usually when someone made contact, they wanted to sell me into something. Mostly for this reason, I believe, for the first time in my travels I felt lonely in Beijing. On the other hand, Koreans as a rule are no more fond of foreigners; they can be very unkind to other Asians, especially South East Asians, and even worse to Blacks. However, in every place I’ve traveled, including Seoul, many have been eager to assist me the moment I look confused, many like to practice their English with me, and even more are often happy to exchange bows with me. Sometimes I get obvious deference due to my obvious teacher “status” (here the word teacher is used more similarly to how we use titles in English) which I cannot find uncongenial. And honestly, Western foreigners such as myself actually get too much attention here – crowds of elementary students sometimes want our autographs, we get many shouts of “hello,” and we get stared at all the time. Not that I haven’t met my share of unpleasant people here in Korea, but my number of unpleasant encounters have been far exceeded by wonderful people moments in Korea which has lead me to conclude that Koreans are more interested in foreigners than they say they are.

So, going back to the question of how are the Chinese and Koreans are similar and how they are different? I cannot truly say. But from this trip I can say that they are less similar than I supposed - their cultures vary in both subtle and distinct ways. My ultimate conclusion was that in the future, I must return to spend more than 7 days in China, visit more than just the capital, and then re-attempt to better answer my curiosity.

Someday....--L

The Quianmen Gate with the Quianmen Archery Tower in the background marks the southern edge of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

A few other pics from my year-end, year-beginning rambling around Korea:

A lighthouse and sculpture near Busan.

Seafood for sale in Busan.

Candles from the Buddhist temple New Year's ceremony. This year's ceremony opened with a parade of people carrying lit candles and paying their respects to sacred objects on the temple grounds. Candles, lighting the faces of celebrants, beautiful.

One of twelve zodiac statues on Oe Do - 2007 was the year of the pig,
according to Chinese Zodiac culture.

An inflatable dummy on an anchored boat in the middle of
the river, near the fortress of Jinju. Which begs the question: WHY????

A cartoon depiction of the Jinju heroine Nongae painted on the side of an
industrial building with a "love" motel in the background.

The sun, just escaped from the clouds, near the Hyangiram Hermitage near Yeosu.

The kitschy Turtle Ship replica.
No doubt it is hard to see what I was excited about but what the hey...!

Jinju. Even beautiful at night.

Ciao!
Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

Living in a place where history is equally evident in everyday life, in culture and even in landscape can be a puzzlement.

For Americans, it seems to me, history is a series of dates in dusty textbooks to memorize, a minor consideration at best in our daily lives, in our culture. We don’t think of our current actions being at all related to our past history. I often think that we intellectually know our history and how it shaped us – but that our everyday actions can be explained by the ideologies that we are passionate about that were fostered in our history (i.e. democracy and inalienable freedoms), not our history itself.

In contrast, I’ve come to believe that Korea is a country both visibly and invisibly ruled by its history – to the same extreme that we Americans are ruled by our ideologies. Of course, Korea’s history is much deeper than the twentieth century facts that we Americans are generally aware of (the 1910 Japanese take-over of Korea, the proxy war that split Korea in the early 1950s, the South Korean economic “Miracle on the Han River,” and North Korea’s on-going militarist posturing). Indeed, Korea’s historical past combined with its geographic sandwichment between the powers of China and Japan manifests in large and small actions, can explain why Koreans passionately want to protect their culture, and why the Korean people want to be well-regarded in the world. Korea’s history fostered Korea’s ideas and continues to foster the everyday actions of its people.

Anyway, this idea that Korea is a country both visibly and invisibly ruled by its history is one of the important conclusions that I have reached after a year plus of living in Korea. As I’ve said before, one of the major ways that I maintain interest in Korea is in trying to explain Korea – which inevitably involves learning about the history of Korea. And this is the reason that I keep throwing history at you from this blog. Not because I have grandiose plans to pump out historical tomes that will mostly gather dust – but because I cannot explain Korea without framing the present with its past.

This conclusion was also my rationalization for an action that you all in the States would deem borderline mad: taking a trip especially to step upon a life-sized replica of an armored ship from the late 1500s. Blame my on-going curiosity about Korea, if you like. Or blame Winchester – because, as usual, he planted the seed which lead me to take an entire trip based on his words, “…students of naval warfare the world over compare him with Drake and Nelson and Halsey, as on of the great naval strategists of all time.” At that moment in Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles, Winchester was discussing Admiral Yi, Sun-shin, whose tactical brilliance along with his famous Turtle Ship re-design resulted in the world’s first ironclad battleships (some 266 years before the French altered the design of battleships with their launch of the first ironclad, dubbed La Gloire). Admiral Yi is mostly overlooked by history books, at least ones written in English and yet surely a historian, partial to feats rather than geography, would wish to include a commander who was successful in every battle he fought and was able to triumph against astonishing odds (such as utilizing 13 of his battleships to defeat 133 warships), yes? Admiral Yi deserves to be in the world’s cannon of historical heroes.

As for me, I am not by any stretch a historian nor a naval fanatic, so I shouldn’t have been interested in Admiral Yi. Except that reading Winchester’s account of him piqued my curiosity and I couldn't help but fancy Yi’s ironclad Turtle-like warships (in Korean, 거북선 - pronounced kŏ buk sŏn) which meant that I just had to see, touch and explore the inside of a Turtle ship. And so early in January, I traveled south from Jinju to Yeosu.

Another sunrise began my time in Yeosu. This time I watched the sun slip through a hole in gray clouds like thread too thick for the eye of a needle from the railing of a Buddhist hermitage in the southern-most part of an island. After the sun emerged as an orange ball of fire from behind the clouds, I celebrated with an early morning picnic followed by paying my respects to Buddha. It was only 9:20 when I caught a public bus for the 25 kilometer return to downtown Yeosu. The ride began with plenty of empty seats but as the bus intermittently stopped at small groups of rural houses along the way, bent old men with canes, school children in school uniforms, old women with mismatched clothing and cloth bundles of lettuce began to fill the seats. One old lady boarded the bus with a plastic bucket full of water and clams. As the bus began to fill, I respectfully vacated my seat in order to ensure that the older generation could sit rather than being tossed while the bus lurched from stop to stop. My simple gesture caused the curious stares of my fellow riders to turn to beaming smiles and silent offers to hold my bag while I attempted to stay upright, balancing on my heels and clinging to the back of seats. As the ride went on and on, the bus lurching while I clung, the people around me went out of their way to ensure that I was comfortable while I did everything I could to demonstrate that I was a respectful visitor (respect from outsiders means a lot to Koreans) - and to appease their curiosity. At this point, I can answer basic questions: conveying in broken Korean that I am an American, that I do not have a husband, that I teach English in Daegu, and that kimchi is delicious. And answer these questions, I did. LOL! Anyway, a bus ride that should’ve been isolated, car-sick misery instead became a lovely moment of cross-cultural camaraderie.

My next stop was the turtle ship that I had journeyed to see. The replica ship was actually kitted with poorly rendered, life-sized manikins in the midst of such actions as rowing and sleeping and commanding. Nonetheless, I loved the feeling of bobbing in the bay while reading that drums positioned towards the front of the vessel set the pace of the rowers, that one of these 37 meter x 6.8 meter x 8.2 meter, 150 ton ships could hold (uncomfortably) 130-150 people, and that the dragon masthead of the ships would spit sulfur clouds to confuse the enemy. I able to study the remarkable ship to my head’s content – I was the only crazy person there.

Pleased at having accomplished my ambition of having stepped into an important, albeit kitschy, bit of Korean history, and with plenty of time until my mid-afternoon train, I took myself to visit the reputedly beautiful island that overlooks the Future Site of the 2012 World Exposition, the site of the 2012 World’s Fair.

Call me a naysayer but as I gaped at futurist fair renderings of a converted empty industrial complex, I had to wonder if there was more than one kind of World’s Fair. World’s Fairs are big. They are famous. Yeosu was neither. Vaguely, I recalled that the first World Exposition was held in the architecturally famous Crystal Palace, in London, in the mid-1800s. And I was fairly certain that later World Expositions had been later been held in Seattle (ok, not famous!) but also in Paris, Vancouver B.C., St. Louis and… well, come to find out other world famous cities such as Barcelona, Brussels, New York, New Orleans, Osaka, Montreal, Milan and Vienna. According to one source, World’s Fairs are considered the third largest type of event in economic terms and cultural impact, after the FIFA World Cup & the Olympic Games. But the idea of including Yeosu and its population just exceeding 300,000 in the company of cities such as London, New York, and Barcelona just didn't make sense. There city has a single freeway, a (no doubt) tiny airport, and only a few trains run through the house-sized railway station with a single track. How could Yeosu be selected to hold a World Exposition?

Well, in the interest of fairness, my visit to the future site of the World Expo was four years and four months before the big event which is scheduled to open in May of 2012. Buildings can be built. Infrastructure can be improved. And there is some precedence for cities with smaller populations hosting the World’s Fair. Did you know that the last World’s Fair was hosted in Aichi, Japan, in 2005? And before you ask, I don’t know where Aichi is. Look it up. Other podunk cities to hold the Expo were San Antonio (Texas), Knoxville (Tennessee), Liège (Belgium) and Tsukuba (Japan) with the best podunk city to host the World’s Fair being Spokane, Washington in 1974. Apparently with its heart-pounding theme of "The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities,” Yeosu beat Tangiers, Morocco and Wroclaw, Poland for the 2012 hosting honor. So Yeosu must have something going for it. And let's be honest here, if Spokane can do it, Yeosu can too!

Anyway, I spent my remaining time in Yeosu puzzling over World’s Fair infrastructure (really!) while clambering over rocks to glimpse a rock dragon frozen into a watery cave, hiking under waxy leaf-covered camellia bushes, taking in the view at an octagonal lighthouse, getting invited to coffee by a lecherously grinning Korean man, and, best of all, walking barefoot down a path called the “health foot-pressure walkway.” After walking across meters and meters of alternating cemented stones, wood discs, smooth rocks, and pointed triangles, my feet felt tingly and happily alive although whether this was a result of the near-freezing weather or the painful pressure to my feet, it is hard to say.

Then, at that point, after days on the road and rails, I became eager to return home to Daegu. I wanted to warm myself on my ondol floor, sleep through sunrises, re-read Winchester’s account of Admiral Yi, and research World’s Fairs.

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore)

Love,

Laura

The path that I tread before my feet became tingly and happy. Maybe there is something to this whole alternative medicine pressure-point stuff!

Jinju's Smoke Stack and its singers....

(and yes, I shall work on my "video" skills!)

Dear Friends and Family,

Once upon a time, in a far away land, a long, long time ago, there lived a beautiful woman named Nongae. Nongae was rather ordinary - beyond loving her husband so much that she felt his sorrows more deeply than her own. One day, a large, evil army conquered their valiant home city. Nongae’s husband fought gallantly to defend his home and survived the battle. However, after the battle was lost, he could not survive his despair at the loss nor the thought of living while his comrades did not and so Nongae’s husband ended his life. His wife spent many days weeping, inconsolable. And then she became angry, deeply angry. With nothing to loose and anger in heart, Nongae took a job as a professional female entertainer at a house of ill-repute that important officers of the evil army favored for drink and entertainment. The beautiful Nongae quickly established herself as a favorite of the commander of the entire evil army. One dark night with only a sliver of moon on the horizon, Nongae persuaded the commander to take a romantic walk near the river. They walked until they neared the location of a rock called “Danger Rock” by the locals, whereby Nongae seized the commander with all her strength and dropped them both against the rock, into the river, drowning the commander, depriving the evil army of its leader, joining her husband in death, and placing herself into legend.

The year of this story was 1593. The valiant city was Jinju. The evil army belonged to Japan. And the legend of Nongae appears true, although information is scant and story-teller in me could not resist adding the touchy-feely. But I saw – actually stood – on the rock! What was known as Danger Rock (Wiam, in Korean) was changed to Righteous Rock (Uiam) in memory of Nongae’s “self-sacrificing spirit.”

Nongae’s time, the late 1500s, was a dark period for the whole of Korea. An ambitious Japanese warlord by the name of Toyotomi Hideyoshi had set his sights on conquering China and logically concluded that to acquire China, he should also control Korea. Well, why not? So with some 150,000 troops, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Busan and easily carried the day. They marched inland, caused Korean King Seonjo to flee to Pyongyang, and had captured Seoul within a month. The Japanese seemed well on their way to China. However, in the waters of southern Korea, a once mighty Japanese navy began to suffer major losses to a small Korean fleet directed by one Admiral Yi. The Japanese began to loose battle after battle and even little Jinju, cozily set in the mountains away from the sea, had its moment of victory against the Japanese. In the fall of 1592, 3,800 men retreated into Jinju’s hill fortress and miraculously managed to defeat an army comprised of 30,000 Japanese.

But the Japanese refused to be cowed by their losses and their determination was especially bad for the city of Jinju. In June of 1593, the Japanese army returned to the city, this time some 100,000 troops strong, to wipe away the disgrace of their previous defeat. During that second battle for Jinju, the Japanese won, slaughtering some 70,000 soldiers and civilians. Nongae’s resulting heroic suicide became cause for celebration amongst the defeated. And if suicides of beautiful ladies offered comfort, the times must’ve been dark indeed.

I learned all this and more while perusing “Jinjuseong” – Jinju’s castle/fortress, my next stop after my quest to visit an old brass bell failed. My game taxi driver accepted my money, nodded at my assurances (“괜찮아요” – “It’s alright”), and we exchanged sympathetic smiles before he dropped me at the fortress entrance. The day had become lovely, clear and sunny but wind chilled to the point that later I nipped into E-Mart to purchase tights and warmer gloves. On the surface, the fortress was not terribly remarkable – just the usual Korean-style historical buildings set on a hill, bordered by the river. But my time at the fortress was made remarkable by unusually interesting stories on placards, intimidating statues, rather beautiful scenery, an excellent museum of Japanese invasion artifacts, and by entertaining glimpses of a boat anchored in the middle of the river with an inflatable, slightly larger than life dummy. I did not figure out why anyone would take the trouble to keep a dummy inflated on a river – but I found the arrangement laughable. Perhaps you had to be there!

Finished with the fortress and with two hours remaining before my train departed, I slung my bag across my chest and ventured, on foot, a visit to the “Smoke Signal station in Mangjinsan,” figuring that a smoke stack would make a nice change from the usual Korean-style building tourist attractions. The uphill journey probably should’ve been strange: I passed a few small factories, a long row of small houses with blue roofs and rusted fences, a 5-story temple shiny with gold paint and framed by a modern apartment building, lines of clothes drying in the wind, and a brand new picnic pavilion, surrounded by stubby trees, overlooking the river. As I neared the hilltop and what I presumed would be the smoke stack, I began to hear music. Finally, I broke away from the stubby trees and found a music group, seated against an ancient smoke stack. Pious Christians? Budding rock stars? The sun was descending behind the smoke stack and yet the music group ended up being more interesting than the smoke stack, which disobligingly did not offer an English explanation of its history.

On my way down, I smiled at an old lady hobbling up the hill on a cane and thought, “I’ll bet she’ll pass me on the way down.” She did. And not because I stopped to photograph paintings on the temple! Korean old ladies are tough, tough.

On my walk to the train station, I paused to purchase four hot red bean cakes shaped like fish from a vendor while two wide-eyed little girls dressed in pink gawked at the foreign stranger standing on their street. I suppressed my annoyance under a smile and gave them each a cake.

As the sun set and the dusk fell upon the winter-brown countryside, I took a train to the city of Yeosu. And the next morning I awoke yet another city, a city by the sea, but still not as beautiful a city as Jinju.

So long!

Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

The city of Jinju is beautiful. Well, almost beautiful.

Ok, pause for a second here: have I ever, in your recollection, intimated that a city in Korea is beautiful? Uh, NO! And that is because I have yet to discover ascetic beauty in any Korean city – Daegu, Seoul, Busan, Gyeongju. Indeed, being instantly repelled by the appearance of this place has been a struggle for since arrival: the plethora of apartment buildings, the steaming rusted smokestacks, the tangle of neon signs in Hangul, the squat trees which do little to relieve all directions of dusty concrete. “It all looks the same and it is all so ugly!” I thought - which immediately lead me to chastise myself for shallowness, for being too caught up in my own Western cultural-informed ideas of ascetics, for being judgmental. Eventually I tamped my reaction down but I had to sternly repeat to myself that there was no use in experiencing other cultures if I was going to condemn what I saw out of hand.

But further exploration and repeated self-admonitions didn’t improve my outlook so I began to cast about for an explanation or more likely, a rationalization. After all, ascetic beauty is subjective and rather shallow. Perhaps there was something more that I was looking for?

Consider this: cityscapes are our own graphic history books – their layers of history allow us to derive a place’s story based on its buildings. Personally, I feel that I learned this on rural roads leading to cities. Farm houses of gray cemented stones continue in fields as they have for hundreds of years. Light-colored churches with upfront steeples have pews polished by masses of Sunday best and ghosts of baptisms and funerals. Fenced in grave markers have their names worn away and yet are still able to speak of village inhabitants. Water wheels rest in rivers, attesting to early industry. All things move closer together as the city approaches, the houses shift to “McMansions” then boxy developments to single story wooden slats with picket fenced yards next changing to brownstones with character, eventually giving way to unrelieved apartment buildings. Factories smoke, supermarkets callout their sales, strip malls glare. Downtown, squatter skyscrapers boast shiny brass fittings and art deco points, towering glass boxes epitomize modernist ideals while post-modern buildings unashamedly mix all aesthetics. Together these buildings tell of a country, first formed of little agricultural communities and then came industry, perhaps a bit tardy due to civil war devastation but then full-throttle into progress with big and bigger factories and shifting homes into city apartments into today’s modern day metropolises, which sometimes are ugly, oftentimes dirty, and yet occasionally sublime. Through buildings I learned our history, our story almost without noticing. But even while taking considerable notice of everything, I found that I couldn’t form of a story of Korea’s history through the buildings that I saw.

I'm not saying that Korea doesn't have its own architecture and it is important to remember that here almost everything old has have been rebuilt from the ashes of various wars. But frankly, in my experience, there are mainly two kinds of buildings here: old temples and utilitarian boxes. The temples, inspired by Korea’s proximity to China, are positioned well within the landscape with buildings of boldly painted wood enclosing gleaming Buddhas. While the utilitarian boxes are manufactured in two heights: quite short or quite tall and there are endless numbers of the bloody things. However, slowly I’ve come to the realization that actually these buildings too tell of a country, first and so long formed of little agricultural communities and isolated from western progress. Next came tight control by the (also) western-eschewing Japanese followed by a thorough country-wide razing in the form of civil war. Western culture began to seep into Korea’s buildings at perhaps the worst time architecture-ascetic-wise (in my opinion), when concrete was considered synonymous with attractiveness. I now suppose that Korea’s utilitarian boxes are tell-tale signs of a country needing to recover from war, eager to spring into the future and doing so by utilizing a factory system of buildings where the prime design features were immediacy and practicality. Perhaps Korea has been concentrating so hard on becoming an economic force to reckon with that it has been slow to move from habitual utilitarian architecture to buildings that are something more. Perhaps there is more to the story than I now suppose. I cannot definitively say. But what I can say is that that establishing an understanding of the utilitarian ascetic that I’m surrounded by hasn’t much helped my outlook.

Anyway, as I was saying, the city of Jinju is almost beautiful: a still silver river, shadowed by an old fortress and surrounded by a quiet city. Favorable first impressions of the city came from a friendly cab driver whose English equaled my Korean, night-time bridges with colored lights spanning the river, and an almost attractive performance hall in the distance. The river was reflective as I paced it the next morning in an attempt to gage actual distance illustrated on the city map. And despite no English, the people were terribly friendly.

In fact, my best travel story of the week occurred first thing that morning. There was this moment when I found myself standing midway up one dusty hill, surrounded by other dusty hills, my hair lifted by a slight breeze, the buzz of farm equipment in the distance, on a path that seemed to lead nowhere, asking an old man with browned teeth for directions to an old bronze bell.

You see, the prospect of seeing one “Goryeo Bronze Bell of Samseonam” had seemed promising just a few minutes before when my taxi driver had driven straight to what seemed the correct district to see this ancient bell - the first sign of trouble came when he rolled down his window for directions. I wasn’t unduly alarmed by this as every old lady he asked seemed to have an opinion, chattering at the taxi driver and nodding her head knowledgeably, but the result of several opinions was only more driving.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was in the midst of what is euphemistically known as a travel adventure so I settled into the backseat just as the taxi took off across a cliff with unforgivably narrow road. Alarmed for the first time, I closed my eyes and hadn’t decided whether prayer would save us from toppling when we reached the other side. We spent several more minutes bumping over potholes and skittering over gravel until we dead-ended on a farm road, in an orchard with three old men chatting and squatting around a fire. My driver got out for another conversation with knowledgeable head nodding - and that is how I ended up midway up a dusty hill, with my taxi driver anxiously watching from the base of the hill to see if I’d locate this special bell. I was part up a most unpromising path when the man with browned teeth told me that the bell wasn’t at the top of the hill (I don’t know how I understood this but I did). The old man then shouted to my taxi driver and escorted me back down the hill. Now just along for the ride, I listened to their detailed discussion and eventually resumed the backseat. The taxi driver took off – backwards! – down the farm road, completing a u-turn just before cliff road. We safely inched along the cliff and after a few more minutes, located a traditional wooden Korean building over which a sign announced that this was the home of the Goryeo bell. But the gates were locked. I climbed out and circled, hoping to circumvent the gate, alert for an entrance and very alert because the neighbor’s dogs were madly barking at me. The bell was tightly locked away. My taxi driver found an intercom and rang. No one answered. He looked me. I looked at him. I sighed. I laughed. I gave into the inevitable. So I asked my game driver to instead take me to Jinjuseong - the city fortress.

(Oh, yes, there’s more. And lot of it! To be continued) --L

One building type found in Korea: the utilitarian boxes.
They are either quite short or quite tall - but neither do I find ascetically pleasing.

The other building type found in Korea: old temples.
Their architecture rarely varies but they are definitely lovely in their way.

Literally ringing in the New Year in Busan. Sadly, you won't be able to feel the ring deep in your core, as one can in person, but....

Dear Friends and Family,

So, as previously mentioned, the year’s first sunrise over Busan was magnificent. And the final sun set of 2007 was equally as magnificent just as friends and I were in the midst of repeating my New Year’s celebrations of 2007: a trip to the sea at Busan, an exquisitely fresh fish dinner at the market, the same Buddhist bell reverberating our cores at midnight, and marking a new day with the first sunrise of the New Year. But my friends and I improved upon last year first by venturing upon a ferry to ride alarming white waves along the coast and later by taking our post-sun rise Starbucks on the road southwest to explore some ostensibly beautiful islands. Our coffee was long gone by the time we crossed the bridge to one Geoje Do (pronounced Koh jay + “Do” means island in Korean) and sped through the curves of the coast, at every turn glimpsing the turquoise sea bracketed by hewn cliffs, racing to catch yet another ferry.

We became all smiles of relief as we stepped aboard a rocking passenger ferry. We peered through spotted windows and did our best to shut out the jabbering Korean tour guide over the very loud loudspeakers as the ferry launched itself towards distant outcrops flinging salty spray every which way. An escape from the loudspeakers came when passengers were invited to the deck of the ferry for an unhindered view of the jagged, towering edges of a rock island – for me, reminiscent though as not as exquisite, as any San Juan Island. We admired and snapped pictures as our ferry circled the island before returning to the cabin so that the ferry could pick up speed to an actual destination, a tiny island called Oe, a reputed paradise. I use the word reputed because tourist information in Korea is rife with hyperbole. In fact, typical of the species is an excerpt from the brochure that says,

Oedo Paradise Island, which has been cultivated for almost 30 years since 1963 by couple Lee Changho and Choi Hosook, is the first island ever to be owned and developed by an individual. It has cultural spaces and continues its transformation for the further development of the island culture in the 21^st century. At the Oedo, you can feel the lifelong romantic sentiment of a husband and wife and you will also be amazed to see the island which has turned into an earthly paradise covered with more than thousand of subtropical plants from once an ordinary rocky island.

I was not amazed. The sculptures are obvious imitations and there are likely more species at my admittedly unusual plant nursery in the States. That said, the island was well-planned and well-cultivated and there is a definite attractiveness to it. As we walked along a path framed by sculptured hedges, my Korean friend confided that, “In Korea, we do not have very many good tourist destinations. But this place is beautiful. It makes me proud to be Korean.” Raising my eyes past the nodding flowers and palm trees to the distant glare of a spangled sea, I murmured my assent. It was indeed beautiful.

After the ferry had returned us to the shore of Geoje Do, we forwent viewing additional scenic beauty in order to establish a better understanding of history at the “Historic Park of Geoje POW Camp.” Apparently back in the Korean War days, Geoje Do had a magic combination of remoteness plus good drinking water so the United Nations set-up a gigantic prison camp amongst its hills in 1951. The camp eventually harbored some 150,000 North Korean soldiers, some 20,000 Chinese soldiers, and about 300 North Korean women that together composed a total population near 173,000 prisoners of war. Stories from that P.O.W. camp must be fascinating.

From what we read, the camp was established and run on then-new-fangled 1949 Geneva Convention standards that mandated training prisoners in vocations and insisted upon quality prisoner diets (better quality than Republic of Korea soldiers, as was emphasized by the museum ad nauseam). But shutting hundreds of thousands of soldiers with opposing ideological view points, little hope, and little to occupy themselves into a tight space in less than ideal conditions can only come out badly and the camp was soon the scene of many bloody, often fatal, confrontations between Pro-Communist and Anti-Communist soldier factions within the camp. One modern account that I found of the camp said that “[t]he gang-like atmosphere in the prison bore a striking similarity to America’s prisons today in how prisoners segregate themselves into gangs based on ethnicity.” Uhh. Not good. And things went from really not good to beyond worse in May of 1952 when one North Korean faction managed to kidnap American Army Camp Commander Francis Dodd and held him hostage for three days while screaming to the world media that the Americans were torturing them although most accounts say that overcrowding and riots were the worst problems of the camp. The incident ruined Dodd’s reputation and career, although he was lucky to escape with his life. The camp was closed after the 1953 and let to ruin. Only in the last few years did the Koreans designate the camp remains a cultural asset, collect together artifacts and assemble an open air museum to teach the history of the camp and the war.

Obviously, the museum did its job on me. While walking about and taking in the displays, I could’ve been repelled by the kitschy dummy re-enactments and frankly, I was repelled by the museum’s apparent fascination with graphic displays about how prisoners did not have toilets available (need I say more?). However, between crinkles at yet another P.O.W. squatting over a bucket, I became fascinated with what I could glean of the history of the camp. Although likely related to my recent first read of Lord of the Flies, I began to imagine that the history of the camp would make an excellent backdrop for a historical novel and come to find out, a Chinese-American author that I can recommend by the name of Ha Jin has written a novel titled War Trash which wades into the midst of the camp’s history. You can bet that’ll be on my Amazon list!

Anyway, as the sun began to set, albeit less spectrally than the day before, we departed from the museum. We left the beautiful islands behind and set course for a nearby city bus terminal, where my friends would leave me and my backpack to explore while they drove home to necessary jobs and comfortable beds.

I caught a bus to the city of Jinju. I easily located a motel for the night. I awoke alongside a serene river, lightly swathed in mist. It is a truly delightful feeling to wake a bit after sunrise, in a brand new place, in a brand new year, with so many sights in my future.

새해 복 많이 받으세요- Happy New Year!

Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

The year’s first sunrise over Busan was magnificent. I don’t know if you recall my version of the beginning of 2007, when we rang a Buddhist bell at midnight and watched over Busan’s horizon for the sun’s first appearance of 2007, but the sun did not appear to rise that day last year. At the time, I was likely too dazzled, perhaps by the moment, perhaps by the strange beauty of Korea, to feel disappointment that day. But on the first day of 2008, I find that I am less easily dazzled; therefore, a sun, beaming layers of gray clouds into lavender, felt propitious – although time will tell whether it actually was.

As always, it has been too long since I have posted to this blog. For better or for worse, I post most when I spend time with my own thoughts – so much time alone that my thoughts must be spilled. Consequently, I end up frantically typing for hours which results in my depositing my accumulation here. More like my busy daily life in Seattle than when I first departed to Thailand by my lonesome, now I have lots of friends in Daegu and can remain ever as busy as before – which means I do not spend nearly enough time with my thoughts.

But another, more complicated inhibitor to my needing and wanting to write for this blog is, uhmmm… well… this may sound strange, but another inhibitor to this blog is my ability to assess and write about Korea accurately, honestly. You see, it does not take long to for a visitor to Korea to understand that Koreans collectively passionately desire the world to see Korea in, shall we say?, its best light. And if the visitor becomes in any way attached to Koreans, as I have, then it doesn’t take much longer for the visitor to want, to deeply want, the world to see Korea as Koreans wish it to be seen. Criticism of Korea, whether positive or negative, is… difficult… although paradoxically, Koreans are over-critical of themselves.

This is indeed a paradox. It makes my brain hurt. Ouch.

But the larger problem for me in writing about my life in Korea, is that Korea was and remains a puzzle. To this day, I find Korea and Koreans more baffling than not - and when baffled, it is astonishingly easy for a visitor to judge everything, simply everything, as CRAZY. But crazy is not an accurate assessment of Korea; it has taken me a great deal of time and study to establish even an elementary understanding of Korea. Observing the motions of Koreans within their daily lives constantly requires my subjecting everything two mental test questions: “(1) Does this phenomenon happen in the States? (2) Is this strange human nature behavior or strange Korean behavior?” Even if I can answer these questions (and I cannot always) and even after careful mental examination, I continue to feel inhibited to criticize, inhibited in telling the truth, well, at least the truth as I see it.

Once I put my truth-telling dilemma to my Korean English teaching peers. I asked, “How shall I share Korea with my friends and family? In my experience, it makes Koreans sad when I want to tell my family about garbage on the beaches or elementary students wildly hanging out the windows of their schools - but that Koreans really want me to brag about how amazing the shipbuilding at Hyundai Heavy Industries is or how incredible the Tripitaka Koreana is. (Note: the Tripitaka is an ancient collection of 81,258 woodblocks Buddhist Scriptures and I haven’t bragged about it here but I should!). I believe it right to share Korea with honesty – but I fear it disloyal to a country that has been wonderful to me if I am honest. So, how shall I share Korea with my friends and family?”

Their initial reaction was a thoughtful, almost sad silence. The silence itself a confirmation of my understanding, of my dilemma. Finally, one peer said, “I think you should tell the truth. It is true that we want the world to regard Korea well but you should tell the truth and you should not worry.” Our other peers nodded, soberly, in agreement. They vaguely understand that I like to write but they do not know about this blog and experience has informed me that the views of my peers are unique and that others may not be as fair-minded if they were to discover this blog. And, of course, my problem with accuracy remains. All of which combines to inhibit me in needing, in wanting to write about my life in Korea.

But I shall miss the next first sunrise, magnificent or not, over the sea of Busan on January 1^st, 2009. As you know, I am absent from the people that I consider home to explore the world – to sow wild oats, as a friend and I laughed just the other day – and I will be exploring elsewhere next year. So if I do not share the Korea that I love – garbage and all – with you all now, then when shall I?

Love,
Laura

My last supper of 2007....

Dear Friends and Family,

My friend Peter married today. His wedding was lovely to witness... different than other weddings that I have so far been to in Korea. In fact, other weddings that I've attended here have been... confusing. Please allow me to attempt to explain.

I received my first Korean wedding invite last winter, out of the blue and via cell phone. My friend Cathy called to ask, “Do you want to go the Vice Principal’s daughter’s wedding? Tomorrow?”

Instantly I felt very uncomfortable. “But I haven’t received an invitation.” I protested, picturing the very Western, very necessary paper invitation.

Cathy laughed and merrily told me, “That’s not how it works here – just come.” she said.

As if I could say no. “What about a gift?” I asked.

“30,000 Won is what we usually give. I’ll bring you an envelope.” She replied.

Hmm. Anyway, so that is how I learned that in Korea, paper wedding invitations are superfluous. And a great deal of notice is not necessary. And wedding invites - or a lack of - were only the first of many differences that I marked between Western weddings and Korean weddings.

A delicate snow was falling the next day as us single women teachers, dressed in shiny, ruffled finery, arrived at the appointed “Wedding Hall,” a froofy building specially made for weekend weddings – this particular hall had long faux Greek columns and a large advertisement of a beautiful Korean woman, replete in caked make-up and an amazing concoction of a white dress. We took an elevator to the wedding level and walked into a crowded reception hall, where our Vice Principal stood at random, looking very dignified in his tie that coordinated with his wife’s traditional hanbok while other guests milled around. My friends immediately approached and bowed to him – as did I – but I threw in a hand shake and warm congrats. We then handed our traditional Chinese character wedding envelopes with cash to the appropriate person and received, in return, a dining ticket.

Next we proceeded into a large room with dusty chandeliers and faux plasterwork reminiscent of a hotel conference room. There was a red carpet aisle framed by wilting silk flowers, individual faux Rococo chairs had been set up for guests, and an altar was alight with electric candles and more silk flowers. The guests were not quiet nor settled when the ceremony began with Mendelson’s wedding march. Two women in red faux military uniforms strode up the aisle to form a fake sword arch for the bride to advance through. The groom appeared and next down the aisle came the bride, tightly coiffed in a rented western-style wedding dress, while the guests barely noticed and continued to chat away. A suit-clad officiate talked and talked for what felt like forever while the bride and groom said nothing. The ceremony ended with a flourish: the uniformed ladies raised fake trumpets, pushed some button and out came a bunch of shiny streamers and strange music. The bride and groom turned to the still-chatting audience, for the photographer’s sake, I guessed, and then together walked down the aisle – both taut with nervousness.

We guests then departed from the ceremony hall to the downstairs buffet room. We presented tickets at the entrance, grabbed plates and subsequently enjoyed an all you can eat traditional Korean food buffet with rice, soap, raw fish, chicken, noodles, different types of kimchi, pork and other yummy edibles. And then we left. And that was it.

To say that I was startled and puzzled by this wedding is to say the least. The wedding appeared Western: the clothing, the music, the swords, the room. But the behavior wasn’t western: tangible joy wasn't present, our weddings are planned for months in advance, our weddings are “individualized” by the bride, and we guests daren’t talk through a wedding. And my consternation about the Korean wedding only deepened when I was told that the ceremony I witnessed wasn’t the legal wedding. Huh? Why go through the elaborate charade… dress… music? Where was the meaning behind a wedding ceremony? Was the ceremony for appearances only?

Well, yes, appearances are a key consideration. Because Korean brides and grooms actually go through two, perhaps three ceremonies. The first ceremony is the frothy western-looking one; the ceremony’s basic intent is to gather all the relatives, friends and acquaintances, get them to give gifts of money, and give them something to talk about. After that first ceremony, the bride, groom, and their immediate family change into traditional Korean hanbok and a second ceremony takes place, this time a Confucian ceremony where I’d guess that a great deal of bowing interspersed with a bit of eating and drinking takes place. Frankly, I’m still unclear about when Koreans legally marry – that could be another ceremony because I’ve been told that couples legally marry after they return from their honeymoon – which can present a problem if the bride or groom perishes during the honeymoon. I haven’t verified that tidbit but if it is true, I’m uncharacteristically happy to declare that portion of the process utterly illogical.

Although I must say that I found the whole kit and caboodle puzzling. So, like an annoying five year-old, I kept asking why questions. And at some point, I formed the understanding that one hundred years ago, Korea was an agrarian society, living in small villages, and organized into family lines. Brides and grooms were matched by matchmakers and married each other’s families. But there came a point when Korean culture changed abruptly and consequently weddings changed too. Today, South Korea is a modern industrial society, living mostly in large cities and family lines remain only somewhat intact. Brides and grooms often meet and marry at their own volition, although matchmaking still happens. So modern wedding ceremonies appear, and indeed are, a mishmash of traditional reason combined with fashionable western tastes. But the Westernized appearance of Korean weddings just confuses me.

Therefore, counter-intuitively, my friend’s traditional wedding today made much more sense to me than the “modern” weddings I’ve been to. Held at an open air, rather beautiful Confucian Academy that is actually a stop on the Daegu City Tour bus (if curious, refer to 10/11/06), we found the groom was standing near the entrance in a flowered black silk hanbok set, complete with hat and shoes. He greeted guests and stoically endured the indignation of lots of stares punctuated by lots photographs. While the bride was also being photographed, tucked away in her own little side room, clad in an amazing pink hanbok, a beaded headdress, and with a rounded red sticker on each cheek.

Eventually the bride and groom were escorted to platforms in which four strong men would carry them to the ceremony. The groom went first, seated in a wooden chair covered with a silk cushion, that reminded me of the open thrones of old kings of Thailand. He was carried by 4 male friends – 3 of which were Western – and was improperly borne on their shoulders while another friend trailed carrying a carved, silk clad wooden duck. The groom was lowered at the beginning of the aisle leading to the altar and lead through a series of ceremonial movements while the bearers retreated to get the bride. The bride was seated cross-legged in an enclosed square palanquin painted with cranes. The palanquin was open so everyone could see her dazzling smile. Most people watched the bride – but I watched the groom and felt amply rewarded as the most beautiful moment of the ceremony (for me) was the look of awe and happiness on the groom’s face as his beautiful Korean bride was carried to him. The bride emerged from her conveyance, the two bowed to each other and were lead up the aisle to an officiate behind an altar.

The officiate, clad in a traditional white hanbok and a tall black hat, had firm possession of the microphone and began to speak in formal Korean. The bride and groom, once arranged on individual sides of the altar, began with hand washing from brass bowls, included bowing, eating a food that resembled the Korean green onion pancakes (pa jon) with chopsticks, and some alcohol drinking. The officiate carried on for a while before the bride and groom finally retreated back down the aisle together to the applause of their guests. We at the back also clapped and as the groom passed he directed an aside of “I have no clue what just happened!” at me. I laughed and followed the two so I could snap a picture of them together. We stood in the sunshine for sometime while more photographs were taken and even we friends were included in the photographs as the groom’s family could not come from Ecuador and Canada to attend the ceremony.

Afterwards, the bride and groom departed to peel away a few layers from their hanboks while we guests went to enjoy a traditional lunch of soup, rice, kimchi, rice cakes, and numerous other side dishes. After we had consumed our fill, we bid the bride and groom farewell… and that was that. Their wedding was lovely. And satisfying for me as a Western witness because of the palpable love that I saw between the couple – and because of the ceremony’s perfectly comprehendible Confucian Koreanness.

Many happy returns, Peter and Celine!

Love,

Laura

PS: Some interesting Korean wedding tidbits:

• Several times now I’ve heard the criticism that modern Korean weddings lack sentiment and are actually carried through simply to make money for the bride and groom. My experience seems to confirm this; but I think I prefer the supposed Korean profit-making lack of sentiment to the Western sentiment demonstrated by a couple getting into extreme wedding debt.
  
  
• The wooden duck, carried behind the groom at Peter’s wedding, symbolizes a long and happy marriage. While the cranes on the bride’s palanquin are a symbol of long life.
  
  

• Apparently in old-style Korean weddings, the bride and groom would retire to one of the rooms of the house specially decorated for the occasion. Outside the room, relatives would use their fingers to poke small holes in the rice paper covering the windows of the room so they could watch what happened inside. Ostensibly, they did this to ensure that the bride did not run away in frustration as the grooms were often much younger than the brides and they often did not know what to do.But Koreans, as a culture, are what we Westerners would consider more than a mite nosy when it comes to “personal business” – and these actions sound like classic nosiness to me!!!
  

PS II: The picture above is of my Vice Principal's lovely daughter and new son-in-law. The following are pics from Peter and Celine's October 28, 2007 wedding.

Handsome, amiable Peter...

The dazzling bride in her palanquin...

Foods to feast on...

And what weddings are all about:
the family portrait session....