We stayed with bro at his new penthouse pad in Incheon just outside of Seoul. It was pretty swank, and he has ping pong tables to use. So after a rousing game of ping pong (in which he thoroughly kicked my ass), he abruptly had to take off. Suk Ja told me he was going to play a soccer match, and I could play with him. I wasn't really into it at that point, I was still getting over a cold, and was a little tired. But we decided to tag along and watch the game. When we arrived, there were a bunch of nervous phone calls made to the goalkeeper that didn't show up. Well, there's this American guy here, let's make him play for laughs. I wanted to avoid the spectacle, but I couldn't really refuse since that would have forced his team to forfeit the game.
Everyone was intimidated when I first came out on the turf, but it soon turned to outright mockery. Look, I haven't played a game since I was 7 years old. I even forgot some of the basic rules of goalkeeping. When you're watching the game it's not something you think about, ok? Of course the other team started out much stronger, which forced me into the action. My stats weren't worth mentioning, but I did make a few stops. They pulled me after the first half to my relief. Then I was asked to sub for a forward in the 4th quarter. It's definitely easier to look good running around the field than saving goals. We tied the game which was quite a big recovery from my early bungles.
There are a lot more department stores than I remember before, kinda like Walmarts of Korea. This krazy wall of toy-in-plastic-container vending machines completely dwarfs any American counterpart. The toys are pretty expensive at $1.80. I think that parents seem more eager to spoil their kids in Korea with this kind of stuff. I know that some of my nephews regularly ate more McDonalds than I did as a kid, because they thought it was cooler than the (cheaper) domestic food. There are so many ways the culture caters to kids, like amusement parks, shopping malls, music, PC game rooms, karaoke, etc. If I had half this stuff to do... I probably would have got terrible grades. Ironic that their studies are so lengthy - some spend around 12 hours per day at school. I'm suspicious that includes breaks to the nearby attractions.
It's also a curious side note that Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world. So not only are the kids pandered to, doted upon, and scrutinized in school, but they're also desperately needed to form a future generation. The government is so worried that they have all kinds of kid-related welfare incentives. Supposedly the state will pay for just about all of your basic child related expenses.
For such a small country, it's perhaps unsurprising that Koreans are very sensitive about privacy of their extramarital affairs. I mentioned this in a previous post, and got a picture of the curtain that hides the parking lot of a love hotel. You'd have to walk into each parking lot to find your cheater's car, you can't just drive by all the hotels (which are usually right next to each other). I can only imagine the romantic espionage games that go on while a jealous lover searches for the cheater. They've made a million soap operas about it.
It seems like Korean construction companies and civil engineers are proudest of their risky feats. Take bridges - this one is the longest oversea bridge in the country. We drove over this one which connects the Songdo island with the Incheon airport (the main international airport). It costs about $5 for the toll to get across, but we were able to take another route back to bro's place.
This bridge at Cheongryangsan connects the two peaks and has a clear acrylic floor in the middle to look down through. The middle of the bridge is a great place to experience vertigo. I'm not scared of heights usually, but even my legs were shaking a little. The bridge moves a lot too, since it's a really flexible suspension bridge. Plus the wind was whipping through the peaks, which made it even more terrifying. We only made it here because of my mother in law.
Mom is a tough lady. She grew up during the Japanese occupation and got to see all of her siblings die or get disappeared by the dueling governments of Japan and North Korea. She wasn't really too worried about handling her husband's death since she said she had "been through much worse". When she wants to get something done, there's pretty much no way you're going to stop her. And she set her mind that she was going to climb to the top of Cheongryangsan. We had just climbed the previous day and were kinda sore, but that was just a wimpy excuse to her.
There's a great stop along the way at Cheongryang temple which has this beautiful observation / meditation deck. It's pretty old, so it's scary to walk out on the deck because it was built on a cliff.
Big sis was a total scaredy cat. That didn't stop mom from running across the bridge as soon as we made it to the top. That left big sis and I stranded on one side of the bridge waiting for them to return. I had to drag her over to the other side, but I think she appreciated the experience ... maybe. So despite all our whining to mom, it was all worth the effort to haul ourselves up this hill. It's like there's a lesson to be learned here somewhere.
This was another climb, but it was through dreaded...
Oh no! We didn't know, honest. Except for this sign. But I didn't know what it meant and no one told me until later. Good thing guns are illegal. Suk Ja thought we found some wild ginseng on the (belatedly disclosed) private property, so I got to watch the two ladies dig for the buried treasure. I didn't know what the big deal was all about, but supposedly a decent sized ginseng root can fetch over $1000!
When out traveling with mom, she made us detour to see a few relatives and old friends. These folks are still farming and were super nice. They even wanted to feed us, but we had the handy excuse that we had just eaten. So instead they made us go away with something...
This sack was a lot heavier than it looks. They even gave a whole branch full of persimmons from the tree in front of their door.
The travels around Gyeongsangdo took us to some amazing places. This lake is right near a cozy tea shop where they use ingredients from the nearby mountains. It was dark in there, so hard to get pictures. But the place reminded me of a hangout for college kids or something. There were lots of phalluses in there. Maybe it's really a hangout for mothers who want a son.
I'm always amused by the stories Koreans tell of how penis shaped objects are going to grant you sons. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's really powerful to have phallic imagery that you can touch.
This was considered to be a quite powerful rock back in the day. Legend says that this rock was unearthed just like this, and then they had to close the area around it because there was too much excitement generated by this landmark. I love these stories.
Last year I described our trip to Sokcho for ultimate Hwe. Koreans only eat raw fish when it's been killed right in front of them. It's gruesome, but it ensures the meat is fresh. For the same reason, Koreans prefer open kitchens in most restaurants so they can see how clean the place is while they prepare your food.
This temple is a recently renovated masterwork that serves several functions (like most temples). This one had a newly decorated room dedicated to housing ashes of the devoted.
Supposedly all the paintings on the outside of this structure represent heaven. This guy is maybe taking a journey to heaven.
Here's another one. No one could tell me what this is supposed to mean, so I'm going to assume that trees grow on fish in heaven.
It seems that Buddhists view sexuality as part of both humanity and spirituality. I think there's some commentary on beauty in the mirror's reflection.
I love traditional Korean music. It has both tribal and royal qualities at once. You can hear the same traditional songs sung in context of the street or the court without too much variation. Some instruments lend themselves more easily to certain settings, but the drums and voice are ever present. This band used only drums for percussion and their voices for melody. It sounded like a chant some times, almost spoken word other times, and often a unified chorus.
I don't want to keep harping on Korean relations with the Japanese, but it's pretty frightful what you encounter just visiting a few museums and historical sites.
This palace was originally built in 1484 by king Sejong (see my other post about this guy). This was the beginning of a new dynasty after the fall of the great Goreyo reign (namesake of "Korea" to westerners) which was based in Pyeongyang. Most shifts in power involve moving the capital to a new city, which is the modern capital of Seoul. The palace didn't last long - all of the original buildings were burnt down in the Japanese invasion of 1592, and it was rebuilt in 1616. There were some other fires that burnt secondary structures, but the main business hall has remained intact throughout this time.
When the Japanese arrived in 1909, they converted the still functional palace into a zoo. If there ever were a book written on how not to colonize another culture, I think the Japanese would have banned literature mentioning it, since it would be all about their exploits. I heard this little anecdote and thought about what a target that paints on your back. Imagine the US going into Iraq and turning Saddam's palace into a monkey house. Needless to say the Japanese were despised at that time by Koreans (and many eastern Chinese). The scars were pretty deep in this case too - Suk Ja remembers that only in the 1980s could the government afford to start changing the zoo back to its previous stature. They've put in a lot of restoration work to bring the palaces back to life. We only had enough time to see part of this one (which was awesome). I highly recommend spending a day on these palaces.
Another insult from the Japanese occupation was apparent when we went to an exhibit of traditional Korean Buddhist paintings at the National Museum of Korea. Some of these intricate masterpieces dated back to the 10th century. Many were hard to see and in fragile condition due to the rough treatment they'd suffered. I was confused when I noticed on the placards that most said something to the effect of "Cultural Property of Japan". I thought maybe these were Japanese paintings, but Suk Ja told me that they were all stolen during the occupation and very few have been returned to Korea. It was only on this rare occasion that the Japanese public and private collections would LOAN these pieces to the museum. I couldn't even take photos here due to the "owners'" requirements.
A note about the museum - it's amazing. Completely free admission (except for the Buddhist painting exhibit) and well funded by the state. It's pretty impressive that the people of Korea care deeply about their history enough to shoulder the tax burden. There were at least twice as many (friendly) staff persons at this place than at the Museum of the Art Institute in Chicago (which charges $18 for admission).
That's all for this year. See you next time in K-land!
No comments:
Post a Comment