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Published: October 30th 2008
Entering the unknown
The lonely planet warned us already:
“Almost everything you’ll experience in Korea is going to be different.” For once, they were right. It might have been our mindset coming from Nepal, it might have been our luck in meeting Korean friends who took us to visit their country, it might just be the country and its people themselves, but Korea has been different from everything we experienced so far.
It is seven months ago that we ‘hit the road’. We are seven months, four countries, eight flights, three beaches, seven languages, thirteen ho(s)tels, a few trains, one car, three scooters, several buses and numerous metro’s, many new friends, and endless thoughts later. What does that do? How does that feel?
It feels like perspectives are changing. Finally I’m starting to let go of the stress that has been keeping me in its grip during the last few years. Dissertations start fading, memory gets overwritten, life is moving on. Every now and then I even forget to think about “what’s next”. I experience moments where cognitive overload is no longer present. I find myself wondering whether it is possible that I am becoming more than the
Autumn is coming
The first change of season we have experienced on this trip.psychologist in me… of course, that has to be an illusion ;-).
The beauty of Korea has been invading every part of our daily lives. The food, the customs, the industrial, artistic, economic and natural wonders of this country seem too numerous to describe. We were able to spend our days walking Seoul with our two cameras, discovering new pictures to be taken around any street corner, in every direction we looked. And this is what we mainly did. Thousands of new images in our digital archives later, we are on the verge of jumping to yet another destination: Taiwan.
It is with a melancholic sigh that we leave this place. It is also with a certainty that some day, somehow we will come back here and see more of what this country has to offer.
Talking Food
So let’s start with one of my favorite topics: food! Korea’s national dish is served at virtually every Korean meal. It is called kimchi and the most common type is made from cabbage mixed with garlic and chilly and left to pickle for months. But kimchi can be made from radish, cucumber, sesame leaves and just about any
More autumn colors
Even on macro level vegetable you can think of, even broccoli. Some varieties are aged for hours, others for years. Recipes are handed down from generation to generation and kept anxiously guarded. The Koreans we met have been quite amazed by our taste for kimchi. Usually, foreigners don’t appreciate it that much they say. Whether we ate hot noodle soup, cold noodle soup, tofu stew, bbq, chicken dishes or food stall mixtures in the street, every dish is accompanied by kimchi. An average Korean eats 25 kg of kimchi per person per year. Traditionally, kimchi was stored in big clay pots in the yard, nowadays one of the most broadcasted advertisements we’ve seen on Korean television is for kimchi refrigerators. Since the odour can be easily passed on to more delicate foods in the fridge, one needs a special kimchi department.
Another curiosity on the Korean table is the equipment. One needs to handle any dish with two flat metal chopsticks and a spoon. We are used to eating with chopsticks and usually quite content with our chopstick-skills but the Korean version demanded new training. It is the flatness that does the job. They keep slipping and crossing each other with every slight
Home made BBQ
Kim and Chang preparing us delicious BBQ of lettuce and sesame leaves with pork, leek, soy bean sauce and of course, as a side dish, kimchi! movement. A whole new balancing system on thumb and ring finger had to be invented. And since the traditional way of eating is sharing a large dish in the middle of the table with all surrounding it, one can not keep slipping those chopsticks. Kim and Chang, our Korean companions, had some good laughs over our chopstick skills! Happily, washing machines can be found in practically all guesthouses so we never really ran out of clean clothes.
Religion? Yet again?!
In terms of Religion, Korea is influenced by four streams: Shamanism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity. We have seen a shamanist woman beating her drum while contacting animal spirits. She was alone facing the rocks of Inwangsan hill in northwestern Seoul. We tried to find our way down that hill on slippery sand paths. Of course, we felt like intruders and did not dare to approach her too closely, afraid of disturbing. Nevertheless we were close enough to be struck by her cries and the tears floating off her face while she performed the ceremony. These are the moments where you wish you’d practiced a bit more on the language in order to be able to understand what’s going
on.
We also visited a number of Buddhist temples. Beautiful wooden structures with enormous roofs and impressing architecture. The temples are colorfully painted and visited by people from all walks of life for prayers and offerings. One of the most impressive temples we’ve seen was on Jeju Island, the honeymoon Island of Korea. It was an enormous structure, very spacious and inhabited by the biggest Buddha statue in the country as well as several dragons and numerous wall paintings. We had our share of Buddhism in Nepal so we did not opt for a temple stay program but it is very popular among tourists and if one has the luck to run into an English speaking practitioner, I think it is a rather interesting experience. Korean Buddhism is older than Tibetan Buddhism and seems much less “wholesaled”.
But the overall presence of Christianity has been striking us most. Catholics came here in the late 18th century but were heavily suppressed by the Confucian government. Protestant missionaries entered in 1880 and have been gaining many followers since. So many even that now the government is almost entirely made up of Christians and recently, problems arose between Buddhist followers who feel
underrepresented and Christian policy makers. One can not travel this country avoiding the many churches which have been built over the last two to three centuries. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, are reminders of it. For one, the GPS systems which are used in all (enormous) cars over here indicate every church along the road. Anyway, enough about religion, there are other things to tell.
Breathing Beauty
This last week in Seoul, we’ve been taking a purifying bath in art and design. We spend two days exploring the Seoul Design Olympiad, marveling at the work of Korean designers. Inventions from hypermodern riverbanks in the city center via slick monobikes and breathing pots to fancy lamps, bus stops and, my absolute favorite, dog poo umbrellas which generate plants from dogs’ waste. We also visited numerous galleries since we live in the artist center of Seoul (In Sa Dong). This is where I felt those healing effects of Korean beauty. We’ve been confronted to such misery in Nepal, it was difficult to keep smiling in those circumstances. I felt guilty, miserable, sympathetic and useless facing the scale and depth of the problems there. It was hard to distance myself
Temple View
Heavy wooden roofs, autumn trees and drying chillies from it, to keep a balance between relief and gratitude that my fate was so much more fortunate than theirs and the immediate effects of having the worlds misery smacked in my face like that.
Nepal was like a sauna, sweating out all toxins of human life, whereas Korea is like the rest afterwards. Sitting on a sofa with a book and a sparkling fire in the chimney. There is good in the world too… I just needed a reminder.
But what about the people?
Curious people though, these Koreans. They have shown us that their hospitality is endless, their level of English is not bad but they are too shy to speak and their national identity is strong especially when confronted with Japanese. They are also, like most Asian successful countries, workaholics who pride themselves in sleeping less than 5 hours a night. When working 12 to 15 hours a day, little time is left for leisure. Therefore, coming straight from work, they spend their nights drinking at the footstalls found in practically every street. After ten o clock at night, there are very few sober Koreans left. When we just arrived in Seoul six weeks
cup of tea anyone?
Zen Buddhism and the art of perfectly drinking tea ago, we thought that Koreans were just very shy and quiet people, walking the streets with the aim of not disturbing anyone. Now we know better, it is so quiet in the morning because so many Koreans have a hangover from the night before! :-)
Nothing less disturbing than a seller in the metro when you try to sleep off that hangover. Yet no opportunity to sell is lost and the metro is the perfect place to sell practically anything with a one minute pitch. And right they are because the metro is one of the few places where you actually meet Koreans doing (almost) nothing. Well… they watch television on their mobile phones, play their game computers, read books or catch up on some badly needed sleep; but for Korean standards, that is doing basically nothing. Therefore, sellers enter the wagon, walk to the middle of it, start speaking about the amazing effects of their panties/feet peelers/arm warmers/umbrellas/superglue or anything else you can think of and then stroll the wagon in search of possible buyers. Of course, this method is effective, for when it was not they would not be there. I even found myself wondering if I
Temple Roofs
In one of the national parks needed one of those superglue pens… duh… to glue what exactly? The hole in my jeans? Mimi’s sneakers? My Chinese crappy quality umbrella? Happily I got back to my senses before it was too late… stick that pen where you can use it, I’m not falling for your sales qualities!
Yes, Korea has been wonderful; we will have to come back some day…
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Jur
non-member comment
counting down
Ha, yet another update. Great! And how curious, it's yet again about food ;-) I'm counting down the days that stand between me and my little sister (and mimi!). It's really going to happen and I'm really looking forward to it. Enjoy Taiwan and we'll see eachother on the 14th of december! LOLAK