Temple Visit

My final week in Korea, I had an opportunity to go on an extended temple visit. Formal temple stays are generally arranged on the weekends here, and I just haven't had an entire weekend free in quite a while. So, I cobbled together some time, bent the program rules a little, and went to a visit a gorgeous temple outside Paju.
I took a train, to a cab, to a bus, to get there. But the serenity and the nature there were worth the trip. The temple stay program that they run there focuses on meditation and rest (temples offer slightly different experiences). I don't think that you have to be a Buddhist, (or a 1970s American folk singer :) ) to appreciate the positive aspects to the practice of meditation. Myself, I found it a great place for personal reflection.
I tried to let go of some of the petty irritations that cropped up as I finished up my tenure in Korea, and to just focus on the values that I want to cultivate in myself. There are 4 that I am trying to nurture. That is a private topic to me, but here I will share some of the beautiful nature that makes Korea's mountains so perfect for spiritual reflection.

Taegeukgi Time

In my last 2 weeks in Korea, I am trying to visit some of the places where I've never quite managed to go. So, on a recent rainy morning I stopped into the National Museum of Korea. I had heard that the museum was Korea's version of the Smithsonian mixed with the Met.
In the main hallway, I found an impressive ten story pagoda. Many Korean couples snapped photos of themselves with the pagoda in the background. Ah, young love in Korea! :)
I particularly wanted to visit the museum this August, as the museum has scheduled a special exhibit to commemorate the 60Th Anniversary of the Republic of Korea. The exhibit is called "Symbol of Korea, Taegeukgi." The Taegeuk is the red and blue swirl symbol, which can also be called the "Supreme Ultimate Pattern," and looks to the under-educated Western eye a little like the yin-yang symbol surrounded by four matching patterns. The current exhibit of Taegeukgi flags and artifacts runs until November 19, 2008. The exhibit fills one of the museums halls, and there is some English language signage. I definitely came away from it having learned that the symbol goes much farther back in Korean history than I'd realized. The national flag of the Joseon dynasty , which was declared on 3/6/83, bore the symbol.
The Museum offers another major exhibit hall (which is now showing art and artifacts of ancient Persia), several halls of Korean historical documents, and an interesting historical map room. The higher floors feature art from other Asian countries, they are not the largest collections I've ever seen, but there are a few nice pieces. For me a room of sculptures and furniture acquired from Myanmar (Burma) by a Japanese collector stood out. If you are a history buff, the National Museum of Korea is an interesting way to spend three or four hours.

Who says feminism can't be an f-in riot?

I love it when imaginative four year olds turn out to be persistently hilarious performers! :)
This is the case with a friend of mine from nursery school who has followed the hard, cold, seventh-floor-walk-up in Brooklyn path of becoming a successful actress and stand-up comedian in New York City without ever compromising her own irrepressible personality. And then created a creative venue to help other women do the same. Julie Goldman rocks...
Check her out at...
http://offensivewomen.com

Lotus Flower Garden

August is the time for the Lotus to bloom in Korea. Recently, we went on a "stroll" to a Lotus flower garden with some members of our hiking club. We took a long, meandering bus ride out to a rural section of Gyeonggi province. The are was named Semiwon, which the hiking club director says "means to purify your mind seeing water" or "get beautiful mind in seeing flowers." The park was quite lovely, as it is located at the merging point of two rivers: the Nam Han river and Bukhan river.
We got off the bus and walked through the town through an organic food fair. Two young Korean salesgirls, aged about 7 and 9, called after us in their elementary level English to "come eat [their] toe-mate-oes! "
The park was green, blooming, and gorgeous. There were large fountains built to resemble traditional Korean ceramic vases. The bright, unique lotus flowers were worth the trip. As in many other scenic spots here, there were also young Korean Romeos photographing their young Juliets with flowers. After about an hour it started to pour, so we took refuge in the greenhouse. There is a professor in our hiking club who knows many Korean legends. He found one red bloom in the greenhouse and told me this story:
On that red flower, the bloom and leaves never come out of the ground at the same time. The flower is thus named after a beautiful Korean lady who fell in love with a pious Buddhist monk. He loved her,too, but had committed to a life without women, so they could not be together. The lady became miserable and died soon after of a broken heart. The monk lived on to meditate on his sadness. The bright red petals of the flower represent the beautiful woman. Then the petals die and fall away and the leaves, representing the monk, come out of the ground separately. The petals and leaves can never bloom together, just like the lady and the monk.
...Sad saga! I will post a picture of the flower he mentioned.
After taking just a few shots, my camera battery died out (bummer). So I borrowed my boyfriend's camera a to snap a few pictures. Here are some pictures that he and I (the better ones are his, truth be told) took that day.

Leap of Faith

In ten mere days I fly out of Korea! Ten days-where does the time go? Times when I miss my family, like this past weekend, creek by ever so slowly. Times when I am traveling with friends or teaching more enthusiastic kids fly by...

I was very excited to see my boyfriend, but I had a bit of a hard time returning from Laos. That is why I keep writing about it. The country captured my imagination. The Lao people were so relaxed and friendly. Historians estimate that the USA dropped more bombs during the "secret war" in Laos than we did in all of World War II, yet everyone there welcomes a well-intentioned traveler from any nation. I met few people who seemed really well off, yet no one seemed obsessed with brands and materialism like you see in the city of Seoul. I did meet one family at the airport on my way out of the country who appeared to be wealthy. They were flying to Bangkok for the family business, and wore obviously expensive jewelry. Their cute daughter approached me and so we spoke for a few minutes. They were very down-to-earth and friendly. The wife did not do the up-down visual examination of my clothes, shoes, jewelery, and body type that some of the snobby, noveau-riche Korean women do in Gangnam.
But my time left here in Seoul is fleeting. Soon after my return from Laos and then English camp, movers came. My boyfriend's company generously hires the Asian Tigers moving company to pack and ship the belongings of employees and dependants back to America. We decided that I narrowly qualify as a "common law" spouse, so I came with my stuff, too. It is all going to the same house (gulp), anyway. I tried to pare down my things,selling, giving away, and recycling all that I could. I did keep two binders of EFL materials just in case we ever end up living in Thailand. That's the germ of an idea we have for the future.
While traveling, I have really been trying to fight against the tyranny of ownership. Due to my love for change, hatred for high rents, and past tendency to chose the wrong man as a potential partner, I've moved many times since college. Eight times, I believe, counting moves to cheaper apartments within the same areas of Somerville/Cambridge (Mass). Packing up this past week, I was amazed by all the stuff I'd acquired! The first year I really tried not to accumulate anything, keeping my apartment sparse. This year I relaxed and indulged in a few more luxuries like a nicer hair dryer, a Scrabble game, a jewelery box, but I believed that I'd given most of these things away by moving day. I still have so much random STUFF. Does it breed in the night? Also, I have made it a point not to buy as much clothing as I would at home, particularly because I have lost weight here that I may regain when I return, with joy and zeal, to the American bread and potatoes diet. (Imagine the stretch marks! Damn.) Yet, when it came down to rolling my sweaters and shirts up into my battered suitcases, I really did (and do)own a lot of clothes.
I only brought or bought a few expensive items here-my leather jacket, the designer dress I bought for my father's wedding, my interview/funeral suit (Irish-catholic mothers tell you to be prepared for a funeral at any time), my summer suit (wedding suit),and a small Korean Ceylon vase. My boyfriend has invested in four good quality pieces of art and porcelain by Korean and Chinese craftsmen for his (soon to be our) house, but it didn't seem like much spread out over an apartment. He also has two suits for his job and a custom made tux he bought for my father's wedding, all of which came at a price. As we packed, we filled out the insurance forms for the movers. American businesses tell you not to under-estimate as things do at times get broken or ruined shipping to and from Asia, so we rounded up a little on each dollar. However, rounding aside, when we added it all up on a spreadsheet the belongings that we own together were valued at $22,222. Isn't that surreal (and lucky)? According to the US department of State 2007 statistics, the per capita income of people in Laos is $710. Yes, that would be seven hundred, not even thousand. What an insane disparity!
Theoretically, my cool boyfriend and I are getting married. When my last attempt at cohabitation fell apart under the strain of personality differences, opposing schedules, long-term financial worries, and his intense job stress, I promised myself I'd never move in with another man without a ring on my finger. The second year of that relationship felt like an audition for marriage, we both knew I wanted a family and I was never quite sure if I'd make the cut. And then when his job spiraled out of control (not his fault), he started to act more and more controlling with me (um, yeah, his fault). So I bailed. Thank God. But when many of your friends have 2.3 cute children peeking out at you daily from their Facebooook pages, ending up 33, broke, childless, and alone renting your friend's basement suhuuuuuuuucks. In the age of on-line social networking, it also feels like breakups are more public. Yet I knew even then that I was very lucky to have that generous friend with a basement, and my supportive family, to fall back on. Many women don't.
...So here I am, looking at Cohabitation-Take Two. The partners couldn't BE more different! Experience has given me some perspective, and much better taste. :) Trusting people has never been very easy for me, but sound realtionships demand trust. I've become less passive and more realistic about love. And I've decided to leave the past where it belongs...in the past! I have tried to be very clear with my partner about what I need, without being too demanding. We have some temperamental differences-so I have tried to be clear with him that I can be impatient and grumpy. By nature, I am a daydreamer and a little disorganized. I am 36 now (shh!) so that is unlikely to change much. I have shipped everything I own to our soon to be home. I just today sent out change of address notices to all my friends,colleagues, and many members of my large Irish-American family. The wheels of change are turning. Can I guarantee our success together? Honestly, there are no sure bets in modern relationships. Divorce abounds. Neither men nor women are necessarily bad, but both can be short-sighted and weak. All love demands some small amount of risk-taking.
However, I have a good feeling about this love. If you never take any risks, you never grow. I have decided to trust my instincts. Cross your fingers for us.

River Boat Reverie

The highlight of my recent trip to Laos was an open topped, long-tail boat trip down the Nam Tha River towards the Mekong. My friend Mairi and I hired a Green Discovery Tours guide and two boatmen to take us on this adventure. A breeze along the river broke the intense heat. Banana tree leaves bent towards the water as the strong current pushed us along. I realized that I had seen this type of scene before-boats pulling away from the small town landing towards the lush trees and jungle along a remote river-but that no film or travel show had quite captured the intensity and size of the towering green trees. Also, Western movies often depict a remote river with a sense of foreboding and danger. But all we saw was beauty and all we felt was appreciation. The further away we journeyed from the town, the more animals traversed the river bank.
Laos is much more ethnically diverse than Korea. Our guide took us to three villages along the river route, and we met three different types of Lao Theong ("upland Lao" or Hill) people. According to our guide, we met people from the Khamu, Lamet, and Thai Dam or, Black Thai ethnic groups. The upland Lao peoples have generally had a lower standard of living than their richer neighbors to the south, the Lowland Lao. In the Khamu village, we saw grandmothers caring for many children, while their mothers went off to work in the forests or on the newly thriving rubber plantations. There is a bit of a battle brewing in Northern Laos-between the people who see the region's future lying in conservation and ecotourism, and between the government officers who are pushing the idea of developing rubber plantations. The Chinese will pay good money for rubber in the short-term. Of course, ecotourism is a better plan for the long-term. If the rubber promoters win out, the Nam Tha river region will look very, very different ten years from now.
The village children looked thinner than the children in the towns, and some had discoloration around their eyes. In the Khamu village, a friendly craftswoman presented us with welcome gifts (handmade embroidered purses) and then attempted to sell us some of the handmade paper she creates. I felt bad that I could not purchase any, but the money changing places only give out large bills, and the paper cost less than a dollar. I was traveling on a budget, and I did not want to haggle with so poor a family over change. Traditionally, they have had bilateral inheritance patterns in Laos. Even if rural Lao women can inherit some of the family land, they still seem to have very difficult lives.
Back on the river, bird songs echoed. The water itself was a brown-green with strong currents pushing fallen tree branches ahead. At one point we passed a happy group of children diving from a large tree into the river to cool off. They were very happy to practice the few words of English that they knew, calling "Hello?" and "OK? OK!" after us as we rode by.
We stopped for a quick lunch on a rock by the riverside. Our guide spread out a banana leaf as a picnic cloth. Then he laid out balls of sticky rice wrapped in what appeared to be grape leaves-one leaf full of rice for each person. Then he laid down the main dishes-a spicy pork and vegetable dish, mixed vegetable dish, and some rice cakes. We washed our hands, and then broke off chunks of the sticky rice. We dunked it right into the pork and vegetable dishes to sop up the sauce and meat-as if they were biscuits. A few minutes into the lunch two large brown pigs and a family of chickens sauntered towards us, intrigued by the smell. One pig tried to nuzzle his way into our lunch-but one of the boat man scared him off. The chicks pecked at the ground around us for stray grains of rice. The pigs didn't go far, but waited in the nearby bushes to see if we would leave any scraps.
In the afternoon, as the sun rose to it's highest point, the heat and humidity did start to get to me. I drank a lot of water, my stomach still started to get queasy. Nevertheless, I was sad when we left the arching trees behind us and floated towards the boat landing.

Olympic Baseball Quagmire

Non-sequitor of the week...
What happened to the US Olympic baseball team?? Hmm? The South Koreans kicked our behinds! Where was the American pitching? Where were the dramatic mid-air catches? Some of the American batters didn't even start running right after they hit the ball...I know it's mid-season for the pros and all, but really, the US has better players to offer. Where were the young stars, the Red Sox of tomorrow?
I have been told that Americans introduced baseball to South Korea as a sport during the Korean war, if this is true it is a little sad to see us so soundly beaten at , literally, our own game. Baseball IS supposed to be our "national pastime," isn't it?
The South Koreans played superior batters, that's all there is to it! After a while, it was painful to watch, even while eating ice cream in my boyfriend's sweet air conditioning.
I have one word for the US baseball coaching staff:
L-A-M-E.
OK, enough ranting, now back to my recent adventure travels...

Spots I liked in Vientiane

Two weeks ago, I had the good fortune to visit Laos with my friend Mairi.
...If you can stand the heat and intense humidity, the friendly people and unique blend of cultures create an exotic but relaxed mood. Everyone is welcome, from any foreign land, despite Laos' war-torn history. I began and ended my trip in the capital, Vientiane, which boasts a blend of several architectural styles. Some of my favorite moments were:
1. Two excellent meals with friends at Makphet restaurant. You'd never know it from the yummy specials (like beef tips marinated in Lao whisky), but Makphet is a non-profit organization staffed by teachers and former street children from the capital's poorest neighborhoods.
2.Taking a break from the heat at fruit market stalls along the banks of the Mekong River.
3. Stealing quiet reflection at Wat That Luang Neua, the temple to the North of Pha That Luang (the "world precious sacred stupa"). I visited early in the morning, before the heat, and the large groups of French tourists, arrived.
4. Watching local children play in the fountain near my guesthouse on a warm,and unusually dry, night.
5. Haggling a vendor down to a decent price (at least, decent for a foreigner)on some vivid textiles.
6. Munching on heavenly croissants for about forty cents at the Scandinavian Bakery! I went back several days in a row! Flaky! Buttery! Can this bakery send a baking instructor to Korea?
...And some good chats with my pal Mairi during our mid-day "siesta breaks" at Mali Namphu Guest House.

Are Expats in Korea Just Bit**ing?

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to direct you to an interesting (if self-referential) discussion happening on the Internet and in the Korean Media considering foreign bloggers in Korea. Some of us have irked the Korean netizens, who have expressed that Ex-pat blogs in Korea are too damn negative.
Do we Ex-pats (who tend to all get lumped together as "foreigners", even though we represent different nationalities, genders, cultures, and languages) have a right to express our opinions of South Korea, even when we may not be fluent in Korean, and thus may not understand the culture well? Is the tone of our writing in blogs really what angers some Korean blog readers?
I am away from Seoul teaching at a camp, and only have night time computer access, so I don't really have time to give this issue the consideration it deserves.
However, I am intruiged and would like to say a few quick things on this issue, as I find this discussion fascinating.
1. A blog is an outlet-for creativity, for frustration, for questioning. It can be an outlet for ideas Ex-pats may lack the Korean skills to say out loud, and for feelings Ex-pats may lack the courage to say out loud.
2. Ex-pats are responsible for their own tone. If Ex-pats genuinely spew hate about South Koreans as a group, they shouldn't be surprised to get hateful comments in return.
3. However, Ex-pats are indeed foreign-which mean they think differently. Some Ex-pats here come from cultures where freedom of expression is very highly prized-so what a Korean may see as mean spirited criticism of their beloved country, a foreigner may see as merely independent thought. Which has been particularly emphasized in several Western countries since the 1960s.
4. Even blogs with pretty well-written political commentary can lapse into a diary- like style. You can't take them too seriously! :) Sarcasm and black humor abound in Ex-pat blogs all over Asia. The Marmot's Hole, for example, is a well written and well sourced Ex-pat blog in Korea. Yet even that blogger will post the occasional picture of a pretty Korean chick in a short skirt. I could care less about those pictures, but the writer's obviously interested in such photos, and heck, it's HIS blog. I just surf away from it.
5a. We foreigners should probably try to lead with a disclaimer: even if one studies Korean, or has been here a long time, if one didn't grow up here, one is still somewhat of a foreigner.

HOWEVER.....................
5b. It is my personal, non-expert, terrible-at-Korean, opinion that Korea can only strengthened by more free expression. Even expression by foreigners, who might be less educated on the culture, but nonetheless inter-act with it. The "Hermit Kingdom" days are over-and for the better. South Korea has built an impressive, modern power out of the ashes of war in a short span of years. I admire that. And modern, free powers should embrace free expression. There are even certain issues, such as inter-racial dating, the inside view (and myriad problems) of the Hagwon language academy system, or even Western thoughts on the best places to grab a great brunch in Seoul, where the ex-pats, beyond all their whiny complaints, have a kernel of knowledge to offer. :)
Even if they finish blog posts with a run-on sentence. :)

For some other good thoughts on this issue I suggest the blog "Ask A Korean!" which can be found at http://askakorean.blogspot.com