Category Archives: Travel

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Travel

The Last Day

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: American Airlines 280, Incheon to Dallas. My son and Seoah going with me to the airport. Shuttle from Osan. Packing, almost finished. Checking my bag. Airports. Jet planes. Tom in Seattle. Going home. It’s time. Back to Shadow Mountain. CBE. Regular exercise. Flu/RSV/Covid boosters. Passports. Immigration and customs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Standing upright in the world

One brief shining: A light rain fell, the air was warm, my son, Seoah, and I stood at the traffic light on Songtan-ro, the green walking man flashed on, we crossed only to find Senior, our other companion for the evening standing there, having walked from the base in the rain.

 

After Temple Bongeunsa and the Korea Frieze there was the cold. That got us all and occasioned a lot of weariness. It took me a long time to recover only to discover at the end that I had a sinus infection. Taking the last meds for that today. The result of the cold? I stopped my exercise which had been gradually strengthening my core and giving me regular shots of endorphins. Just too sick to do it. The result of the long recovery arc and the back pain has made the end of the journey less pleasant than I would have hoped. Too tired.

Did not stop us from going to Jeonju or doing screen golf and having a wonderful evening with Diane and Daniel. In Jeonju we saw the hanok village built around the turn of the last century. Wandered around for half a day. Seoah got  her fortune told. She’ll live to 158 and come into a large sum of money in her late seventies. May it be so. We also had bibimbap, a signature Korean dish which originated in Jeonjeu. Rice and vegetables. A sunny side up egg on top.

Senior, Jake, my son, and Seoah drove golf balls into an soft projection screen. A delivery guy brought pizza and hot wings, a bottle of Coke. The game went on.

Later that evening we had supper with Daniel and Diane, a young couple who have built up a large food distribution company that serves all of Korea. Fun to talk with them and hear their interpretation of things Korean.

Daniel talked about middle school in Korea. I went to public school from 8 to 3 pm. Then, I went to a tutor from 4 to 9 pm. Five days a week. On summer break Korean students see the time off public school as a time to race ahead so do the whole tutoring thing from 9 am to 9 pm. Sounded exhausting to me.

In between visits to Seoul, screen golf, Jeonju, and meals with friends I saw the neighborhood, the dong, here in Songtan. A valuable and persistent lesson in ordinary Korean life.

Today I leave. Feeling wistful about leaving my son and Seoah, Murdoch behind while excited to sleep in my own bed, enjoy my usual rounds of lunches and breakfasts, get back to caring for myself.

The physical difficulty I’ve had on this trip does make me wonder if I need to modify my expectations, my habits while on the road. I’m not 60 anymore.

My son and Seoahs

Asia, Health, Korea, Travel

The first half

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My son on leave. Seoah and her quiet commentary on her life. Murdoch the silly. Aided by my son, a silly one, too. Rainy and cool in Songtan. My son’s learned Hangul. Last full day in Korea. Journey’s end. All the memories. Shadow Mountain. Going home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jet planes

One brief shining: The day when the hoped for and expected become past tense as in go now the trip has ended, the trip of 36 days to Korea, to see my son and Seoah, Murdoch and Korea, the trip my first abroad since 2016 back to where the last one started, Songtan.

 

All journey’s end. Yes. Including this human journey when our particular constellation of atoms, endowed with life by the hand of evolution, dissolve back into the more random body  of the universe. Perhaps to get collected together again, somewhere, in someone or something. To quicken. To once again open an eye, catch a sound, feel a breeze, taste fresh water. Oh marvelous path, the path of miracle in a wonder filled cosmos.

On a less lofty note my trip to Songtan has reached its last full day in Asia. It’s been an odd one in some ways. Also precious. Definitely memorable.

Still jet lagged and much less aware than I prefer we drove down to Okgwa to Seoah’s parent’s brand new house. I fell into a deep sleep after the three hour drive. Around 5 we got into cars and headed for Gwangju to the Outback Steak House where we met Seoah’s two sisters and their families to celebrate Seoah’s mom’s 70th.

My body and I ended up in the same zone at some point the next day. Much better.

My son went back to work while Seoah and I toured the neighborhood around their apartment building. Stopping first at a wonderful sushi restaurant, Mida. Labor day weekend. My son was off so we went to a going away dinner for Senior, my son’s top non-com whom he liked a lot. At a restaurant in the Rodeo called the Meat Shop.

My son, Seoah and I, walked to a restaurant in downtown Songtan for a hot pot dinner with a whole chicken each, rice in the bowl, plus the usual abundance of side dishes. Noticed on the way my hip had begun to announce itself. Hey, I’m here! Pay attention.

The next day when we went into Seoul for the first time we made two stops. One at the Noryangjjin fish market where we had sashimi made from two large fish alive until we purchased them a half hour before. The second, the palace of Sejong the Great. By the end of a hot tour of the vast palace grounds I found myself in a lot of pain. That hip. Remember me?

This problem loomed large for me.  I was only in the second week of the trip and I knew I couldn’t keep going unless I found a way to lessen my pain. Frustrating. A visit to a Korean orthopedist, a massage therapist, some procedures. A repeat visit two days later. Learned about the wonderful Korean health care system and got myself a new way to walk. I could continue my trip somewhat as planned.

The next weekend we went to Gangnam, the fancy neighborhood of hip Seoul. My hip behaved as I tried out my new way of walking, that is, walking like Mr. Lee taught me. We saw the Bongeunsa Temple and I saw the Korea Frieze show in the Coex mall right across from the temple By the end of the day I was tired, but still able to walk. A big improvement.

I’ll finish this summary tomorrow.

 

 

Asia, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Korea, Travel, World History

Friends

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Fall and the  Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: This trip. Daniel and Diane. Their gift of special teas. Our meal together last night. Walking in the Songtan night, a cool breeze just warm enough weather. Screen golf. Jake and Senior. A good Sunday. Those asteroid pieces return home. Amazing. Trump’s followers offer violence. Not amazing. Mini-class reunion in Alexandria on Saturday. High school. College.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

One brief shining: Thwack, thwack, thwack the screen catches the golf bowl and lets it dribble down to the gutter where it reenters the queue as Joe sets into his stance, knees bent, concentration shaping his face, an arcing gentle swing and thwack again for 286 yards, right down the middle of the fairway.

 

Screen golf has a lot of adherents in Korea. Cheaper than any golf course it still allows for using the full range of clubs.  18 holes of one simulated course or another. Driving from a tee has no difference from IRL golf. The irons a bit different since there is no forgiving soil underneath the ball. But close enough. Putting on the other hand. Difficult to do well in this environment.

My son, Jake his friend from Georgia, Senior, my son’s top non-com, and Seoah, dressed in her Malbon outfit played yesterday. I sat in the bleachers and enjoyed the show. The screen and various cameras offer a lot of data. When Joe drove, for instance, the ball hit the screen which then shifted to a scene featuring his ball as it flew off the t. Apex 47 yards. Swing speed. Spot on the club where he struck the ball. Finally, the ball lands. Fairway, 286 yards. Time for the next golfer.

There are bunkers, water hazards, penalty areas, and out of bounds spots in forested areas. Jake and my son played even golf to the very end, finishing in a tie after 18 holes. Jake, due to more consistent play was the MVP according to the computer.

Inclement weather. Too hot. Too cold. All drive golfers with an itch to play this game which can become an obsession to screen golf. It’s far from a perfect simulacrum of playing outside, but more than close enough to make it a challenge and an opportunity to learn, sharpen your game. Lots of spots to play, too.

A nap after screen golf. Then Diane and Daniel came. They were the folks we met at the Noryangjin fish market a few weeks ago. Daniel and my son served together in 2015-2016. Daniel the Korean interpreter between Korean Air Force folks and my son’s squad. He interpreted for me when I performed my son and Seoah’s wedding ceremony in 2016. They brought me some Korean teas in a lovely wooden box.

Over dinner we talked about Korean culture. I wondered where the competitive nature of Korean schools originated. Diane said it came from a time when Korea felt it had no natural resources other than its people. Doing your best in school was good for Korea and good for you. A lot more to unpack from that conversation.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Travel

A day in Jeonju

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jeonju. Traveling with my son and Seoah. Making rice wine. The bus ride. The rest stop area with so much on offer. Murdoch wiggling when we finally, finally got home. Korean traditional housing. Warm floors, central courtyard, blue tiled roof. Seoah and her 108 bows. Korean pears and apples. Land not covered with buildings covered with crops. Density.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Memories

One brief shining: Streets of traditional Korean houses, hanok, now housing fortune tellers, coffee shops, souvenir dealers, craftspeople bustled with tourists and folks wearing hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing, women strolling with their hoop-skirts much like Southern belles at a fashion soreé while children ran down a water course that followed one of the streets and jugglers kept wooden discs in the air on small spindly poles.

 

 

Not quite what we expected. But fun anyhow. Not a Korean Williamsburg. More like a Korean fair with lots of kids laughing and eating ridiculous food on sticks. The occasional street performance by roaming jugglers and small bands. An air of festivity.

This area filled with over 700 traditional Korean homes has cobblestone streets which you can see in the picture above. Hard to walk on for me. Must have been a charming place to live in the early 20th century when it was built. Seoah says her parent’s original home was just like these. The home before the one Kate and I visited in 2016. Many of the houses in Okgwa are hanok homes still.

These homes featured walled courtyards, heated floors, the traditional tiled roof. Some of the best preserved have wonderful wooden doors with iron hinges, door pulls and decorative features.

Jeonju has a special place in Korean history. It is the ancestral home of the Yi family, the family of the first King of the Joseon dynasty. It also has a reputation as a city of the arts and culture. The hanok village that we visited lies inside the now more modern and much larger city.

The Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 has cast a pall over contemporary Koreans. Got another taste of that in the first part of our trip. We made Korean rice wine.

Making the wine itself was not hard. Put the rice in the bowl. Cover with yeast. Knead. A while later, pour in pristine water. Knead some more. Pour result into a covered jar. Take  home, put in a shaded spot. Wait ten days.

The hard part lay in the narration of why we were doing this. During the occupation Japan imposed a prohibition on any liquor made in the home. Presumably to control restless, drunken resistance.

The old recipes, a part of folk culture, gradually withered away until no one had them anymore. Now the owner of this little DIY project has dedicated himself to seeing that his fellow Koreans never again lose their birthright. At least as it pertains to the making of rice wine.

The odd part for my son, Seoah, and me was that none of us drink. We brought ours home anyhow. My son will give it away to his squad when it’s ready.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Travel

Getting ready for Jeonju

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Tom and the lag. The Woolly Christmas at Nicollet Island Inn. Jeonju, our destination this morning. A hanok village. Feeling better. Seoah and my son. Getting ready. A cooler, but still warm day ahead. Songtan in the early morning. Sleepy yet never fully asleep. A good night’s rest. Buses. Museli. Milk. Cold Water.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sunseen. Sununseen.

One brief shining: Up early for a view of old Korea reminds me of the other times like getting up with Mom to catch the Greyhound to the State Fair like going to work on a busy day like rushing through the house to get on the road to the airport for a flight to Maui like awakening in Rome to the sound of buses and cars, the smell of dark coffee and croissants, like any time expectation led the way like a little boy creeping down the stairs on Christmas morning.

 

Energy level better but far from robust. A two hour bus ride to Jeonju and back. Time to sleep a bit. Plan to stop when I need to and rest. Excited to see this Slow City. Love the idea of a slow city, slow food. Especially when the idea merges with the historic and the culturally significant.

My son compared Jeonju to Williamsburg. Maybe. Not really sure. Williamsburg was the birth place of William Schmidt. No, wait. That was Door County. Williamsburg and its colonial reenactors make for a quick dive back to the beginnings of our nation. The sights and sounds and smells, even the dialects. If that’s what we get in Jeonju, I’ll be pleased.

The touristy side of this trip has taken a back seat to health. Mine. That’s ok. I’m with family and in an everyday part of Korea that has given me ample opportunity to participate in and observe Korea as a home. The medical clinics. The neighborhood restaurants. The school kids coming home in their uniforms around 4 pm. The masked ladies ambling their way on a daily walk. The Korean seniors exercising on the Mountain behind the apartments. That kid on Thursday riding his bicycle through a pouring rain. Happy. The construction workers on site at the Peyongaetk City project in their blue vests and hard hats.

Some days I vacationed. Reading. A lot. A couple of days during the cold I never got out of the apartment. This room I have is at the other end of the apartment from the kitchen, the living room, and the master bedroom. I have my own bathroom, a desk, books, and the computer on which I’m working right now. We can go about our mutual introverted lives intersecting for meals, the occasional jaunt out like today.

Realized a month or so ago that I tend to privilege reading above all other activities. Obvious you might say. But it wasn’t to me. If I have spare moments, I read. If I’m reading and other matters call to me, I often don’t pick up the phone. I’ve done that over the last week again. Healing and reading. A good combo for this guy.

 

Asia, Health, Korea, Travel

Travel

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Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: The disappearing cold. The streets of Songtan. My packets of antibiotics. 14. My son coming home early. A trip to a historic village tomorrow. Seoah. Murdoch. Kate, always Kate. Healing at 76. Slower, but happening. Travel. On the road again. Israel, too. Shadow Mountain and CBE. Home Granite, er, Turf.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Breathing freely

One brief shining: His sand colored combat boots sit by themselves in the land of outside footwear, his desert camouflage with the dark oakleaf of the Lieutenant Colonel lays draped across the back of his desk chair while my son now dressed in shorts and a t-shirt plays like a ten-year old with Murdoch, throwing a ball, hiding it, picking him up and holding him.

 

This trip has entered its final days. The last weekend starts tomorrow. A trip to Jeonju Hanok village on Saturday. Screen golf on Sunday. Not sure about Monday and Tuesday yet. My plane leaves Incheon at 5:40 pm on Wednesday. Interestingly, I leave Incheon at 5:40 pm on Wednesday, September 27th, and arrive in Dallas at 4:21 pm on Wednesday, September 27th.

Due to the week plus of cold induced rest I’m probably going to miss the National Korean Museum. See it next year. Don’t want to try the subway with my immune system weakened by the cold. The cold is gone, yes, and I have meds for the sinus infection, but I’m still in that fatigued state that follows an illness. Ode said that we don’t heal as fast at our age. He’s right. Slower, but it’s happening.

 

Made a slight tactical error when planning this trip and the one to Israel. Forgot I’m 76 and not 60. I’m neither as resilient as I was then, nor am I as quick mentally. Neither makes traveling a non-starter, hardly, but I planned on several days of self-guided wandering in Seoul for example. Not only did I encounter first the hip and back pain caused by spinal stenosis, but I found the subway maps and train routes did not clarify for me as fast I was used to. Then, the cold.

Travel for me now needs to factor in those changes. How? More emphasis on rest. More prep time before leaving for a sight seeing morning or afternoon. Greater use of taxis and buses. These are thing I know my sibs have already learned before nearing 80 years old, but I’ve not got the same level of experience they have.

My first trip outside the U.S. since 2016 finds me back in the same spot: Songtan, Korea. Back then I was 69 and still going strong. Thought I was picking up from there. Nope. In the retrospectoscope, a Kate term, I see all this as obvious. Yet it wasn’t.

I resist going too far down the road of accommodating my age. That way leads to rust in the joints and clogs in the mind. To ignore that my body has changed, on the other hand, simply brings me pain. More workouts with resistance, a stronger core. More walking with shoulders back, stomach in, heel contact, second toe in a straight line with something? And, yes, more leisurely lunches watching the folks of Songtan and Jerusalem going about their daily lives.

Asia, Health, Korea, Travel, World History

Korea Observed

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Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls:  Tom. Zoom. The Ancient Brothers. Diane. Taiwan. Travel. At our age. My son’s tough work week. Seoah’s galbi stew. Eating special food while sick. Beef and Chicken. Murdoch staying in my room last night until I went to sleep. The trip ticking over to its last week tomorrow. Alan and Joan. Brunch a week from Friday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Galbi stew

One brief shining: Seoah set out a bowl with chunks of Beef short ribs (galbi), Potatoes, and fat Carrots in a Tomato inflected broth while explaining that Korean people eat this when family members are sick, the Chicken soup she made a couple of days ago, too.

 

More reflections on Korea. A few thing I missed last time. No outside shoes in the house. A small area to take off my Keen’s and put on my New Balance in house kicks. The tiled roofs of traditional houses ending in an animal medallion at the corners. An overall earnestness that shows up in store clerks, folks walking on the sidewalk, workers going on an apartment building site. We will do our best!

The Orthopedic Hospital. What it did not have. A huge parking lot. A lobby imitating corporate buildings. Muzak. Personnel who came around to help with the financial aspects of your visit. A sense of protected distance for the doctors, obscured procedure rooms. It felt approachable, a facility there to care for your health, not to capture revenue for Allina or Centura or Fairview/Southdale.

In these ways the Korean health care system works in the way a non-capitalist tainted system should and can work. We  have much to learn from this modest and conveniently located approach to health care delivery.

 

Korea has a population density of about 1300 people per square mile.* This makes it one of the world’s most densely populated nation. Driven in part by terrain that is 70% uninhabitable-Mountainous and a massive in migration to urban centers over the last couple of decades it’s easy to see here in Songtan.

The complex of 16 buildings that holds my son and Seoah’s current home adds to that. As does the Peyeongan City complex going up right across the street from them. A walk in the neighborhood bounded by Songtan-ro and Seyeong-ro showed that four and five story apartment buildings make up the bulk of residential structures there.

When I asked Seoah where she thought she caught her cold, she said the subway. There are so many people here. She’s had several colds. She observed that I may not have had much illness because where I live there are far fewer people. Probably right.

This website’s South Korea entry reveals though an interesting reality. “… the birthrate still remains low and if this continues, the population is expected to decrease by 13% to 42.3 million in 2050 and extinction by 2750 is a possibility.”

South Korea has the fifth lowest birth rate in the world.

 

 

South Korea is one of the planet’s most densely populated countries with a density of 503 people per square kilometer, or 1,302 people per square mile. Nearly 70% of South Korea’s land area is mostly uninhabitable due to it being mountainous and the population is established in lowland areas, contributing to a density that is higher than average. In 1975, an estimate was made that South Korea’s population density in its cities, each containing at least 50,000 people, was nearly 4,000 on average. As a result of the continued following of the practice to migrate to urban areas, the figure was much higher in the 1980s.

Family, Feelings, Sport, Travel

A Sweet and Wonderful Thing

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Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The real deal. Authenticity. The Ancient Brothers. Getting better. The Colorado/Colorado State game. The Rocky Mountain Showdown. A barn burner. The Marvel Universe. My son’s nerdiness. D.P. Songtan. The great recycling show on Sunday. Chicken noodle soup. Jewish penicillin. This time made by a Korean.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The body rallies

One brief shining: Sitting on the couch, really a futon bed/couch, in my son’s living room, both of us sneezing and coughing, he found the Colorado/Colorado State game on Youtube and we settled in together, two former Minnesota guys with Colorado tenure rooting for the Buffaloes.

 

You probably missed it. Mountain Time in the evening. A game that usually has resonance only in Colorado and even then for only the small number of folks who followed the non-legendary Buffaloes and Rams over the last couple of decades. Usually.

This  year though. Coach Prime on the sidelines. Two of his sons on the field. Two wins already in the bag. The first against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs who lost the 2022 national championship game to the Georgia Bulldogs and ended the year ranked #2 in the nation. That got the sport’s worlds attention.

The Rocky Mountain Showdown however. Whoo, boy. Without a 98 yard touchdown drive in the literal final two minutes AND a two-point conversion for a tie the Buffaloes would have lost a game in which they looked out of sync and ineffective.

College football does overtime differently now than when I last tuned in several years ago. More like the soccer shootout. A coin toss. Winner of the toss gets to choose whether they want the ball first and choice of ends of the field. Both teams get the ball on the opposing teams 25 yard line. They maintain possession until they score, run out of downs, or there’s a takeover. Got that? In the second overtime both teams have to try for two points rather than kicking. Yeah, I know. Here’s a page that explains it all, sort of.

I say all this because the game went to two overtimes, both teams scoring in the first. In the second the Buffaloes scored, but managed a takeover against the Rams offense and the game was over. Whew. What a ride!

Later on my son and I watched Winter Soldier, a Captain America entry in the Marvel Universe. My son’s an athlete. A physics/astrophysics major in college. Now a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. We’re substantially different. Not an athlete. Philosophy/anthropology. Protester against the Vietnam War.

But. We’ve traveled a lot together. Since his plane landed on December 15th, 1981, he’s grown up and I’ve grown old. We not only love each other, we like each other, like spending time when it’s possible.

We share a love of comic books, Marvel comics especially. Football. Travel. Politics. Family.

It is a sweet and wonderful thing to have a strong relationship with a man whom I knew first as a four and a half pound baby, all thin arms and legs.

Asia, Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Travel

Sick

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Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: A family evening with my son. A cold. Being sick far from home. Cooler weather here and on Shadow Mountain. An all clean Murdoch. My son’s golf game. Improving. His friend Brandon said, “A natural swing.” A trip to Korea. A week and a half to go. The Korea National Museum. The subway. The blue line and the orange line.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rest when sick

One brief shining: Oh, you know, that first sneeze, the stuffed upness, a slight weary tinge to the whole body, then a second sneeze, the wondering where you put the box of tissues and what’s on your calendar that now has to get pushed further out, wondering about sleep, hoping for a good rest doubting.

 

Outside of my one bout with Covid a couple of years ago I don’t recall being sick after an awful time with the flu in 2019. Which is somewhat remarkable given those years were Kate’s worst. Yesterday though. Seoah’s cold moved in the opportune way of viral kind into my body and my son’s body. Not awful, but not fun either. Enough to scuttle my plans for a trip into Seoul today to the National Korean Museum. I can hear Kate: Push fluids and get rest. Yes, I trust my doctorwife still.

At 76 any respiratory illness has the potential to do damage, so I’ll go with a pound of cure since that ounce of the other has failed me. Read. Sleep. Sleep. Read. Not a bad way to spend time actually. I brought along my favorite book, Ovid’s Metamorphosis and I have my kindle, too. Not many English language bookstores in Songtan. Or, even in Seoul, I imagine.

Glad I chose to stay for a month plus. A week to relearn to walk and cozy up to better spine health and now a few days to see out my tiny visitors with plenty of time leftover to be with my son, Seoah, Murdoch. See Songtan and Seoul. Be on vacation in a land far from home.

I’m no longer in the oh my god I’m here I’ve gotta see everything mindset. Kate and I, partly due to her later in life back problems, long ago adopted a rest and see what we can, learn as opportunities emerge approach. This leads to a relaxed travel experience without the urge to bag sights, see the must see museum/church/village/waterfall.

Wish I could say I’d always been chill like that. But no. See Pompeii. The Colosseum. The Uffizi. The Kuntz Historische. That holy well. Anglesey. The Empire State Building. The Golden Gate Bridge. So glad Kate and I found another way to be on the road. Helping me now.

My son had a rough night. Worse than mine it sounds. A slow day, then. Especially since he has a very tough week coming up.

Over and out from the virus ward on Songtan-ro.

 

 

Asia, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Korea, Travel, World History

An often harsh culture

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The Grilled Fish shop. Mackerel. Salad with sesame seed dressing. Kimchi. Tofu soup. Pickled radish. Bean Sprouts. Friendship day between Korean Air Force controllers and US controllers. Barbecue with hamburgers and hot dogs. Bulgogi. My son’s care for the folks who work for him. Working out. Pain free. Slow and deliberate. Walking by Mr. Lee.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korean Culture

One brief shining: The waitress, maybe 5 feet tall, brought out a wooden tray filled with side dishes and slid them into place with the ease of long practice, small covered tin bowls held Rice; she went away and came back with a flat wooden plank containing three whole grilled Fish, all Mackerel, which Seoah prized apart with the blunt end of her metal chopsticks.

 

The Grilled Fish House sits back from Songtan-ro next to a mechanics shop which never seems to have any cars in the bays. About a five minute walk from the apartment building.

A light Rain fell. Seoah had her umbrella up; but I carried mine unfurled, enjoying the sensation. Rain is no longer common for me in the Mountains. The day was warm.

A table full of working men drank beer and wielded their chopsticks click clack click. An aquarium at the front held three sullen looking fish, a desultory final home.

Seoah and I ate all three Mackerels. Thought it would be too much. It wasn’t. Over the meal we talked about Korean culture. I had collected two paper cups for water and put them top down on the table. No. Always this way. Cups up. Ah. Also. I’ve noticed you just put money down on the counter when paying. Yes? Korean people are sensitive. Think that means you disrespect them. Oh. How do I do it properly? Both hands on the money and hand it to them. I can do that.

This conversation segued into bullying. The intense competitive nature of Korean society manifest especially in the schools, the military, and business leads to constant maneuvering for positions of authority or power. The apparently weak or different suffer. Seoah confirmed this and shook her head. This country.

Korea has universal service so all Korean males go into the Republic of Korea armed service. The ROK. Between age 19 and age 28 a young man has to enlist  for a time period between 18 and 21 months depending on the branch selected. There are exemptions, but most end up doing at least alternative service.

The harshness of the service experience as displayed in D.P., Deserter Pursuer, seems to be common knowledge. Look at this article in the Washington Post.

Seoah confirmed that her brother had trouble when he served. It seems especially the intelligent and the artistic, the gay and the just different, experience brutal beatings and constant hazing. Seoah said she thought many of the episodes on D.P. drew on real stories. If so, OMG.

A similar dynamic occurs in schools. This is a culture’s way of enforcing its most conservative and ugly values. Not much different from racism and sexism.

Seoah said she prefers American culture because it recognizes boundaries between individuals. Not to say we don’t have our bullying and hazing.. We do. The difference seems to be the ubiquity of them in Korean culture.