The most exciting news I have received in a long time is that Omar is coming back to Korea next Thursday! For those who don't know, he had to return to the US on March 9th because he hadn't yet received his greencard and the stamp in his passport was due to expire. After paying lots of money, suffering tons of headaches, and thinking some ex-girlfriend had put a hex on Omar and his mail, we finally got the greencard! It mysteriously appeared in our P.O. Box after floating around the postal world for four months. The envelope was dirty and beaten up, but the the greencard was inside!
After being separated for almost 3 months, we found a cheap ticket leaving Santa Ana on May 26th and returning from Incheon in November. (There are all these rules about how long a Permanent Resident can be outside of the US, so we want to make sure we don't go over 6 months). I am thinking of having him wear a button up shirt with the pattern of the American flag when we go through immigration to prove that he really wants to be a resident of the US. I am positive they sell those in Itaewon near the US army base. I think we can even get him some American flag undies in case they strip search him.
Since he's been gone, he's missed some pretty exciting events, including Children's Day. On that day parents let the kids choose where they want to go. Many choose theme parks like Everland or Seoul Land (both wannabe Disneylands) or Lotteworld (the largest indoor theme park in the world), while others want to stay home all day and play Mario Kart without being ordered to study English. My Korean friend told me that Children's day was established because unlike in the US where everyday is Children's day (like my mom says), in Korea children were not traditionally treated as important or special. I wonder how that has changed over time. (a possibly painful anthro project for someone!)
This year I spent it with some of my informants who have children who are Korean Peruvian. They wanted to go to Children's Grand Park, a huge park with a botanical garden, zoo, amusement park and no entry fee. The second I heard that suggestion I recoiled in horror thinking of the crazy crowds and babies screaming for more bondaegi (a smelly snack made of stewed silkworm larvae). However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to do mid-week fieldwork, so I decided to go. Here is a little sample of what it was like BEFORE it got crowded.
One of the dads in our group walked in the park and then turned the stroller around and walked right out again. haha. The rest of us weren't so lucky, but we felt like we had to make the best of their long journey to get there and walk around a little bit. I stuck out like that Picachu balloon in the left hand corner of the picture. After experiencing the spectacle and pomp around Children's Day, it seems so odd that I don't remember any Children's Days from my four years of teaching in Korea. I told my former boss about that and she reminded me that I had probably spent those national holidays hung over in my apartment watching America's Funniest Home Videos on the Armed Forces Network. She's probably right.
Another event that Omar missed was decidedly less crowded than the ice cream/ramyon stand in front of the elephant enclosure at Children's Grand Park. I went on a fantastic trip of the Jeolla Province organized and sponsored by the Korea Foundation. It was three days and two nights of beautiful parks, gardens, temples, traditional villages and deliciously complicated meals. Here is a picture of one of our first stops, the traditional Hanok Village in Jeonju.
This village was like a giant InSaDong street with tons of craft stores, preserved traditional homes and quaint restaurants and tea shops (mom, do you hear that? Get your credit card and let's go!)
We did a tour of Gyeonggijeon Shrine, a place erected in 1410 holding King Tae-jo's mortuary tablet. (I am copying this from the guidebook! haha) This is the entrance.
We had a fantastic guide who told us all the juicy gossip from the Joseon Dynasty, including how some of the kings had failed at controlling different political parties and had been poisoned to death. One king had been pressured by his aids to scapegoat his own son and lock him up in a rice box and leave him out in the sun until he died. That king's grandson was so traumatized by witnessing this that when HE became king, he decided to build up the city of Suwon (the place where his father's remains were kept). Suwon is also one of the places I considered using as a fieldsite as they have a large concentration of migrant workers.
That king unfortunately was one of the poisoned ones. From this tour I learned that even though you might get the best food and the cutest ladies, it's not so easy to be King. They had paintings of important Josen Dynasty kings enshrined here.
In Hanok Village I also got to make myself a Chinese medicine pouch. Some of the more unusual looking barky-herb-root things also had an unusual smell to them, so I really loaded mine up with cinnamon and cloves. My roommate during the trip told me mine smelled like bad potpourri. In retaliation I told her that
her bag smelled like ear wax. But in the end, she was right and I have banned my bag to the dirty-clothes hamper in my room. Here's the Chinese medicine display case. And the pouch I put together
Also in this village was the Catholic church erected in honor of Korea's first martyrs. This was really exciting for me to see because I had written about it in my orals documents. This cathedral was designed by the same French priest who designed Myongdong Cathedral. (It was also built by the same Chinese brick makers as that cathedral).
Perhaps you have noticed that there aren't any pictures of me on this trip so far. It was funny because when I am out with my Peruvian informants everyone is asking for their picture to be taken every five minutes. In front of the sign to the park, in the park by some flowers, next to the flowers, behind the flowers, holding a flower, smelling a flower, wearing a flower. etc. etc. If you click quickly through the film on my camera after a Peruvian outing, it almost looks like one of those flip books where the subject seems to be animated. Not so much for the academic tour group. At first I felt too gimpy to ask the professor of ancient Korean pottery fragments from Mongolia to take my pic doing the peace sign in front of a temple. So I just tried to take purely educational photos like they all seemed to be doing.
This was Hwaumsa Temple on Jiri Mountain. It was built in 544 AD by King Sejong (the guy who invented Hangul, the Korean writing system). Legend has it that he built this temple for his daughter who was reincarnated from a beggar who had made the ultimate sacrifice to help in the construction of the temple and killed himself.
By day 2 I got up the guts to ask people to take my picture, and I just went for it Peruvian-style. I think my favorite part of the whole trip was when we visited Suncheon Bay, a huge wet-land area with many birds and fish. We took a boat ride and next to us dozens of trout were literally jumping out of the water. Sometimes two or three or four at a time would jump out of the water chasing after food. I had never seen anything like it before. I tried to film a video of it, but watching it gave me motion sickness, so I will spare you! Here is a pic of me next to the wetlands. Those plants turn red, yellow, green and brown in the fall.
There were tons of little crabs making holes in the mud below the walk way. There was a cute little kid with us who loved those crabs and wanted to know when it was time to catch them. I am pretty sure we ate their cousins during our final lunch.
For the second stop on day 2 we went to Nakan Eupseng Folk Village. It's a fortress that was built to protect against Japanese pirates 500 years ago. People continue to live inside the walls and live in traditional buildings. Their houses have thatch roofs made from dried rice stalks and dirt floors. This guy was sitting inside the main palace doing calligraphy or something. He came out for a picture, which was very nice of him.
This is a picture of me overlooking the thatched roof houses. We were standing on top of the big fortress wall surrounding and protecting the village. There were bamboo trees, lilac and honeysuckle all around.
These are some wishing rocks (every time you make a wish, you add another rock to the top of the pile), and a pic of two of the grad student participants swinging on the traditional swings.
The final stop of day 2 was thankfully very re-invigorating as most of the tour group was sleepy and worn out from swinging etc. We went to Boseong Green tea farm, which was built by the Japanese colonizers, but we still like it. You could walk all around the green tea plants, and up a steep hill with a view of the ocean.
This is the hugest frog entry of all time, but I am wrapping up here. The highlight of the third and final day was Unju Temple, the temple of 1,000 Buddhas. It was raining and very green, which was beautiful. Historians are not sure about the origins of this temple, but they guess it was built in BC 57-935. All the Buddhas and pagodas are made of granite and displayed all over the temple grounds and on the surrounding hillside.
The next post will be with Omar in Korea! yay! Bring on the taco kimchi hybrids.
