1. Yup. I know there's been a lot of talk about ATEK lately. I'll address it as soon as I'm able.
2. http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2011/04/questions-are-you-getting-used-to-korea.html so I'm No Picasso wrote an interesting post about living in Korea, and all the things that start off mind-blowingly new aren't new after a while, and there comes a point where one has to just hit the "Zen" button when they get bumped on the subway, or get complimented on their chopstick use again or asked if they can eat spicy food again, because if they can't do that (at least most of the time - everybody has "bad Korea days" which are really just bad days with different ingredients than bad days back home), they're probably not going to make it.
The money shot, to me, is this:
...The S.O. knows all about my blogs.... He constantly bemoans the fact that I am too used to Korea, and that he can't explain anything, or guide me in anything, or show me anything new. Which isn't true at all. ...it confuses him that I'm still keeping the blog -- he says, "What else is there for you to write about? Haven't you written everything in nearly three years? What could you possibly still have to say about Korea?"
There's something I like to call "second year syndrome" which is the fallacy (common among certain groups of people) that once one's been here for a year or two, one is ready to hold forth as an expert on all aspects of Korea, the assumption, for example, that three years of blogging about Korea would be enough to explore every topic, or that a series of short declarative statements (here's a good sampling) would be all one needed to successfully navigate all of Korean culture and life, and I'd like to at least introduce that phrase today. I'll talk about it more later...
But for now, I'd like to stand with INP and say that Korea, as a country, a culture, a people, and a history, is inexhaustible. I've met people who, by the way they speak about Korea, have hedged their views of Korea in with so many shorthand conclusions about the country, the culture, and the people, that they've closed themselves off from finding anything interesting, fascinating, or new about the country, and I've even met Koreans who sell their own culture short, settling on the image of their country they learned in ethics class, and the places they like to visit, and the shows they watch on TV, and have their own set of shorthand conclusions about what the country, and the people are, such that they don't explore anymore.
And that's too bad, is all.
Anyway, I've been reading a lot (grad school, you know), and studying the language a lot (still slow going, that), and trying to find new ways to be re-amazed by Korea.
I'll keep you updated.
One place to start: http://koreanfilm.org/topten2000s.html KoreanFilm.Org. Not all of them are, but Korean cinema has some pretty awesome films in its history.
I love Circus shows. I love what humans have trained themselves to do. The first live circus I saw that I can remember well (I think I went to a few when I was a kid, but didn't grasp at the time how friggin' hard it is, what they do,) was in North Korea, at the Geumgang Resort. The stuff they could do was mind-blowing, and I felt like I was seven years old again... I'm still sad that I wasn't allowed to bring recording devices into the country, or buy a DVD. Not that circuses EVER look good on DVD.
Saw this on Collegehumor, which usually does comedy, but every once in a wile puts some "wow" on their video feed, and it reminded my.
My favorite circus story was when I went to Beijing in December '08/ January '09 with my best friend and his wife; she speaks Chinese extremely well, so she did a lot of bargaining for us to get awesome prices and deals on a lot of stuff. When she got on the phone with the circus people, to reserve tickets for the Beijing Circus, she tried to argue for a discount, and the phone operator just answered, "What they do is hard." and she had nothing to say. Check it out.
The circuses I've been to since then, starting with the most "wow":
1. Geumgang Mountain Tour, North Korea
2. Alegria, by Cirque du Soleil (wrote about it here and here - some of the video clips have been taken down; others are good)
3. Quidam, by Cirque du Soleil
4. Chinese Circus in Shanghai
5. Chinese Circus in Beijing (China takes so many Olympic medals in gymnastics, and supplies performers to every circus in the world, and it shows in their domestic circus shows.)
And being #5 on that list is no shame, buddy. That's all for now.
Video: Batman meets somebody with real superpowers. This is funny. Up there with "How Lord Of The Rings Should Have Ended" as movie-related viral videos go.
And as far as actual human superpowers. . . last night, for my birthday, I went to see Cirque du Soleil's Alegria with girlfriendoseyo. Some of you might remember way back in April '07, when I saw Quidam and came back gushing that if Cirque comes to town, save up, borrow, beg, steal, and go see it, because you'll never regret the sheer wonder of the show...
and yeah. I think I'll just have to reiterate that.
somehow Cirque manages to take familiar elements and look at them in a new light, or combine elements in a way you'd never think of, and then top themselves, and top themselves again, and top themselves again, and again, and again.
Here were two highlights of the show -- who thinks up this stuff? "Hey... let's do something with hula-hoops. . . but instead of just doing hula-hoops, let's, like, use a contortionist! And then dress her like a frog!" It's like those comic book fan fictions where Superman teams up with The Incredible Hulk, and Batman borrows Iron Man's super-strength robot mecha shell and they all join James Bond to bring down the Evil Russian empire (ruled by astrally projected horror-wraith Hitler, military run by robot clone Napoleon), establish democracy in China (re-killing Zombie Chairman Mao), solve world hunger, and invent three new card games that are better than anything in existence, and then, since they ended crime anyway, they form a pop band that outsells the Beatles. (the one in our show was dressed like an angel, not a frog, but you get the point).
Adding the music and the dancing and the character clowns with the textures and interactions they bring, creates an experience that just goes beyond impressive.
This was another of the best parts, for the sheer thrill: as always, watching a video of a show like this compares to the real thing about the way a third-grade drawing of a flower compares to your wedding bouquet, but you'll just have to live with it, until you get a chance to see the show.
The only other performance company I can think of (though I'm sure there are others out there) that puts on such an impressive display is Stomp, which seems like it was formed by a pair of of jazz drummers and a dancer who found themselves working as janitors, and started composing rhythmic compositions using the tools and objects in their maintenance shed.
Be amazed, dear readers, at the things creative humans can do!
Girlfriendoseyo also gave me a nice sweater for my birthday, and after Cirque du Soleil, I bought a new set of juggling balls. I'm a happy old cat.
So I heard about this thing called the Andong Mask Dance Festival, one of those Korean culture touchstones and all. Girlfriendoseyo explained to me that Andong is the heartland of Korea's confucian heritage -- the guy whose face is on the 1000 won bill lived there, and his house made it onto the money, too. So something cool is definitely cooking in Andong, and we both needed, badly, to get out of dodge, anyway.
What is the meaning of this picture? Keep reading...
So Andong it was. Rattling around in the train, starting at Chongyangni in standing room only, and moving into seats after the first hour, we got out of the city, and began to wonder as the city dwindled away.
The countryside is checkered with rice-fields shaped both regular and irregular, on average, about this size:
A really overbearingly beautiful sky kept us looking out the window. Rickety old train stations Instead of the fancy new ones with radar motion detector sirens to whistle if you step over the yellow line: this. Finally, we arrived in Andong, at about 1pm.
Lunch time.
Now, possibly my favourite Korean food is JjimDalk -- a special kind of chicken dish with sweet and sour soy-based spicy sauce, clear chewy noodles, and some veggies (most notably onions, carrots and potatoes) tossed in for balance. Good eatin' dear readers. If you can't make it to Andong (though you really should), the best place I've found in Seoul so far is right next to Boshingak Bell by Jongno Station. . . but I'll write more about that place another time.
On Saturday, we went to Jjim Dalk street, where about a dozen restaurants serve the famous dish, and the ridonculously harsh competition, plus the reputation of the town, plus the reputation of the street, has refined each place to the point where no place outside of "Chicken Street" can come within the same flippin' ORBIT as these places.
The Jjim Dalk (찜닭), and dear readers, I believe I have eaten enough of it to be able to say, was perfect. In every way. The freshness of the meat and vegetables, the balance of the sweet honey tang with the dark soy, the spiciness just enough to bring the other flavours out on a now-sensitive tongue, and the portion was...uh...a lot. Seriously, by the end of the meal, I was counting bones trying to figure out if they'd secretly given us more than one chicken. "Two necks I tell you! And thrEEEE legs! They gave us at least one and a half birds! Those over-feeding fiends!" It might have just been one chicken in there, but it felt like seven by the end of the meal, and it looked like two for sure: So we did what any sensible pair of epicures would do, given a portion of perfect food large enough to fill us up twice over... Tried to eat it all anyway. That was as far as we got. . . pretty respectable, though. I managed to maw down a few more noodles after we took this picture, but it had reached the point where my mind and my throat were holding negotiations each time I tried to swallow, so we had to leave some behind.
Here's Girlfriendoseyo, looking as full as a . . . really full thing.
Girlfriendoseyo found a really nice guest house that was originally built 600 years ago by a writer.
We slept in buildings like this. And this.
Which were heated like this: The old way, with a fire burning under the floor.
In the morning, we ate this:
some of which was probably taken out of these:
Pots for storing pickled side-dishes like kimchi.
The mask festival, then.
It was cool. Dancing, lots of people, the city put its best foot forward. We didn't have time to catch TOO much of the mask dancing, what with everything else going on, and the weather and scenery being so splendid. . . but the mask stuff was cool, too.
Traveling to and from places was actually one of the highlights, as the scenery in Gyungsan province reminded me of the BC Interior, kind up up Okanagan Valley way, with the mountains a little lower and the land a little more domesticated with beautiful rice paddies.
The rice plants were nearly yellow, which means they're almost ready for harvest, and the heads were bowed almost right over.
Taken around Hahoe Folk Village, as the sun got low in the sky:Hahoe Village was in fine form itself: this might be one of the better pictures I've ever taken...
More of the Hahoe Folk Village countryside and sunset (with special guest Jumping Fish at 2:05):
People actually live in this village. You can even stay there--a few of the places put up guests.
The sunset was amazing, from start to finish.
This was the performance spot where the musicians set up during the fireworks show. This is another of the better pictures I've taken in my life.
But the possible highlight (if you HAVE to choose between the countryside, the jjim dalk, and this) was the fireworks:
Now I'm sure I've spelled this wrong in Korean (feel free to correct me in the comments), but over at the folk village, they do this thing called 선유줄불놀이 Seonyu Julbulnori:
Traditional Korean fireworks.
I'd explain the whole thing... but just watch the video. It's worth it. These things were so beautiful.
These fireworks were different than others -- usually the aim of a fireworks show is spectacle. Big, loud, amazing, people say "WOW!" and small children scream in fright. These ones were so mellow and peaceful -- like bright flower-petals floating to the ground, and it created an ethereal atmosphere that was gentle and lovely, instead of the usual, expected thrills that fireworks bring. Maybe the cognitive dissonance: "This isn't what fireworks are supposed to be like!" heightened the experience, or the fact Girlfriendoseyo and I TOTALLY did not expect this experience... but I got blindsided by beauty this weekend, dear readers. Gobsmacked around a bit.
Video: Fireworks. Hang on for a surprise at the end.
May 3rd to 5th was Children's Day Weekend: Children's Day is a holiday for kids, like Grandparents' day, Father's day or Mother's day in Canada, except without as much of the "It's just a hallmark holiday" cynicism (which is reserved more for Valentine's Day (Feb 14th: girls give chocolate to guys), White Day (March 14th: guys give chocolate to girls), Jajangmyeon Day, or Black Day (April 14th: single people eat black sauce noodles, wear black, and feel sorry for themselves for being single), and, goofiest and most cynical of all: 11/11's Pepero Day. Girlfriendoseyo will be very busy over the next month, but she and I took the chance to enjoy the hell out of this weekend.
We went to a restaurant called "Mad For Garlic" near Gwanghwamun. (There are others, but that's where we went). They have an interesting touch for decorating their place: they took iron frames and hung wine glasses from them, so that the glasses catch the light,
And cast really interesting shadows on the walls. Then, we went to Kyunghee Palace, for the opening of the Spring Hi Seoul Festival. Jung Myeonghoon, Korea's most famous maestro, held a free, outdoor concert. I went with Girlfriendoseyo, we lucked into spots in the seating section, and had a prime view of the show. It was great.
A lot of people came. Then, on Sunday, we met up again kind of early, for the ancestral rites in Jongmyo, shrine for the ancient kings of Korea, and UNESCO world heritage site: There was a ritual for the minor kings and major princes in the secondary shrine at 9:30am, and then the same ritual for the major kings in the primary shrine at 1:00. We caught the last half of the early one, and the first half of the later one, and figured that'd do the trick: there's only so much solemn "old man in black suit marches up stairs and sets a dish on a table while another old man in a black suit and a cool hat chants" one can handle, when sitting on a big, flat rock with legs folded.
And as you can see, there were a lot of men dressed in black to get through. While the Korean orchestra (in red) played, and the dancers (in purple, below) moved from one pose to another in unison.
However, it was a once-a-year event, at one of Korea's most important heritage sites, so a lot of people came out anyway: Here are those purple dancers:
We stumbled across their practice after the 9:30am show finished, as they prepared for the 1:00 performance.They cycled through about six poses, in various combinations. A lot.
They were all young: Girlfriendoseyo guessed that they were first year-history majors from some university. Me doing yoga stretches after an hour of sitting on rocks, watching the whole ritual. Me sitting on rocks for an hour. The one with the book was the one chanting. Those "Ishii-ii" (Girlfriendoseyo told me that's what they're called) in black just came out of the woodworks at the end of the ancestral ritual. I have no idea how they all got in there. I think there was a duplication machine in the back.
All lined up, waiting for their turn to march solemnly and slowly up steps and into a chamber, take off the lid of one pot, and then stand inside the chamber until the end of the ancestral ceremony. Accidentally took the picture of the bum of the guy in front of me. Not quite as impressive as the dudes in black Hanbok. I don't have a picture, but during the afternoon ceremony, there was a welcome speech by the chair of some heritage society, and then an old man came up and said a few words. He was introduced as the dynastic heir to the Choseon throne -- that is, if Korea were still a monarchy, he'd have been the king. I bet he's choked about that.
After we'd seen enough chanting and ceremonial table-setting (and the kids near us were getting noisy), we went over the bridge from Jongmyo into Chang-gyeong-gung, a smaller palace, but maybe the prettiest one in downtown Seoul (for my dollar).
They were staging, I believe, the King's birthday ceremonial rites, which involved brighter colours and cooler dancing than the rites for dead kings.
Guess, by picture quality, which picture was on my cameraphone, and which was on Girlfriendoseyo's camera. . . Then we strolled the grounds of Chang-gyeong palace, which were ablaze with flowers, and drifting with cottonwood fuzzy-floaties that caught the sun as they sailed down toward the lake. Layers of flowers. It was a good day for couples. If the guy's shirt were a little more purple, he could have blended into the bushes behind him. We were there with Danielle and her friend Myung-shin, and wandered past a "do not enter" sign behind the greenhouse, where Dani showed us her unexpected, nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of plant life.
She pointed out a lot of cool flowers and stuff, and taught me many things I've forgotten now. She kept pointing out different plants and going, "You can eat that one. Don't eat that one. This one's safe, but it tastes bad, because it's part of the mustard family." Sometimes she'd take a bite of a leaf or something, just to prove it.
Girlfriendoseyo liked the mushrooms. There were a bunch scattered about, but not in a circle shape, so we didn't quite get a full-fledged fairy-ring like this one: However, girlfriendoseyo DID manage to snap this photo: (just kidding.) That's A Fairy Ring, painting by Walter Jenks Morgan, from victorianweb.org -- more about Fairy Rings (circles of mushrooms where fairies dance, and from where mortals can be trapped, made invisible, cursed, or whisked into Fairyland,) here.
Here's a picture of me, from GFoseyo's cameral. Rocking the Korean style hanbok pants. (Far and away the most comfortable pants I own. Almost more comfortable than wearing none.)More of Changgyeong-palace grounds. Girlfriendoseyo thinks I have a good photographer's eye, but I think she acquits herself well here: (I believe that's an acacia below: they smell really good right now). We met Dani and Myung-shin at the top of the stairs you can see beside the big-ol' tree. Dani fed ducks. She could have thrown that into the water and seen a swarm of carp and giant goldfish, but she didn't. I wish you could see the cottonwood drifting in this picture, but my camera just doesn't have the juice to catch them. Everybody had their cameras out. More of Girlfriendoseyo's photography:Then, after stomping around there for a while, we went to Daehangno and saw a movie and rested, just enough to have energy again to meet Matt and Heyjin on Sunday night for dinner. We met in jongno, and caught some of the Jogyesa Lantern Festival Parade going through the downtown. You may remember my long, gushing, joyous post on last year's lantern festival, as one of the happiest posts I've ever written.
One picture of the parade:
Last year's post mentioned Tapgol Park strung with lanterns, floating in the dark, but none of those pictures turned out, so here's a second try: Tapgol during the day: With the light sensitivity a little higher, you can see the layout of the park a bit. This is how it looked:But this is closer to how it felt.Otherworldly. So beautiful in there. Out of focus, it looks like some kind of a visitation. . . So that was Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, the Viking, the Vikette, Girlfriendoseyo and I went up to Surak mountain, in my old neighbourhood:
When Matt and I worked together, it was startling how often we wore, purely by coincidence, the same colour shirt. (We both had sage green, burgundy, and light blue button-downs, and not much else, so after the "collared shirts" rule came into effect at POLY, it was just a matter of percentages, really.)
It happened again: green shorts, black shirts, beige adventure hats, totally coincidental. good if you get separated, though: "Excuse me? Have you seen another foreigner who looks JUST LIKE ME?"
The Viking has mellowed over time, and took more frequent breaks than the day he almost killed me on Jirisan.
The sun was catching these flowering trees so beautifully. . . wish the pics turned out better. You'll just have to come to Korea next May and climb a mountain with me if you want to see what it's really like. Under that very tree, were some of the pink blossoms scattered over the brown leaves from last fall.The easier pace helped Girlfriendoseyo immeasurably: this was the first time she made it to a mountain's peak since we met, and maybe much longer than that -- we'd gotten as far as a few ridgelines before, together, but never quite reached a mountaintop.Vikette and Girlfriendoseyo get along wonderfully. My two favourite women in Korea, and definitely in the top. . . twenty. . . worldwide. (hee hee hee) At the peak. We had a picnic that has joined the ranks of my favourite mountain moments ever. The list also includes: Feeding the bird at chiak mountain. Skinny-dipping in a cold pool on Jiri Mountain (whilst drenched in sweat) [sorry. no pictures of that one. Suckas!]
Matt praising a five-year-old girl who'd made it to the peak of Buramsan, in Korean, and having her grin, wiggle, glow, and answer, "I love you" in Korean, to him.
Hiking down Suraksan in the twilight with Viking and Vikette, seeing the lights of Nowon-gu as we tried to avoid roots on the darkening trail.
Heyjin trying to feed squirrels near the peak of Sapyesan last Chusok.
The climbers on Jiri Mountain who hiked with us for a while on the way down, and then shared their lunch with us (we were woefully underprepared for the trip back down, and they had a gas cooker and ramen).
The best Bibibmbap I've eaten in my life, at the bottom of Chiak Mountain.
Pulling out the overpriced bottle of Makkgeolli at the top of Geumgangsan in North Korea, and sharing it with a few friends and strangers, just so I could say I drank Makkgeolli on a mountaintop in North Korea.
So we did what any sensible pair of epicures would do, given a portion of perfect food large enough to fill us up twice over...
And this.
Hahoe Village was in fine form itself: this might be one of the better pictures I've ever taken...
