Jinju Lantern Festival

A few weeks ago, I went to the Jinju Lantern Festival and took lots of pictures of the main attraction: lanterns. Well, to be honest they weren't really lanterns, but more like lit-up paper sculptures. They were statues that glowed in the dark. Either way, it was quite the experience. Thanks to an earlier typhoon, the weather was a bit drizzly and there were fewer visitors (the festival is famous for being extremely crowded), but it was nice enough out to walk along the Nam River in Jinju and take in all the sights. You could pay a small toll to traverse makeshift bridges and see the largest and most beautiful sculptures on the river itself, including huge floats that represented landmarks around the world, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Sphinx, and the Statue of Liberty.

I experienced the festival with Elani, a friend from Changwon, and John, another Fulbrighter who lives and teaches at the science high school in Jinju. Even though Jinju is only an hour's bus ride away from Changwon, this was in fact my first time visiting. Well, better late than never!

Here are the photos! Excuse the horrendous image quality, please; I've taken these off of Facebook. If you're interested in viewing or using an original, just let me know.

A lantern sculpture depicting 차례지내기, the tradition of honoring ancestors at Chuseok, an important Korean national holiday.

There were giant "lanterns" set up all around Jinju Fortress (진주성), the site of an important battle waged against Japanese invaders in the late 1500s. A lot of these lanterns depicted traditional Korean life or warfare, like this soldier on a horse.

As it got darker, the lanterns became more luminous and beautiful. Here is a beautiful tyrannosaurus rex, ready to chomp off Elani's head!

Besides the big lantern sculptures, there were "tunnels" of smaller lanterns -- these were more like the lanterns I am familiar with. Walking through this tunnel was fantastic. All of these lanterns were homemade.

This was a cool part of the festival: people can make their own lantern and set it on the river to float away, presumably with a wish or some sort of blessing. All of the lanterns ended up floating into the nearby bank, but it still looked pretty magical.

And then there was this dragon being ridden by Guanyin.

Here is a photo of the entire 남강 (Nam River) in Jinju at night, with tons of lanterns making the river brighter than the city itself. It was so lovely! ... But dang, this looks like one apocalyptic electricity bill...

Thankfulness

Happy Chuseok! Chuseok (추석) is one of Korea's most important national holidays. On this day, almost everything is closed, people go back to their hometowns for family reunions and eat lots of food, and feelings of goodwill abound. Chuseok has been called "Korean Thanksgiving" in reference to the traditional American holiday, but to be honest, the similarities between the two do not run very deep.

That said, I did want to take a moment to be thankful for, well, my life. When I was home last weekend, I got a moment to catch up with a good friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in quite some time. We went to Yogurtland (where else?) and chatted. Bringing each other up to date on the past few years and laying out our thoughts for the coming ones was eye-opening for me in a small but significant way.

I realized that I have so many blessings for which to be thankful: up until now, I have had the fortunes of good health and a good education; right now, I have a job that I love and that brings a steady income; for the future, I'm making plans for graduate school that are slowly but surely taking shape. You know, not everyone can say that they are truly satisfied with their present situation and excited about the future. But I can! And it's humbling, because I know I didn't do anything to deserve any of this. God was just like, "Hey, let's make this kid's life relatively easy, maybe he'll turn out all right." And he did, I think.

So, this Chuseok, I am thankful for the opportunities granted me by Fulbright, for the love and support of my family, for all my friends, who continue to make me into a better person, and for God, who blesses his children all the time for no apparent reason other than fatherly love.

I'm even thankful for jetlag, because it's dragging me to sleep right now -- way before my usual bedtime -- in an apparent effort to get me to sleep at an unusual (for me) albeit appropriate hour. 굿나이트!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Yesterday was Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year! This differs only from "Chinese" New Year in that it is celebrated differently by a different culture; the date, however, is the same.

The word Seollal is 설날 in Korean. If you can read Hangul, the Korean alphabet, then you might notice that the individual syllables are seol (설) and nal (날). Seol refers to the new year, and nal means "day". Hence, New Year's Day. However, in Korean phonology, an syllable-initial "n" that follows a syllable-final "l" becomes elided or assimilated into the "l". Thus, instead of Seolnal, we celebrate Seollal.

To wish someone a Happy New Year in Korean, however, you don't even have to worry about linguistics. The traditional New Year's greeting is 새해 복 많이 받으세요. Let's break this down: 새해 (saehae) is another way to refer to the new year, using the native Korean words for "new" (새/sae) and "year" (해/hae). Next, 복 (bok) means "happiness", and 많이 (man-hee) means "much". Lastly, 받으세요 (padeuseyo) is a respectable way to ask someone to receive something. So, 새해 복 많이 받으세요, or Saehae bok manhee padeuseyo, means, "May you receive lots of new year's happiness (or blessings)!"

So, what did I do for Seollal? Well, the Korean tradition is to travel to see your family, make and eats lots of food, and perform some ancestral rights. In fact, it's very similar to the customs of Chuseok, only with different food and a different vibe. Chuseok is the most important Korean holiday, and pretty much everything shuts down invariably. Seollal is probably holiday number two. It's a bit more festive, less solemn, and also observed less. Maybe this is because I was in Seoul this time, but a lot more businesses and restaurants were open than I'd expected, and the city in general seemed no less empty than on any other Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, my apartmentmates and I all woke up rather late and straggled to a lunch date at The Flying Pan Blue. This place is arguably one of the most famous restaurants (for tourists) in Seoul. It's located in Itaewon, the international district of the city, and specializes in European-style breakfast and brunch. By European-style breakfast, I mean eggs, pancakes, French toast, and delicious lattes. Although the meal was pricey, I think it was well worth it. Every time one of our dishes was brought out, everyone gasped, oohed, and aahed at how pretty it was, and how wonderful it would feel to have that deliciousness soon in our stomachs. And yes, it was delicious.

Mandu-making. Photo courtesy Jessica.

For dinner that night, we went to a fellow Fulbrighter's apartment for a mandu-making party. Mandu (만두) are Korean dumplings. Well, they're just dumplings. I guess what makes them Korean is that they're made in Korea, and they have kimchi in them.

Anyway, this little New Year's get-together was so much fun! Jessica and Connor got a ton of ingredients (dumpling skins, ground beef, mushrooms, rice noodles, veggies, kimchi, peppers, and more), gave us the low-down on how to properly fold a dumpling, and we all sat down on the ground to make them together. I've only made dumplings once before in my life, so mine weren't great.

They say that if your dumplings are ugly, then your future daughters are doomed to the same fate. We had a lot of fun predicting the various levels of misery we were all going to inflict on our progeny.

In the end, our company produced over six dozen lumpy, floury, misshapen, and delicious dumplings that we then cooked with 딱국 (rice cake soup) or pan-fried to crispy perfection. Then, we ate them all. And we also had wine and cake. Now if that doesn't make for a great dinner party, I don't know what does.

Our first batch of mandu!

And that was New Year's Day. But as is typical for Korean holidays, it stretches out over some time. My host family actually traveled from Changwon to Seoul for the new year, and this morning (Monday), they were still around. So, they invited me over to my host mother's mother's apartment in the northern part of the city for lunch. We had 만두떡국 (manu ddeokguk/dumpling rice cake soup), which is a traditional new year dish and other stuff. It was nice to see them on the holiday again. And now, I've met the extended family of my homestay family on both sides!

Happy New Year! 운수대통합니다! It's the year of the snake on the Chinese zodiac. So hiss a bit when you greet your Korean friends: ㅆ~새해 복 많이 받으ㅆ~세요! Okay, that was lame, I know.

Happy Chuseok!

Happy Chuseok from Google!

Chuseok (추석) is the most important national holiday of Korea. It's billed to Americans as "Korean Thanksgiving", which is supported by both holidays' occurrence in autumn and the focus on food and family. But from what I've seen, there are more differences than similarities. Perhaps the most conspicuous difference is that the "family" focus of Chuseok is actually on deceased family.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to spend Chuseok with my homestay family. They invited me to experience it, as most foreigners wouldn't get this kind of chance, and I was excited and accepted.

So I spent today in Daegu with my homestay family. (In fact, I spent most of the weekend in Daegu, and I'll have many more posts about my other adventures to write after this.) Custom dictates that a family will return to the father's hometown. So, we went to my homestay father's older brother's apartment, located in an old and quiet neighborhood where, thirty-some years ago, my homestay father grew up, biked to school, and played soccer.

Chalye jinaegi

The morning ritual was a 차례 지내기 (chalye jinaegi), a sort of memorial service for the family's late grandparents.

Despite the common translation of this as "ancestor worship", I would hesitate to call it that. I'm aware, of course, that not understanding the Korean language or really much at all about Korean culture, I could be totally off base. But the word "worship" has particular connotations that were absent from the scene I witnessed, with the grand exception of the prostration in front of the altar. Yet even in regards to that, well, Koreans bow a lot to many different people, and that is considered duly respectful, not idolatrous.

Anyway, the setup was really similar to the big rock unveiling ceremony that I attended last week: a table laden with food (fried sweet potatoes, fruits, dried squid and cuttlefish, a roasted chicken, rice, rice wine, rice cakes, and songpyeon (송편), but no pig head this time), incense, and candles. There was a paper screen with hanja on it that I couldn't decipher, and also smaller papers that represented the ancestors.

I was invited to take photos and film during the ritual, but even though I took advantage of this rare opportunity, I also felt so, incredibly awkward the entire time. "Oh, they're bowing, okay, this is a nice angle, oh, I wish the shutter weren't so freaking loud."

My homestay father burning the... well, burning something, which signaled the end of the ritual.

Some of the dishes prepared at the altar. Rice cake, fried vegetable pancakes, and a chicken!

After the memorial service, we ate all the food that was on the table. I'm just going to say that 송편 is delicious. It's probably the closest thing to mochi that you'll find in Korea. And then we ate ice cream and watched TV. Iron Man 2 was playing on a movie channel!

This is 송편 (songpyeon), rice balls filled with sweet stuff (in this case, sweet soybean paste).

In the afternoon, we set out for a mountainous area near Gyeongsan, a city southeast of Daegu, for the purpose of performing another 차례 지내기 at the actual grave of my homestay father's parents. We were joined by thousands of other families -- I'm not exaggerating -- who created an hours-long traffic jam in the mountains where the cemetery is located. I get the sense that most cemeteries in Korea are in the mountains; this obviously has something to do with Korea's very un-flat geography, but I wonder if it is also rooted in some traditional interpretations of spirituality and high elevation?

The hillside cemetery we visited, somewhere near Gyeongsan, with many families dotting the terraces.

Remembering 할머니 and 할아버지.

One thing is for sure: being in the mountains meant that the cemetery was gorgeous. It was very well-kept by thousands of people coming back to tend to it at least once a year, and the view from where we were was quite nice. Overall, the atmosphere at the cemetery was in fact more jovial, thanks to beautiful weather and lunch. Yes, after performing the memorial service, every family would take the food from the tombstone, spread out a blanket, and proceed to picnic. That was unexpected, I will confess. But it was also pleasant. There was more 송편! And fruits and bibimbap, too. We had a late lunch, and when we finished it was time to head back to Changwon.

Picnic time! The husbands drink and the wives prepare some bibimbap from this morning's leftovers.

Beautiful bouquets at every grave. They were all synthetic flowers, though! That's why they're so bright and perfect-looking.

On the long drive home (seriously, every highway in the country had a 교통 채증, or traffic jam, today), we passed a gorgeous sunset.

This was somewhere between Miryang and Changwon. I love Korea in the fall. Today's weather was so beautiful; I'm glad the typhoon that was slated to hit Korea today veered off course a few days ago. (It would've been the fifth!)

I'm going to close with two questions for my readers, especially if you are Korean. First, I've heard from three separate grown Korean women that Chuseok and other 명절 (myeongjeol), or traditional holidays, are incredibly work-intensive for the wives and mothers of a family, mostly because the food preparation takes forever and the men aren't expected to help. Because of this, they are sometimes resentful. For "progressive" Korean families, either in Korea or in the States, where gender roles are not as set in stone, is the workload ever shared among members of the family? And in the States, is the work actually less intense, in some respects, since less food is required and a cemetery visit is, in most cases, not possible?

Secondly, Chuseok obviously has deep roots in Confucianism. For Christian Korean families, how does this play out? I've noted earlier the dynamics of "ancestor worship" and harmless custom. Does Chuseok look different to a family that does not follow Confucian ideals?

And that's all! Happy Chuseok, everyone!

Thanksgiving

When I wrote today's date on the board before class this afternoon, I paused for a minute.

Tuesday, September 11th.

The terrorist attacks in New York City that took place in 2001 also fell on a Tuesday. I remember fairly clearly where I was that morning. Getting ready for school, eating breakfast. In California, due to the time zone difference, by the time I had woken up, images of the burning Twin Towers were already all over the news. My parents were downstairs in the den, standing in front of the TV and watching silently. I didn't think much of it. I went to school. Before the morning was over, though, an announcement was made over the PA system, informing everyone of the national emergency. We watched the news again in my classroom. After that, I don't remember much else. I was in sixth grade.

Back in my classroom, today, I couldn't write the year at the end of the date, because all of a sudden, "2012" just seemed preposterous. How could the 9/11 attacks have taken place eleven years ago? It was unfathomable. I wondered if my students, equivalent in age to American high school sophomores and juniors, had any idea of the significance of today's date. I really doubted it. (I mean, would I expect American high school students to be able to name even one Korean holiday, for example? Much less the commemorative dates of any national tragedies. I don't know any myself...)

But I thought I'd ask, anyway. Just to the one class I was teaching this afternoon.

"Today is September 11th. Does anyone know why today is important to Americans?"

Blank looks for a couple seconds. And then a student in the back said, "Thanksgiving?"

I have to admit that his response made me laugh. A couple of the quicker ones made the connection soon after and suddenly everyone was throwing out the routine one-word answers: "Terror!", "Newyork!", "Airplane!", "Twin Building!", "And... Boom."

My students were apparently amused at their own inability to formulate a coherent sentence explaining what happened on September 11th, and when they resorted to miming, everyone was laughing. Again, I'll admit that it was funny! But perhaps it was actually more preposterous than funny, and maybe my own laughter was born of discomfort more than anything else. Sans context, any American might have been horrified had they walked into my classroom at that moment.

I didn't expect my students to know about today's significance, really, but their efforts to communicate an idea they probably do not really grasp -- terrorism -- and the consequent humor showed me, in a way, how time is washing so much away. An event that permanently altered the American mindset and colored every back-to-school season of my teenage years means little to nothing to my Korean students eleven years later. And why should it? When it comes down to it, how much does 9/11 mean to me, eleven years later? I don't really know or want to answer that question.

I allowed myself to be slightly unsettled, and then moved on to today's lesson on pipe dreams.

It has dawned on me that I'm very, very far from America right now.


P.S. When you think about it, "Thanksgiving" isn't a completely arbitrary response. Korean Thanksgiving, called Chuseok, is coming up at the end of this month. Korean students are aware that Korean and American Thanksgivings take place around the same time -- in the same season, at least.