보성녹차축제 - Boseong Green Tea Festival

Last Saturday was 518 (오일팔/oh-il-pal), the anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement that occurred on May 18th, 1980. I thought it would be interesting to see what was going on in the liberal and historically anti-American city of Gwangju on that day, but I didn't get a chance to visit the memorial or see any exhibits or events. Instead, I hopped on a bus headed south to Boseong (보성) for the penultimate day of the famous Green Tea Festival -- another spontaneous decision. It took me away from the big city, deep into the rural landscape that dominates most of Southern Jeolla Province. Way out there, I highly doubted anyone regularly crossed paths with foreigners, let alone harbored xenophobic attitudes toward them. In fact, Boseong is a tiny town that apparently heavily relies on tourism and graciously welcomes everyone to see its famous green tea fields.

보성녹차축제. The Boseong Green Tea Festival, nestled in the hills in rural South Jeolla Province.

Although I had been planning to meet up with fellow Fulbrighters at the festival, my phone ran out of batteries (one downside to spontaneous overnight trips: you never think about the small things, like charging electronics or bringing a toothbrush), so we hadn't communicated a time or place to meet. When I hopped off the bus at the festival grounds, I realized that I would just have to keep my eyes peeled for a group of foreign women. As I blend into a Korean crowd quite easily, I knew they'd have trouble if they were the ones looking for me.

Still, I took the time to take in the sights, and there was lots to see. The main attraction was a hillside covered in green tea shrubs and dotted with people stooping over to pick the leaves. The plants looked a bit worse for wear, since the festival had been going on for some time and tens of thousands of visitors must have trodden the hillside already. But it was still something I'd never seen before. I myself took a short walk along the hill and snapped some photos, but I didn't pick any leaves -- I was still trying to spot my friends.

Festival participants prepare tea leaves for brewing.

Other attractions included long rows of stalls selling all sorts of green tea (녹차/nokcha) products, which are, unsurprisingly, not limited to tea. There was green tea candy, green tea lotions, green tea ice cream, special ceramic and wooden teapots and teacups, and the plants themselves. In addition to this, there was the usual festival fare of food, cultural knickknacks, and anything hawkable, really.

After a bit of time wandering around alone, I made my way up a different hill to the performance area of the festival, where a large stage had been set up and many people were watching a troupe of 아줌마 dance. Here, I discovered more food stalls, some green energy and environmentalism exhibitions, and a large pavilion where people who had picked their own tea leaves could help cook, roll, and dry them to prepare them for actual brewing. And it was near this area where I finally found my Fulbright friends!

Together, we visited the tea museum, shopped for gifts, and just chatted and caught up. It was quite pleasant, overall, and I was indeed much happier to be experiencing the festival with friends instead of alone. After I'd been at the festival for about three hours, we took the bus back to Boseong, and then to Suncheon, where we ate a light dinner, and then I bused back to Masan, and then I bused back to Changwon. I was dead tired after all that travel, and I may or may not be absolutely sick of buses after this weekend! Okay, that's enough griping. Here are more photos!

An adorable diorama in the tea museum depicting tea taste testers at work.

Another exhibit in the tea museum. ₩1,000 entry for a relaxing visual walk through the history of tea in Korea, with limited English.

Alanna tries a sample of green tea. I ended up buying a small package of 세작 tea, which is made with relatively young leaves, for my homestay family. As it turns out, host mother prefers the variety that I bought! Score!

Hilary, Alanna, Amy, Payal, and me in front of the green tea fields (녹차밭).

P.S. Gwangju to Boseong is 1h30m (₩8,400); Boseong to the famous green tea fields is 20 minutes (₩1,100); then the return trip; Boseong to Suncheon is 1 hour (₩5,800); Suncheon to Masan is 1h40m (₩9,000); Masan to Changwon is 30 minutes (₩1,100). That's a lot of freakin' buses.

For any readers who need information about bus timetables and ticket prices, because that information is often hard to find on Korean websites, here's Suncheon Intercity Bus Terminal, Masan Intercity Bus Terminal, and Gwangju Combined Bus Terminal. Even Koreans take photos of timetables and ticket prices at the terminals themselves because the websites are so utterly impossible to navigate.

석가탄신일과 송광사 - Buddha's Birthday and Songgwangsa

At Songgwangsa, this small stream with lanterns strung above it was one of the first sights we came across. It was breathtaking.

A nice three-day weekend is winding down for me. I was a bit more spontaneous than usual, probably owing to the fact that there was a national holiday, which called for doing something out of the ordinary, and that with only two months left in this grant year, I'm running out of time to spend with a lot of people I love...

So on Friday morning, which was Buddha's birthday on the lunar calendar, I set out from Changwon to bus across the peninsula to Suncheon (순천), where I met up with some Fulbrighters for a quick lunch before we took a taxi to Songgwangsa, one of Korea's most famous temples. Songgwangsa (송광사) was first built in the late Silla (신라) dynasty, about 1200 years ago, and has been renovated eight times until the present. It is known for producing many learned Buddhist scholars as well as being a major pilgrimage site.

A woman baptizing a boy Buddha statue in celebration of Buddha's Birthday.

My friends and I arrived in the afternoon and, after picnicking on 김밥, took a nice, slow meander around the temple grounds. It was a beautiful place, although it was not peaceful but bustling due the crowds of visitors on the special day: Buddha's Birthday (석가탄신일). There were special performances going on, and lots of families were there, the children being entertained by the same food trucks and small carnival game stalls that you see at most festivals. What with all the activity, the shows, and the colorful lanterns, it seemed more like we were at a carnival than at a "Jewel Temple of Korea".

The view of the mountains from a higher point on the temple grounds was quite beautiful.

However, on the outskirts of the temple, farther away from the crowds, there were quieter areas and gorgeous mountain scenery. My friends and I found a small stream and chilled there for a while. We spent most of our afternoon at the temple silently taking in all the sights and sounds and chatting with each other. It was perfect, really.

In truth, I wasn't at the temple to learn about Buddhism (불교) or even try to score free 비빔밥. I just wanted to spend time with my friends. The four that I hung out with this weekend have all chosen not to renew their contracts, which means that after July, they are going back to the US permanently, and I might not see them again for a long time. I tried not to think about that.

Julia, Maggie, Cecile, and Adam doing their best impressions of bamboo.

When it was time to go, they convinced me to go to Gwangju (광주) with them instead of turning around and heading back to Changwon. Feeling in the mood for some holiday spontaneity, I decided to spend the night in Gwangju; we ate dinner at the First Alleyway (Gwangju's little slice of North America in the middle of the downtown) and then watched The Great Gatsby. It was... great! More colorful and dynamic than the temple, even. I am going to re-read the book as soon as I get the chance.

So, I had a good start to the weekend on Friday, although the travel wore me out. I'm quite used to spending hours on a bus, now: Masan to Suncheon is 1h40m (; Suncheon to Songgwangsa is 1h30m (and ₩42,000 for the taxi fare); Songgwangsa to Gwangju on the direct shuttle is 1h30m (and ₩7,500). And those times are all not including traffic, which was plentiful on the holiday weekend.

Next up: the Boseong Green Tea Festival!

518 Memorial (Gwangju pt. 5)

A bit of history for today, courtesy Wikipedia. In December 1979, ROK Army General Chun Doo-hwan staged a coup-d'état and gained control over South Korea. He quickly became a dictator, backed by Reagan's Washington, who established martial law throughout a nation struggling with social instability due to economic woes and the ongoing threat of its northern neighbor. South Koreans at that time found themselves rid of one dictator (Park Chung-hee, whose daughter Park Geun-hye is currently running for president) only to be given another, whose harsh policies were immediately unpopular. These included the closing of universities, military presence in cities, and restrictions on free speech. Korea's southwestern Jeolla Provinces, of which Gwangju was a capital at the time, were especially hard hit by the new measures and political discrimination.

It wasn't long before citizens organized in protest. In May of 1980, several large demonstrations took place around the country. General Chun responded by sending in the troops to quell anti-government activity. Everything came to a head on May 17th, when a hundreds-strong student protest at Gwangju's Chonnam University clashed with a platoon of paratroopers. From the first morning skirmish throughout the day, both the number of protesters and the number of troops escalated dramatically, along with the number of casualties. The citizens numbered in the thousands by the end of the day, and by May 20th, they were more than ten thousand.

On May 21st, the protests went haywire and turned into a battle: civilians broke into armories and police stations and opened fire on the army; the army in turn used tear gas, bullets, and, by some accounts, bayonets on protesters, on-lookers, and anybody caught in the crossfire. Cars and taxis were used as weapons and barricades.

From May 22nd to the 25th, the army retreated and waited for reinforcements. The Democratization Movement had successfully taken control over Gwangju. However, on the 27th, the army reinforcements arrived, re-entered the city, and completely quashed the defenders in less than two hours.

In total, there may have been between one and two thousand deaths, but it is unclear what the exact total is.

In the years following the Gwangju Democratization Movement, many more movements were born and eventually brought democracy to South Korea in the late 1980's. South Korea's government and the city of Gwangju have done quite a lot to memorialize the sacrificial efforts of the protesters, support the families of the victims, and establish "518" as a means of remembering the cost of freedom. To that end, the 518 Memorial Park in Gwangju is an amazing monument to this milestone in Korean history.

On Sunday afternoon, I visited the 518 (오일팔/o-il-pal, not five-eighteen) Memorial with Adam, Katelyn, and Julia. It was a peaceful park where families were playing in what little snow was left, couples were exercising together, and tourists were seemingly absent.

The main sculpture in the park, in front of the underground memorial chamber (beneath all of those poles in the background). (taken by Adam)

We were able to walk among the poles, which were really shiny and mesmerizing in the way they glowed in the late afternoon sun.

The three awe-inspiring things in the underground chamber were this sculpture of a woman holding a dead protester, the wall of the names of the victims of the massacre, and the relief sculpture (not pictured, as it was behind me) that depicted the events of May 18th.

This was at another part of the park, another striking sculpture that commemorates the struggle for democracy.

Dwarfed by the 518 Memorial. (taken by Katelyn)

My friends and I had very little grasp of the historical context of the memorial, only going because we knew it was one of the must-sees of Gwangju. But after doing our research, the whole park became so much more meaningful, and not just pretty. What boggles my mind the most is that all of these incredible, horrible, yet transformational events took place only thirty years ago. The generation of students who clashed against their country's army is still alive and well, which stands in stark contrast to my own country's democratic revolution, which occurred nearly 250 years ago. It doesn't seem possible, when you look at Korea today, that only one generation has passed since 518.

With that on our minds, we were fairly quiet as we walked around the park and explored the other things of note. Besides memorials and sculptures, there was a small temple at the top of a hill and a very tall pagoda-like tower. After climbing to the third story, we had a spectacular view of the entire city of Gwangju, and we could even spot snow-capped mountains in the distance on all sides. It was lovely.

And that was the last part of my Gwangju weekend! My friends and I all went to the bus terminal directly from the park, got a quick dinner, and boarded our separate buses headed for our separate cities. I remember sitting in front of a group of very loud American girls who, when the bus stopped by my neighborhood in Changwon, called it "this city's red light district". 헐. That is so untrue. Whatever, okay, that's all! Wow, I'm sorry for taking five posts to talk about less than two days' worth of travel. And I didn't even cover everything. I hope you enjoyed the photos and stories, though!

Poutine (Gwangju pt. 4)

First of all, happy 12/12/12! Nine days until the world ends, eleven days until I go home, and thirteen until Christmas.

Okay, so regarding The First Alleyway, the foreigner haven that blew my mind when I visited for a short half hour on Saturday: there is most certainly a reason why people who love Western-style food flock to this restaurant and bar. Several reasons, actually. And one of them is that its breakfast/brunch menu is fantastic.

I had poutine, for what I think is the first time ever, at The First Alleyway. Adam encouraged me to try it, and my couchsurfing host Jordan, who is Canadian, also recommended it. Oh, let me backtrack: on Saturday night, Adam and I spent the night with a couchsurfing host. We got to his place pretty late, but stayed up for a bit talking about travel, fiction, writing, and life in Korea. In the morning, he went to church while Adam and I wandered around the downtown and the deserted Art Street on another quiet Sunday. Then, we met up again for lunch.

Katelyn, Adam, my couchsurfing host Jordan, and his girlfriend, at The First Alleyway in Gwangju. Look, French toast!

Coincidentally, we ran into Jessica and Taxi again, whom we had just seen the evening prior. Anyway, I ordered poutine, which is French fries with gravy and cheese (mozarella, in this restaurant's iteration). Hm... I smell a heart attack. Oh, and as a brunch meal, this also came with French toast and bacon. Dang. Well, it was good. And slow going. But I made it through, and I probably could have eaten more! As I've mentioned before, my wintertime eat-all-of-the-fatty/delicious-foods mode is kicking in. I am so going to Black Bear Diner when I get home.

So this is what poutine looks like. Nom nom nom! How many calories do you think it packs? My guess is somewhere around 1,000?

Pretty much every brunch meal on the menu (French toast, huevos rancheros, biscuits and gravy, and more) was 10,000₩, which is not terribly priced. The service was a little wonky, but my couchsurfing host and his girlfriend happened to be very frequent patrons of this restaurant (as in, they go almost every other day) and helped speed things along.

My third (or second official) couchsurfing experience was another great one! One note to self: I need to be more careful about cat dander, because, as I like to conveniently forget sometimes, I'm allergic. But otherwise, the company was good, and the food was good, and I tried something new.

I'm going to leave you now with a photo of my travel buddy Adam prancing on some snow-covered stepping stones that we used to cross the Gwangju River.

Prance, Adam, prance!

And then we ate a lot of food. (Gwangju pt. 3)

It was one of those three-restaurant kinds of evenings, know what I mean? No? Okay, I don't really know myself. But Fulbright 친구 and I did end up getting pre-dinner, dinner, and dessert at three different places around Gwangju on Saturday evening, and I had a fantastic time of it.

The first place was a "foreigner bar" and restaurant called The First Alleyway which I will talk about in further detail tomorrow, since I didn't actually stay for long on Saturday but ended up eating there for Sunday brunch. The only thing of note was that the sheer number of non-Koreans at the restaurant in the evening took me completely by surprise. I'm not even kidding; when I walked in the door and saw, essentially, a room full of white people, I was simply shocked. I felt like I'd somehow stepped through the door and back into America. It was bizarre and slightly disconcerting.

It's not like I've been completely surrounded by Koreans; even in Korea, I see a non-Asian foreigner every few days. Heck, I even came to Gwangju for the express purpose of seeing my foreigner friends. But the atmosphere in this foreigner-owned-and-promoted establishment was really... like nothing else I've experienced so far here. All of my Fulbright friends expressed the same sentiment, to varying degrees. It was kind of funny!

After a light snack at the bar, we did some shopping and wandering around the streets of Gwangju's labyrinthine downtown. Then, when we were hungry again, we went to 민속촌갈비 (Minsokchon Galbi), a fantastic barbecue place. There was only floor seating, but the floors were heated! How awesome. The restaurant's interior was very warm and rustic. It gave me good vibes. And the food was just as excellent as I could have imagined. A barbecue meal (with tons of 반찬, including salad, and taking into account some people who ordered different dishes) came out to about 9,000₩ per person for seven people, if I remember correctly.

Look at how excited Adam is about his galbi! And he had an entire table to himself... before Jessica and Taxi joined us.

Our group in front of the restaurant (minus Julia, who snapped the photo). Left to right: Adam, Taxi, Jessica, Jason, Katelyn, and me.

After dinner, we decided on dessert at a stealthily hidden-away wine and cheese (cheese!) bar that some of the Gwangju locals (Taxi, Jessica, and Julia) had gone to just the day before. It turns out that they've frequented this particular bar quite often in the past semester, and have earned the rights to some on-the-house desserts...! Not that we knew this for sure upon setting out. In the cold, we got lost in the maze of streets and tossed little snowballs at each other, and then we found it, tucked away on a quieter street: Big Apple.

Big Apple, in downtown Gwangju. A coffee and wine bar THAT SERVES CHEESE TOO DON'T FORGET.

Cheese platter: Pesto Parmesan! Brie(?)! Raisins! (Raisins?)

We ordered the "wine and cheese platter" set that made us feel like classy, urban adults instead of young expats fresh out of college, told stories, cracked jokes, and took photos. I loved it.

I've said this a hundred times before but I'll say it again now: the company of other Fulbright teachers is really special, because it's not just the connection of being American or being English teachers in Korea, it's the connection of friendship and of having been through a long and adventurous experience together (i.e. that six-week Orientation) and thus of understanding each other on a deeper level.

And seriously? There was wine and cheese. This always helps.

Although I sometimes feel isolated from most of the other hundred twenty-something Fulbright ETAs (because I am), this makes it all the more worthwhile when I do get a chance to see them and catch up on life. Although this involves making the trip to another city on the opposite side of the country, on the bright side, it also means I can turn "I want to see you!" into an excuse for a full-blown weekend excursion. Sadly, Gwangju was the last one of the year for me. This coming weekend, I'll spend time with my host family, and the weekend after that, well, I'll be flying home for the holidays! Cheonan, Chungju, Jeju, Mokpo, Naju, and Hwacheon, you're still on my list. 2013 is going to be jam-packed with adventure.

Classy Fulbrighters at Big Apple in Gwangju.

Aw, they wrote "welcom ㅂig [apple]" with chocolate. Cute!

Oh, and one last thing:

There.

Was.

Cheesecake.

New York cheesecake (very dense), organic cheesecake (miraculously creamy), and an on-the-house tiramisu (what a pleasant surprise!), five slices shared by eight.

Total bill came out to 12,000₩ per person. Expensive? Yes, but still worth every won. Highly recommend this place.

Volunteering with North Korean Defectors (Gwangju pt. 2)

On Saturday afternoon of my weekend in Gwangju, I accompanied Katelyn and Jason to the "HaNa Center" where free English tutoring sessions, among other events and services, are provided for North Korean defectors.

While leaving the communist nation is a severe crime for its oppressed citizens, many still risk their lives to cross the dangerous borders, and some (over 2,000 a year, now totaling over 20,000) eventually find their way to South Korea, where they begin the lifelong task of assimilation. Because so many of these people have left their families behind and are almost completely unable to maintain communication with them, it certainly isn't easy.

Along with seeking gainful employment or trying to fit in at school, defectors also take on learning English, still considered the key to a more prosperous life. This is where the HaNa centers come in. ("Hana" (하나) is the Korean word for "one", and it represents the desire for the eventual reunification of the two Koreas.) Some Fulbright ETAs volunteer weekly or bi-weekly at HaNa centers to teach and tutor defectors who range from children learning the alphabet to adults preparing for job interviews.

I am not allowed to say much more about these centers, where they are, or who is involved, etc. (and I didn't even take any photos at the center itself), but my short experience there was memorable.

The three of us were the first to arrive, and my first priority was to sit by the space heater and dry my socks and shoes. One student came, an older woman, and the other two ETAs went over her learning materials with her for a bit, until she started asking more complex questions in Korean, and I was summoned to translate (granted, my Korean is only marginally better than theirs, so I don't know how helpful I really was. Honestly, how do you explain what the meaning of "the" is, even in English, let alone in broken Korean?).

I proceeded to spend the next hour and a half going over verb tenses, some random everyday vocabulary, and some trickier aspects of English pronunciation with her. It was a bit repetitive, but she was a really energetic personality and the time flew by. As it did, four more students arrived, all of them school-aged, plus one toddler who spent an hour being chased around the classroom by another ETA who came later. So, all in all, there were four ETAs and six students, which amounted to what Jason and Katelyn called the largest turnout they'd had in a while. It's a good thing I was there to help out!

But... I guess what struck me most about volunteering at the HaNa center was that it was so ordinary. Really, it's no different from the volunteer-based Korean class I attend weekly, only there I'm the student and not the teacher. There wasn't anything particularly special or different that I noticed about the Koreans there. I didn't have any expectations going in, but I came out having enjoyed my afternoon, and if proximity weren't such a huge issue, it's something I would definitely do regularly. My student seemed disappointed when I told her I was only visiting for the weekend and wouldn't be back next week.

Here is a short news piece from the Gwangju News on the HaNa center in Gwangju, with quotes from Fulbright ETAs.

And here is an interesting short news segment from BBC on North Korean defectors who will be able to vote, for the first time, in South Korea's upcoming election. Looks like they tend to swing conservative!

Snow can't stop us (Gwangju pt. 1)

It must have snowed sideways!

So, remember when I said I was hoping for good food, good company, and not-so-cold weather for a weekend in Gwangju? I got my first two wishes, but dang, was it cold! In fact, as my bus entered the city, I looked out the window and was shocked to see  that it was snowing heavily. That was something I definitely did not expect, having left Changwon on a sunny, clear day. I guess I should have looked at the weather report and also brought some shoes to Korea that are actually suitable for winter.

Anyway, after the 2.5-hour bus ride, I found myself in Gwangju (광주), the city famed for having the best food in all of Korea, thanks to its proximity to the highest quality agriculture in the peninsula. I immediately met up with Jason and Katelyn, two other Fulbright ETAs (neither of whom teach in Gwangju, but live nearby), and first on our to-do list was to get lunch!

We dined at a Japanese hot pot (shabu shabu) restaurant called... (Katelyn, help me out). The hot pot was delicious, and I especially liked how the Korean iteration of this pan-Asian dish included a second course that re-used the hot pot broth to make dumpling noodle soup, followed by a third course that re-re-used the broth to make porridge (죽). It was a delicious meal for about 12,000₩ each. A great start to a rather food-centric weekend!

Jason noms on the starter while our hot pot warms up.

Koroke! These deep-fried balls of deliciousness were filled with sweet potato (고구마/koguma) and cheese (치즈).

After lunch, we wandered along the river that runs through Gwangju and marveled at the snow (it was still falling even though the sky had mostly cleared up... Is the wintry equivalent to a sunshower a sunsnowfall?). We crossed the river and threw snow and talked about life and Pokémon and made our way over to the center where Jason and Katelyn volunteer. More on that in the next post, though!

Katelyn crosses the river, taking a moment to practice her aegyo (애교).

The Pokémon masters!