국제 시장 - "Ode to My Father"

In Korean class, we watched a film called "국제 시장". The Korean title translates to "International Market", a reference to the famous traditional marketplace in Busan, but its English title is "Ode to My Father".

"The greatest story of the most ordinary father"

I didn't know too much about the film beforehand, only that it is currently South Korea's second-highest grossing film ever (despite only being released last December). Also, people tend to describe it as South Korea's version of "Forrest Gump". I could certainly see many thematic parallels: both movies follow the life of one man across a backdrop of important national events and tell tales of loss and reconciliation, change versus tradition, and hope amidst terror.

The story is about a man named Deok-soo who, as a child, loses his father and a younger sister during the Hungnam Evacuation (during the Korean War). Along with his other younger siblings and his mother, the family relocates to Busan and struggles to get by even after the armistice, with Deok-soo begging for change and chocolate bars from American GIs after school. Always needing more money to support his family, Deok-soo spends his entire adolescence and early adulthood working odd jobs and even moves to Germany to work in dangerous coal mines. The dramatic and colorful stories from the past are interspersed with scenes in present-day Busan, when Deok-soo is an old man (who speaks with some excellent Busan satoori) reliving his memories one by one.

Everyone says that "Ode to My Father" is a sad movie. While that is certainly true -- I cried more than once -- I think it's more accurate to call it a movie that exemplifies the Korean sentiment known as 한 ("han"). Now, han is hard to explain. According to this article in the Korea Times, it is a "deep-seated sense of grief and grievance [against] very powerful agents of injustice." It is a mixture of sorrow and resentment in response to wrongdoing and manifests itself emotionally in a variety of ways, not just sadness. More peculiarly, however, han can accumulate, both within a person and among a community, or even, as it is most often cited, throughout a nation. Han can become the emotional vehicle for a national lament, and it is this kind of han that "Ode to My Father" so masterfully epitomizes.

Deok-soo as a young beggar boy in 1950's Busan

You see, South Korea possesses a history that bursts at the seams with woe. It may be a developed country today, but for the past seventy years, it has struggled with brutal colonization, abject poverty, a civil war that divided its people, utter dependence on Western nations, and throughout all of this, a sense of shame that it could not provide for its people until it finally pulled itself by its bootstraps into the twenty-first century. Thus, Korea as a nation feels han: because families like Deok-soo's were separated by a war they did not start, because it could not afford to educate all of its children, because young men had to labor and die in far-flung foreign countries in order to make enough money to send home. Every remarkable event in this one character's life was connected in some way to the constant struggle against an invisible -- or perhaps many-headed -- oppressor.

It's no wonder that this film's most ardent fans comprise the generation that lived through all of these atrocities. Korean 할머니 and 할아버지 (grandmothers and grandfathers) now in their seventies and eighties, as well people who grew up in the tumultuous decades following the Korean war, really drove the tickets sales that boosted its ranking. It's said that the older generations watched and rewatched the movie not just to experience the catharsis that came with two hours of nonstop han, but also because of 그리움 ("keulium"), or nostalgia. Despite the bleakness of the characters' lives in the movie, there are small moments of joy and a dogged determination to hold on to the past.

Deok-soo dancing with his first love in 1960s Germany

For example, although Deok-soo's life in Germany is almost literally a hellhole (for twelve hours a day, at least), he still gets to meet the love of his life, a Korean nursing student at the local hospital named Young-ja. There's a sense in their scenes together that the wonders of youth and infatuation can make months of eating stale bread while covered head to toe in coal dust worthwhile. And as the present-day Deok-soo continuously refuses to sell the humble imported goods shop he inherited from his aunt, we see a familiar narrative: the small business owner in conflict with with impertinent developers who only want high-rises and care nothing for tradition.

It is in this area, however, that one might be able to pick at a weakness in the film, namely the way it has whitewashed or wholly ignored certain parts of Korean history, under the guise of patriotism. This is a tricky issue to handle, because the director, Yoon Je-kyoon, has already stated that the film has no political aims or undertones. However, it isn't possible to create a movie meant to inspire a love of country without at least passively taking a stand on certain very unlovable things about Korea's recent past. Even I noticed the lack of any mention of the huge political unrest during the early 80s. And while Forrest Gump got to meet US Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, Deok-soo doesn't even brush the collar (옷깃만을 스쳐도 인연이다!) of any of his country's leaders, whose regimes were often dictatorial, and the absence is more than a bit conspicuous.

This excerpt from an LA Times review brings up another point I wanted to make: Lee Taek-kwang, a professor at Kyunghee University in Seoul, [says] that "Ode" reflects the conservative ideology that for many years exhorted South Koreans to forego individual rights in the name of national development. Referring to one scene in "Ode" where Duk-soo shuns a discussion with his wife to stand at attention for the national anthem, Lee told the Kyunghyang that "Ode" "effectively endorses the idea that the state can exploit its people."

At first I found the aforementioned scene to be funny, but after a moment's thought, I realized that it was actually convicting. The film's protagonist is endearing and the sacrifices he makes for his family are awfully inspiring, yet a close scrutiny of his life and ideology from another angle reveals that he is no more than the model citizen that an autocratic, brutally capitalist government wants. Although Deok-soo ostensibly joined the Korean forces in Vietnam because he needed money to help his family, the narrative is structured such that it is his patriotism that brings him back to the battlefield. He is not a powerless refugee, but a savior to the people fleeing war, as he did when he was a child; and there is a hefty message in that.

Yoon created "Ode to My Father" as a dedication to his actual father, who died when the director was in film school. He claims that he wanted to help Korea's younger generation understand the tribulations that their parents and grandparents had to endure to help bring the country to where it stands proudly today. In this sense, he has certainly created a masterpiece tear-jerker that drives the point home. A simple scene in which Deok-soo pens a letter from Vietnam to his wife really struck my heart: in it, he wrote, "It’s such a relief that it was us, and not our children, who were born during such a difficult time," and Young-ja sobbed on the floor of her home while I cried silently in my seat. The singular thought that filled my mind as I walked home that day was, "How little I know about what life was like for my father and grandfather and their generations! How scarcely I've asked them about their past sufferings!"

I wonder, often, how much today's young Koreans, including those in this country and in the global Korean diaspora, understand the concept of han. It's supposed to be a national sentiment, so can someone outside the country's borders carry it? Or is it solely the ethnic connection, which even a child adopted from Korean is meant to be able to feel because of the blood that runs through their veins? Or both? (I am certain the director intended both.) So then what about a random non-Korean American like me, who has learned about Korean history and spent a good chunk of his adult life living here? When my soul hurts with compassion and sorrow from watching a movie like "Ode to My Father", I don't know if I can call that emotion han. I have built jeong (정) with many Korean people, some of whom feel like family, but does that make me a part of the in-group? Can han be learned or appropriated? Tough, abstract questions, these...

But I can say at least that watching this film has not only given me a better perspective on the historical context that grounds both Korean ipseity and collective identity, but also enlightened for me parts of the unique debate over how this identity ought to be preserved and represented now and in the future. Besides all of this, "Ode to My Father" is a beautiful and satisfying film, so I highly recommend it.

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P.S. There is a very cool story about the casting of one of the actors in the film. I vaguely recognized her when she first appeared on-screen, but I never would have guessed exactly where I'd first seen her. But after I read an article about how she was cast, I was extremely surprised! You can read the article here, but I warn you that there are major plot spoilers in it. So if you plan to watch "Ode to My Father" but haven't yet, save this article until afterward. Seriously.

The War Memorial of Korea

Color guard rehearsal at the War Memorial of Korea

One of the last things on my Korea bucket list was a visit to the War Memorial of Korea, a museum dedicated to Korea's bellic history. It may not be as exciting as shark diving or bungee jumping, but I enjoy visiting museums on my own. When I go with a tour, there is never enough time scheduled to see everything at a properly slow pace, and when I go with friends, we always end up separated anyway because our interests differ. So, I first paid a visit to the museum with Monica on Monday, and although we caught the tail end of a really interesting color guard rehearsal taking place in front of the museum, we found out that the museum itself was closed, as is the case every Monday.

So, I went by myself a few days later, and the following photos are from this second visit. I'd heard that its exhibits are extensive and worth an entire afternoon's visit, and indeed, I spent a good four hours wandering its halls.

A South Korean flag carried by a member of the student soldiers' battalion during the Battle of Pohang (August 1950).

Memorial to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives at White Horse Hill

What surprised me straight off the bat was that it was not a museum about just the Korean War, fought from 1950-1953. True, the museum had more than two floors dedicated to this important and transformative period in Korean history, but it actually was meant to cover the entire war history of Korea. That being the case, the exhibits actually began with coverage of the wars fought between Korea's ancient kingdoms, as well as confrontations with Japanese invaders leading up to the twentieth century. I didn't find these very interesting, though, so I hurried on through.

The next thing that surprised me was -- for lack of a better way to describe it -- the entertainment value of the exhibits. Of course, I don't think a museum should be boring, but the way this museum chose to keep up interest for visitors, particularly children, was rather odd to me. Take for example the re-enactments of famous battles using animatronics and CGI bombs and explosions. It reminded me, unfortunately, of North Korea's war museum in Pyongyang, which I visited last February. Having been recently renovated, that museum made use of state-of-the-art technology to immerse visitors in as "realistic" a recreation of the war as possible. I use scare quotes because the information presented as fact in Pyongyang's museum is clearly distorted to present a DPRK-positive account.

Life-size diorama and multimedia display of one of the battles along the Han River during the Korean War.

"Shooting Area" for the kids to experience what it's like to use an assault rifle in a wartime situation. Classy.

In any case, I remain amused at the cornier aspects of the museum, but at the same time impressed by the depth and breadth of the exhibits. All the important information was provided in English and Korean, and many interactive screens provided additional facts in Japanese and Chinese. There were many tour groups visiting, as well as many people just wandering the halls on their own, children running from the prop guns to the model fighter planes. This was one drastic difference from my experience in Pyongyang: there, I had to stay with the tour guide at all times and listen obediently to her propagandistic explanations of history. There was only one other tour group in the museum, and otherwise all was silent and cold. In Seoul, I had the freedom to go anywhere in the museum that I wanted, and overall it was louder and felt more alive.

On that note, I also happened to visit on a "fourth Wednesday", which is the one day each month when soldiers from a local garrison give a free public concert in the main hall of the museum. The performances were extremely diverse, from traditional Korean instruments to classical opera to a guy who played "Fly Me to the Moon" on the harmonica. I like how a museum can be an active performance space that engages the community instead of just an inert building to walk through.

These tenors sang "Funiculì, Funiculà", and they were really good! This was the firs time I've seen opera performed live by Koreans.

These two soldiers performed the traditional Korean instruments 해금 (haegeum) and 장구 (janggu).

I think my favorite exhibit in the museum, or at least the one that touched me the most, was the hall on the third floor dedicated to the UN forces sent by sixteen countries to aid in the Korean War effort. Not only was it well designed, it was also extremely detailed. The exact statistics on how many soldiers each country sent, who led them, and what special things they did were all listed, and their uniforms were on display along with small things like soldiers' diaries. I think it was noble of South Korea to devote so much space to thank the international community that helped them.

In contrast, Pyongyang's war museum presents the conflict as one of Korea versus the evil United States and barely mentions Russia, China, or the UN. There is supposedly an exhibit that covers the Chinese troops' (invaluable) participation in the latter half of the war, but it certainly was not part of our tour.

A memorial for the UN soldiers who participated in the war effort. The words on the wall read, " With the US as main force, 21 countries dispatched combat froces and medical aid units for the freedom of the Republic of Korea.

The last part of the museum that I visited was its outdoor display of ships, plans, tanks, and rockets used in various modern war efforts. Again, I couldn't help but compare it to the display of military artifacts in Pyongyang's museum, which consists entirely of abandoned and captured enemy vehicles. American and British tanks, planes, and even the USS Pueblo. North Korea keeps all of these old hunks of iron as "war trophies" and uses the more-recently captured vehicles liberally in its propaganda. In Seoul, however, all the vehicles are replicas, just another exhibit.

A few tanks, including one that looks almost cute!

Ships and planes at the War Memorial of Korea. You can see Namsan Tower in the hills in the background.

Well, that's all for the War Memorial of Korea! I spent a good, long afternoon there and learned a lot. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about modern Korean history. It's especially important for people living in Korea to understand the Korean War and get the story as told by South Korea (while comparing it with other accounts for balance and perspective).

The museum is located in Yongsan, not far from Itaewon. To get there, you can take the subway (lines 4 or 6) to Samgakji Station (삼각지역). From Line 4, leave from exit 1 and turn right, then following the road for less than five minutes. From Line 6, leave from exit 12 and follow road until you reach the museum. It is open from 9am-6pm every day except Monday. More visitors' information can be found here.

War Memorial of Korea

Children's Novels about Korea by Linda Sue Park

Last spring, when I was informed that my school's English department had hundreds of dollars' worth of extra funding to purchase classroom materials, I decided to spend my share of the money on books. I was hoping to use some of the books as educational tools in my classroom, or at least to lend them to students for extracurricular reading.

Now, I realize that that was a foolish hope, since few of my students are at a high enough level of English to read entire novels, even children's novels, and even if they all could or wanted to, they simply don't have time. They have to study all day and can't read for pleasure, unless it's short-form webcomics or books in Korean that they can get through quickly, between periods.

So, all those wonderful books I bought are being read by nobody except me. 아쉽다! That is, ashipda, or "too bad"... because two that I finished recently would be of great interest to my students, I think. They are both written by Linda Sue Park, a Korean-American author whose work mostly focuses on Korean history and culture.

The first book of hers that I read is called When My Name Was Keoko. It is about a young girl whose family endures the harsh treatment of Koreans by the Japanese because of the occupation during World War II. Actually, the family's story is told from two perspectives, by the girl, Sun-hee (whose Korean name is changed to the Japanese "Keoko" per official mandates at the time), and her brother, Tae-yul, who enlists for the army because he wants to fly planes.

I really enjoyed the novel because it was a personal look at a period in history I know very little about. Of course, I've heard so much about how the occupation was a time of cruel treatment toward the Korean people and irreparable damage to Korean culture -- in fact, centuries of on-and-off oppression have left many Koreans with a bitter vendetta against Japan. But when the facts are told through the eyes of two young children, they become manifested in a way that a history book cannot capture. The book was gripping, dramatic, and inspiring, and I'm sure my students would like it, too.

The second book is called A Single Shard. This book won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2002. I had no idea! It appears to have been the book that really made Park's career.

This novel follows the adventures of an oprhan boy named Tree-Ear (I'm guessing that's 목이/木耳?) who dreams of becoming a master potter and learns at the feet of an irritable man who specializes in famous Korean celadon. This is also historical fiction, as it is set in 12th century Korea, which looked nothing at all like Korea today. I mean, this was during the Goryeo dynasty. The capital of Korea was Songdo/Kaesong (in modern-day North Korea), not Seoul. There were no roads, let alone cars, and the society depicted is really just many small mud-hut villages separated by seemingly impassable mountain ranges. How Korea has changed!

I feel pretty neutral about this book; it wasn't bad, but not nearly as interesting as Keoko, because it moves at a slower pace and is further removed from me historically. Still, it was elegant in its simplicity and unique as a carefully-crafted window into an overlooked period and culture.

However, there was one tiny anacrhonism in it that really bugged me: Korea's national dish, kimchi, didn't have red pepper flakes in it until the late 16th century (thanks, incidentally, to the first wave of Japanese invasions...). But when Tree-Ear discovers kimchi in his meal, it has those characteristic red flakes. I don't know why it bothered me so much that there should be such a trivial error, but I guess I'm just... attached to kimchi, after eating it almost once a day for two years!

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So, I got these books, and many others that could be classified as Asian-American lit, just so that my students could read them and see a bit more representation than they're used to form American media. Unfortunately, they'll only gather dust on the library shelves if I don't actively incorporate it into my class somehow.

Actually, when I was talking to some English teachers today, they mentioned that they knew about When My Name is Keoko, so I guess in the past decade, Park's novels have been introduced to English education circles in Korea. I'm very happy about that!

On another note, some of the other books I bought are Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, which really is for children, so I found it too simple for my liking, and a few graphic novels, such as Gene Luen Yang's Level Up and American Born Chinese, as well as Derk Kirk Kim's Same Difference. These I certainly also bought for my own benefit -- i.e., I wanted to read them myself -- but I also thought that because they are graphic novels, my students would find them easier to read. Well, one of my third-years tried American Born Chinese, but the slang in it was beyond him. Oh well, at least he enjoyed the pictures.

What are your favorite English-language books that feature minority and/or foreign cultures?

Haeinsa, a Jewel Temple of Korea

伽倻山海印寺, 가야산해인사, Gayasan Haeinsa

Korea has three famous Buddhist temples called the "Three Jewel Temples". One, called Songgwangsa (송광사), is near Suncheon, and I visited it on Buddha's birthday last year. Another, called Tongdosa (통도사), is located in Yangsan. The third is called Haeinsa (해인사/海印寺), and it is located deep in the Gaya mountains, west of Daegu.

The Three Jewels of Buddhism (삼보/三寶) are its three principle objects of guidance:

1. Buddha himself (불/佛), which usually refers to sarira, or holy relics

2. Dharma (법/法), or the teachings of Buddhism

3. Sangha (승/僧), the Buddhist community, which usually refers to monks and nuns

Each of these Jewels is represented by one of the Jewel Temples. Songgwangsa has a famous monk training center, so it represents 승. Tongdosa has a famous pagoda that supposedly houses some of the Buddha's remains; it represents 불. Haeinsa, then, is the symbol of 법. What Haeinsa is renowned for is the Tripitaka Koreana (팔만 대장경), an ancient collection of 80,000 wooden printing blocks that contains the complete Buddhist scriptures.

My co-teachers and me at Haeinsa. No photos allowed of the real Tripitaka Koreana, so this poster had to suffice!

Today, I went on a field trip to Haeinsa with the English department faculty. It's the middle of finals week, so we don't have much work to do. The school sponsored our trip, partly as a way to thank me for my two years at the school, and partly because they probably realized that I have never done anything "just for fun" with my co-teachers. I mean, we attended a TOEFL conference last fall, and we go to the all-faculty outings, but this was actually the first time that just the four of us did something together that was unrelated to work!

I really enjoyed it as a change of pace. I've been constantly busy for months now, and to be able to take a break in the middle of the week for the first time since April was delightful. It helped that today was a gorgeous day, humid but not overwhelmingly hot. Also, since it was a weekday, the temple had very few visitors. I'm sure that on weekends, the grounds are buzzing with tourists, but it was peaceful and serene today. Like all Korean temples, it was gorgeous, and the natural environment was refreshing. The air somehow tasted better than it does in factory-clogged Changwon.

One of the smaller buildings in the Haeinsa temple complex. The colors are amazing!

Our vice principal wanted to make sure that I got a bit of cultural education out of the excursion, so here's what I learned: Haeinsa is located near Mt. Gaya (in Gayasan National Park). Mt. Gaya is a spiritual place important to Buddhism; the name may refer to the place in India where Buddha achieved enlightenment or to the ancient Korean Gaya Confederacy, which was annexed by the Silla kingdom in the 6th century. Haeinsa was founded in the year 802 during the Silla period. It has been renovated many times due to damage from fire and war, most recently in 1964, I believe. This was two years after Korea added the Tripitaka Koreana to its list of national treasures. In 1995, the temple and the scriptures were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The name Haeinsa is a bit odd, because, according to the plaque I read, it refers to a Buddhist philosophical state of consciousness during which "a reflection on a calm sea after struggling against wind and waves enables everything to be conscious of its true nature." It's a nice concept, of course, but I don't understand why this temple located nowhere near the ocean has such a name.

The lantern-lined labyrinth of the temple grounds. Once you enter, you have no choice to walk the entire thing!

This temple came to house the famous Buddhist scriptures in 1398. The Tripitaka Koreana is the world's oldest and most complete version of the Buddhist scriptures in Chinese script (한자). There are 81,350 wooden printing blocks into which are carved over 52 million Chinese characters! The entire thing took 16 years to complete.

All of these blocks are currently housed in a special building at the top of a hill overlooking the rest of the complex. We were not allowed inside the building or even to take photos, but it honestly didn't look so impressive. It reminded me of the basement stacks of a library: rows and rows of heavy old books that nobody ever touches. Still, I was in awe, just knowing what was inside the room as we peered through the windows. Although the building is plain, it is said to have been designed in such a way that the wooden blocks can stay in their preserved state for centuries -- and they certainly have!

A gorgeous panel painting inside the main hall, 대적광전 (Daejeokkwangjeon).

Besides the temple, which was nice enough to walk around (but, in the end, still looked like every other temple I've visited, and the same goes for cathedrals and shrines), there was a kind of art exhibition going on. I don't know if the sculptures we saw were permanent or temporary, but I really enjoyed looking at them. This is in part because seeing the sculptures was so incongruous with what I've come to expect from a Korean temple. But they were also beautiful and profound.

The one below is a bronze sculpture of a Sitting Buddha that has been split cleanly in half. Its title was something like, "The Sound of Buddha"; I can't recall correctly. But it was quite mesmerizing.

What's in the space between?

And the other sculpture that really held my attention was this giant bamboo thing right by the main gate. It was called "Third Eye Within" or something along those lines. If you look carefully, you can see a smaller figure nested within the larger figure.

It reminds me a bit of Burning Man...

My day looked like this: my co-teachers and I had a late lunch at one of the tourist restaurants that served typical Korean Buddhist cuisine (think lots of mountain herbs, mushrooms, and 반찬, and no red meat), walked around the temple grounds for an hour, chilled at the temple's cafe (?!), and popped into the museum to see some more Buddhist art and more reproductions of the wooden printing blocks. The museum also had a Lego miniature of the temple grounds, I kid you not. I have no idea why. Anyway, by 5pm, we were ready to go home, and I slept almost all the way back.

I'm still feeling quite relaxed from our trip, and I am so very glad we were given this opportunity. Now that I have two of the Three Jewel Temples down, why shouldn't I try for the third? Yangsan is only an hour away!

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If you want to visit Haeinsa, the Korea tourism website can help you! If you don't have a car, you'll have to go via bus from Daegu Seobu Terminal, which takes an hour and a half. Temple stays are offered and weekends.

The Fulbright Researchers (2014)

Last year, I wrote a very long post that detailed the research projects of the Fulbright Junior Researchers. (They make up the other "half" of Fulbright Korea; every year we have about 120 teachers and two dozen researchers.) Though I'd planned to do the same after this year's spring conference, I quickly became too busy to transcribe my notes.

This morning, while cleaning my desk, I came across them again. They're not as pretty or doodly as my notes from last year, but I still think the information is worth putting down somewhere. So, better late than never, here are brief descriptions of some of the 2014 Fulbright Researchers' projects:

Multicultural Korea

Dorry Guerra informed us that in 2010, 1 in 3 Korean births were multicultural -- that is, babies were born to one ethnically Korean parent and one non-Korean parent. Korea now leads the world in international marriages. This is a cultural phenomenon due largely to the fact that men in rural areas of Korea can't find wives, so they marry immigrant women from China or Southeast Asia. In a sense, these women are mail-order brides, but whatever their circumstances, they arrive in Korea and then they and their families have trouble fitting in. Korea's bloodline ideology, the idea that Korea is one completely homogeneous race and should stay that way, is actually a recent bit of propaganda that promoted national solidarity in the early 20th century, back when the country was in a shambles. Now that that is changing, what is going to happen to the multicultural families? (By the way, Korea is not nearly as homogeneous as the history books like to claim: their blood has been pretty well mixed with Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian over the centuries.) According to Ms Guerra's estimates, up to 10% of the country will be multicultural by 2050. That's a huge jump from one generation ago. She warns that belief in racial essentialism, or the idea that the different races have deeply-rooted "essences", is a reliable predictor of stereotyping, prejudice, and conflict. So if Koreans generally believe in racial essentialism, then multicultural Korea is in for a rough ride for the next few decades.

Chaebols

Mike Chung gave an economic lecture on the Korean 재벌, or conglomerate. The word chaebol is derived from the Chinese 財閥 (cai2fa2), or "wealth clan". These rose to power during the regime of Park Chung-hee in the 1970s. His government, to put it frankly and with a touch of bias, allowed certain businesses to cheat for the sake of national economic growth. Now, the conglomerates hold unimaginable power over the country. They are seen as both necessary for its success and dangerous and unfair for a developed country that needs to switch to a more fair-play mode.

Korean Adoption

Hollee McGinnis (who was published in the last issue of the Fulbright Infusion!) talked about the mental health of adolescent adoptees and orphans. Following the brutal Korean War in the 1950s that ripped many families apart, 2 million children without parents have been sent to orphanages. In contrast, 85,000 have been sent abroad for adoption, and less than half that number have been adopted domestically. The statistics for 2010 alone show that 15,700 children needed care, 1,400 were adopted domestically, and 1,000 were adopted internationally. There were 8,590 abandoned infants. So the problem of parentless Korean children is not just (or no longer) a direct result of war. But adoption is still stigmatized in this country: it is usually carried out in secret so that a family's friends and neighbors don't know that the new child is actually from another family. Infants are preferred over children and adolescents. Also, because sons in a family usually perform ancestral rites on traditional holidays, and without a direct blood connection this can be seen as wrong, females are also preferred over males. So, Mrs McGinnis' organization, Also-Known-As, provides help and support to adoptees as well as their families.

(Another researcher, Andrea Cavicchi, also focused on adoption, especially on its history -- the 1962 Family Planning system instituted by Park Chung-hee, the controversy surrounding "baby-selling" during the 1988 Seoul Olympics -- and on the issues that make it so enticing for unwed mothers to give away their children. In fact, tens of thousands of orphans do not actually indicate that Korea has an orphan problem. It has a child abandonment problem.)

Nuclear Energy

Andrew Ju told us that South Korea imports 97% of its energy. That's quite a lot, but understandable for a country that has so few natural resources. Unfortunately, less than 1% of the energy that the country does produce is renewable. On the other hand, Korea's nuclear program, which began in 1978, is the fastest-growing in the world, and it exports a ton of its nuclear energy. (Well, these statistics may have come before the near-nuclear meltdown at the Kori Nuclear Power Plant in 2012, which led to some shutdowns and public outcry against nuclear power. And then there's Fukushima...) Anyway, South Korea wants to continue using nuclear energy, especially since it stands to gain quite a bit from an energy alliance with the US. But I personally hope that it decides instead to lead the world in green energy.

Healthcare and Migrant Women

Sangita Annamalai cited the rapid birth rate decline in Korea (now at 1.24 children per woman, the 5th lowest in the world) and connected it to the rise of immigrant wives for men in rural Korea. The subject matter is related to Ms Guerra's project on multiculturalism, but Ms Annamalai focused on the women themselves and on the public health resources made available to them in a country and language not their own. She went to public and private migrant shelters in rural and urban areas, where women who came to Korea through marriage brokers and found themselves struggling could go for help. There, she found that Chinese (or Chinese-Korean) women had much fewer problems than most; that Vietnamese women had problems with using contraceptives and tended to begin having children right away, which led to even more adjustment difficulties; and that Eastern European women could sometimes pass as half-Korean, but were generally more outspoken than Southeast Asian women, which led to domestic trouble. When the difficulties become too great, the pressure put on these women (by the government and even by the public women's shelters) to reconcile is strong, because in the event of a divorce, the citizenship of the wife is revoked. It's quite a sticky situation, isn't it?

North Korean Defectors

Stephanie Choi, who visited North Korea with me last February, gave her presentation about the acculturation of North Korean defectors in South Korea. There are an estimated 300,000 refugees from North Korea in the world: people who have escaped the tightly-controlled borders of the country seeking political freedom or just a better life since 1953. In the early 2000s, the number of refugees entering South Korea specifically grew exponentially as a result of a devastating famine in the North, but it has tapered off in recent years, following the death of Kim Jong-il and a tightening of security by Kim Jong-un's regime.

Today, the 26,000 defectors in South Korea make up just 1% of the country's minority immigrants. The North Koreans in South Korea are much different from the first waves of refugees. Instead of political elite who were lauded as heroes when they defected pre-Soviet collapse, defectors are now mostly women and children just looking to survive. And they are not treated very positively once here. After a long three-month investigation and assimilation period at Hanawon, where they are simultaneously interrogated in-depth about their background as North Koreans and scrubbed clean of that identity in order to fit in in South Korea, they encounter a host of problems. Some try to hide their identity, but their accent and unfamiliarity with basic skills required in a capitalist society, such as managing a bank account, can give them away. Others are fiercely proud of their background and, stating that you can't change where you were born, are involved in activism to try to change South Koreans' stereotypes about North Koreans (e.g. that they're staunch Communists, freeloaders, or a drain on governmental resources). Many are lonely and turn to each other for support (much like the Fulbrighters, scattered all over the country, tend to hang out together) or to religion. 80-90% are Christian, having been converted by missionaries involved in rescues and border crossings in China. These days, reunification is being talked about more and more. At the beginning of 2014, President Park announced that it would be possible by 2050, calling it a "reunification jackpot". I don't know how I feel about this, but I hope that whatever change occurs will come about peacefully. 땅의 통일, 사람의 통일. One land, one people.

Patriarchy and Politics

Chelsea Carlson researched women in politics, asking the question, "Why aren't there any?" Or at least, as many as there should be? Korea is notorious for its gender inequality, but why is this happening in politics? And will Park Geun-hye, the first female president, change things? Ms Carlson outlined the strictly-defined systems of networking in Korean politics: for men, their classmates, fellow alumni, and seniors/juniors (선배/후배) are all that matters, but women depend mostly on their families and husbands to make connections. This, coupled with a secretive nomination process to select candidates for publicly-elected office, makes it hard for women to get a foot in from the get-go. Women just don't have enough social clout to be elected, it seems, and the system, while not explicitly sexist, isn't helping. In my own opinion, Park Geun-hye utilized the networking system to secure her win. Her family is famous, of course, as her father was a former president(/dictator), and regional loyalty to the Parks is indomitable. Unfortunately, I don't think Park is a champion for women's rights at all; she has done nothing to close the gender pay gap or balance the systems of parental leave in order to help mothers return to their careers. So, gender inequality in politics will likely persist. Ms Carlson then offered a few ways this could be remedied, including a "local service requirement" for candidates (which women could easily attain and use to their political advantage), more transparency in the system, and even affirmative action.

(Another researcher, Aileen Kim, did her research project specifically on Park Geun-hye, and focused on the power of "dynasty" that helped secure her presidential win.)

Hip-Hop and Racial Consciousness

Whitney Barr countered the idea that Korea's infamous racial insensitivity could no longer be deemed as a mere product of ignorance, since Korean millennials have grown up with decent exposure to Western media and other cultures -- specifically, black and hip-hop culture. She explored the positive appropriations of hip-hop culture in Seoul, but also contrasted it with general dismissiveness or outright racism against black people, including the double-edged usage of words like 흑형 (black brother; Google that to get the idea) or 깜둥이 ("darky"), and the consideration of multiracial icons as purely Korean or "at least" half-Korean, discarding their other identity.

Performance Art

Adam Glassman described in colorful detail his experiences with shamanism and street dance in a project that aimed to capture Korean performance art in all its vicissitudinous adaptation to the present day. Why are shows like Nanta, in which the performers encourage tons of audience participation and turn it more into an interaction than a "show", so popular? Why has street dance skyrocketed in Korea in recent years? Mr Glassman suggests that it has something to do with the long-standing performers' directive to "create joy together" with their audience. Focusing on the 무당, or shamans, who practice a traditional religion in decline but still deeply-rooted in many people's belief systems, he described how the rituals they perform attempt to establish a tangible, physical connection between the people and the gods. Of the over 40,000 registered shamans in Korea, Mr Glassman was lucky enough to find one who opened up his home to him so that he could observe daily life and learn more about shamanism. From watching and recording the performative aspects of shamanism, he looked for similar patterns in modern iterations of performance art. Mr Glassman's eventual goal is to return to the United States to reinvent American theater, so that the audience is no longer merely a cold, voiceless participant but living and breathing, with just as much a stake in the performance as the performers themselves.

Miscellany

Other Fulbright research projects focused on more scientific matters that might have interested my students, but weren't necessarily compelling to me. One researcher is researching cancer treatment using electric plasma. Cool! But most of his lecture went over my head. Another is looking at the antihistamine effects of the Korean 다래, a fruit that is essentially a small kiwi. Also, two researchers did their projects on art and painting, and one of them is having a solo exhibition in Seoul in a few weeks! That's pretty exciting.

머리스타일, 놀라워 - Meolistyle: No, La, Woah!

JH got up from his end of the table and sat down again with his tray, right across from me.

"Talking is fun," he said. Boom. Day made.

Meanwhile, JM was eating with his eyes trained on the television show playing on the screen in the cafeteria. The show was some sort of reality TV filler that followed the members of one of Korea's most famous boy bands, Infinite. I like one of their members, Hoya, who starred in Reply 1997, but I don't listen to any of their music (1). As we watched them do vaguely interesting things, my eyes were drawn to their hair. All of the members have pretty flamboyant personal style and fashion sense (though I definitely don't think any of them has any control over his public image). One in particular (maybe SungJong?) was sporting a head of singularly unattractive bubble-gum pink hair. It made me laugh out loud, and I looked at JH.

"JH, would you ever want to have pink hair?"

"Never," he said.

"Well, then, if you could dye your hair any color, what color would you want?"

JH thought for a minute, and his eventual answer surprised me: "Gray! Like an old man."

I dig it. (from Pinterest)

I think that could work. Instead of gray, though, I told JH that he might want to go for silver. It's been done!

I also told JH that I'm thinking about cutting all of my hair off, shaving it really close, as it was when I first came to Korea two years ago. The reason is that my black belt test in taekgyeon is in a few weeks, and I'm getting really tired of having my hair in my face all the time when I'm trying to concentrate on my kicks or forms. I use a bandana or a headband to keep my bangs in check, but it's still 불편해 (inconvenient)!

Showing JH and JM my really, really long 앞머리, I quipped that it was so long I could almost braid it. "Do you know what a braid is?" I asked. They didn't. I very, very rarely see any Koreans with braided hair (땋은 머리). I'm not really sure why... it's just not a thing here, I guess. Women always have their hair down. And men generally don't sport long hair, anyway.

This reminded JH of an old Korean custom. He explained that in ancient times, Korean men and women both had long hair and kept it up: women had unbelievably elaborate braids and updos, while men had top knots (상투) (2). According to JH, people would never, ever cut their hair, because they considered their hair to be a part of their ancestral heritage. I find that idea very intriguing.

But then, so the story goes, the Japanese came and cut off all the men's top knots. It's more than a bit symbolic, as Japanese colonialism really did sever Korean culture from its roots. Ever since, Koreans have had more "modern" hairstyles.

The picture I showed my stylist.

And today, hair is big. There's no question about it. Hair salons are everywhere; there are four or five in a ten-minute radius around my house. It is extremely common for anyone to perm and dye their hair, no matter their gender or age. I've seen toddlers in barbershop high chairs and old ladies getting their latest ajumma perm. My taekgyeon master permed his hair last week; on Friday it was straight, and on Monday it was a tangle of loose curls. Of course, people my age like to follow trends, and as far as I can tell, right now dark brown is in, but simple cuts are not. For guys specifically, they're asking for something called 투블럭 ("two-block"), which is equivalent, I think, to an undercut. The sides are shaved close and the top is left to its own devices, sometimes with the help of a perm or wax.

Now, one year ago, I was pretty set against ever changing the super-straight, super black natural state of my hair. In a nutshell, I didn't want to be a trend-follower, I didn't want to possibly contribute to the stereotype that Asians prefer a look that is more natural for Caucasians, and I didn't want to send a message to my students that I was at all dissatisfied with my natural hair. But I did want to change my hair, simply out of... I don't know, call it an early-twenties desire to color outside the lines every so often.

In February this year, I dyed my hair brown. I was literally dragged into Punk Shalom by my friend Katelyn, who told the folks there that I wanted a change and that they could make it happen however they liked. It was, in fact, a very fun experience. When I returned to school the following March, I got double-takes and plenty of compliments.

Before, During, After!

So by last week, almost four months later, the roots were growing out and everything was just getting too long, and I decided I needed another haircut. But then I toyed with the idea of perming (파마) instead. It's another way to keep my bangs out of my eyes, and also... I won't deny it, it's popular.

Thus, I brought paperwork to a salon near my house that I'd been to once before and corrected my students' speech drafts for three hours while sporting curlers and a head saturated with chemicals. Yeah, a perm takes a long time. The result was, as you can see... wavy.

It's not pink or silver, but it's certainly crazier than anything I've ever done with hair -- and that includes bleaching it myself in the dorm bathroom three years ago.

Did I worry this time about compromising my values? No. Do I have qualms about how my friends, family, co-workers, or students will react? Not in the slightest. But am I now wondering about how closely hair is connected with identity, and considering how changes in my appearance may reflect changes in myself that two years of living in Korea have wrought? Yes.

And am I also considering letting my hair continue to grow out until I can make a respectable top knot?

Yes.

- - -
1) This is one of Infinite's most recent music video releases, for a song called "Last Romeo".

My reaction: Eh... 별로. Unfortunately, this video is the epitome of what is popular in K-pop today: angsty, strangely-albeit-immaculately-dressed men pointing at the camera and dancing really well in dimly lit halls, reaching longingly toward the same forgettable girl only to have the entire library explode into confetti from a thousand fake books.

2) Speaking of top knots and taekgyeon, 관장님 told me that when taekgyeon players during the dynastic periods sparred, sometimes the winner would be determined by which man could hit -- rather than the face -- his opponent's top knot first. Illustrations of taekgyeon being played in bygone eras show men with very long queues in the ring, while those who watched wore their hair up. (Actually, he also said that only married men sported 상투...)

P.S. Title of this post comes from an Akdong Musician song, 가르마 (Hair Part): 머리스타일 하나로 다른 사람이 되다니 정말 놀라워. Translation: You can become a different person just by changing your hairstyle, it's amazing.

North Korean Literature from Words Without Borders

Juche Tower in Pyongyang

Something pushed me to set aside my work for a minute and Google "Arduous March" this afternoon. I wanted to find out if "March" referred to the month or the movement. The first search result was Wikipedia's article on the North Korean famine of 1994-1998. As it turns out, that march lasted much longer than a month.

The second result was an excerpt from an autobiography written by one Ji Hyun-ah that described her family's experiences with "the shadow of hardship" and the lengths to which they had to go to feed themselves as hundreds of thousands of North Koreans starved to death.

The excerpt was from a literary magazine called Words Without Borders, and I had a look around its website. Before I knew it, my entire afternoon had been sucked into reading piece after piece of literature in translation from around the world. I couldn't believe that I hadn't known about Words Without Borders before now.

In particular, I wanted to read more works by North Korean defectors (keep in mind that the only literature to come out of North Korea is propaganda). To my surprise, an entire issue last year was devoted to this very group. In May 2013, seven defectors' prose and poetry were published, and I quickly read them all. Here are some standouts:

A Blackened Land by Kim Yeon-seul tells a story of anger heartbreak with hard drug use as its culprit and the despotic Kim regime as its architect. It is accusatory and starkly bitter, almost enough to taste. Last fall I criticized the media for its sensationalist coverage of North Korea's rampant drug use; reading this firsthand account has surely altered the lens through which I look at the issue. Also of note: Kim Yeon-seul is from Chongjin, the hometown of the six defectors profiled in Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, which I am reading currently.

The Poet Who Asked for Forgiveness analyzes the poetry of Kim Chul, following its evolution as the government punished his failure to conform his art to party ideology with separation from his family and forced labor. The strict regulations over the substance of art reminds me of how Shostakovich composed magnificent symphonies during World War II but was creatively controlled by Stalin the whole time. But the communist prohibition of artistic freedom isn't just a smudge in the history of culture; it's still happening in North Korea, where every song on the radio and every movie in theaters grinds the gears of the juggernaut propaganda machine.

Another poem, "Pillow" by Jang Jin-sun, narrates a harrowing and heartbreaking scene in a Pyongyang marketplace. It reads very quickly, but it's easy to see the difference in theme in style -- even in translation -- between the work of a North Korean state poet and that of a North Korean state poet who has defected to South Korea, whose memories of life there are already ten years in the past.

I Want to Call Her Mother Again is tragic. It also offers a peek inside the hanawon where defectors go to adjust to life in South Korea. If you read only one thing to try to understand the experiences of North Korean refugees, this should be it.

Although North Korea was spotlit last year, literature from elsewhere on the peninsula has popped up more recently. The most recent "graphic lit" issue of Words Without Borders includes I Am a Communist, a translated excerpt from a graphic novel detailing a man's difficult life choices in the tumultuous years before the border between the Communist North and the not-so-Democratic South was sealed.

A few years earlier, there was a feature on a translated North Korean comic book (meaning that it was geared toward kids) titled "The Secret of Frequency A". In it, doe-eyed North Korean child geniuses help unravel a conspiracy theory that involves evil American and Japanese scientists killing all the animals in Africa with fatal acoustic signals.

And the final two pieces that I read which stayed with me powerfully were The Chef's Nail, a work of short fiction about a woman from Seoul who rode line 2 of the subway in circles all day -- powerful and mindbending -- and a short comic about mother tongues in Taiwan called Tongue-tied which resonated with me personally.

I'm thrilled to have stumbled upon something new, interesting, and of such high quality, but I'm vacillating over whether or not to subscribe to the magazine, because my Reader is already swamped with hundreds of articles, blog posts, and random junk that I'll never get around to... Nevertheless, I exhort you to check out Words Without Borders, especially if you're into literature in translation or literature of marginalized peoples, and especially especially check out the North Korea issue if you want a large and immediate dose of... tsuris? Litost? Pathos? Conviction.

Kumamoto (熊本)

Kumamoto Castle. The young lady in the kimono is dressed up for Coming-of-Age Day.

Kumamoto wasn't always called Kumamoto. Those of you who know your kanji/hanja/hanzi might wonder if this city really is the origin of Japan's bears. Actually, its ancient name was 隈本, also read as Kumamoto, but the first character means "corner" or "shadow/shade", not "bear". The origin of shadows? Nah, it's really just a place name, probably kind of a boring one, too, because in 1607 someone thought it would be clever to change the first character to its homophone (熊, which means "bear"), and the new moniker stuck.

That someone, I believe, was Katō Kiyomasa, a daimyo (feudal lord) who ruled in Kyushu in the late 16th and early 17th century. Kiyomasa is an important figure in Kumamoto history; he is also quite the antagonist in Korean history. As a senior commander of the army, Kiyomasa led invasions of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty and captured Seoul, Busan, and Ulsan, among other cities, though the conquest was unsuccessful in the end. He was also an enemy of the Japanese Christians in his domain and brutally persecuted them not long before Christianity was banned outright.

On the other hand, Kiyomasa is responsible for expanding and completing Kumamoto Castle (begun in 1467), which is the main landmark of the city and one of the most gorgeous buildings I've ever seen. The castle keep you see today is actually a reconstruction, since the fortress was besieged during a rebellion in 1877, and the castle was burned to the ground.

Erik and me at Kumamoto-jō.

Erik and Kiyomasa of the tall hat

Walking the grounds of Kumamoto Castle, I noticed several archetypically Japanese things: koi in the river, a woman dressed in a kimono for Coming of Age Day, men in costume as ninja and soldiers for tourists' photos, beautiful artwork on sliding wooden doors inside the museum, a traditional tea ceremony room... It got me thinking about Japanese culture and its portrayal as a monolithic entity to Western eyes.

Google "Japanese culture" and you get a pretty uniform set of images: geisha, sumo wrestlers, Buddha, Shinto shrines, sushi, cherry blossoms, and more geisha. Maybe throw a little Hello Kitty and martial arts in there. (Do the same for "American culture" and you'll see a lot of flags, fast food, and bland diversity-themed stock photos.)

I wondered aloud to Erik if the historical periods in which geisha, sumo wrestlers, ninja, and samurai all came into existence were chronologically close to each other at all. These human icons are, of course, all unique and representative of Japan, but I think we should find it strange to see them juxtaposed, as we would pause at the sight of ninja prowling around a castle in 2014 on the hunt for tourists with fancy digital cameras. Remember Katy Perry's infamous yellowface performance at the American Music Awards last year? "Look at how much she loves and appreciates Japanese culture," they said. "She's dressed as a geisha. There are cherry blossoms falling from the ceiling. Her backup is doing a Chinese fan dance. Ooh, taiko drums!" All of those elements of Japanese (and Chinese) culture appropriated and smashed together to appeal to a Western audience.

Let's turn the tables: I want to see G-Dragon perform his latest hip-hop number on a stage accompanied by Asian cowboys, breakdancers with uh... braided hair extensions, and women dressed like Lady Liberty. GD's a great dancer: he can show off the Charleston, the Dougie, the New York Hustle, and eight beats of perfectly-synchronized tutting with his crew, finishing it off with a square dance as maple leaves and Wal-Mart coupons rain down from the ceiling. "Look at how much he loves and appreciates American culture!"

Erik's apple pie a la mode!

Anyway, cultures collide in odd ways. Erik's favorite dessert in Japan is not mochi or roll cakes but a new McDonald's menu item called "A la mode". It's literally a McD apple pie in a cup, topped with McD soft serve and chocolate sauce. You can obviously make this yourself at any McDonald's, but in Japan it's actually on the menu.

Back to Kumamoto, then. On my second evening in the city, we met up with a friend of Erik's and ate dinner at a great all-you-can-eat shabu shabu place, vowing to consume more than our money's worth!

We followed it up with a night of arcade games. It's been years since I've set foot in an arcade, so I hardly recognized any of the games. A lot of them looked glitzy and super high-tech, including a newfangled rhythm game called "MaiMai" that resembles a giant washing machine. Timed to music, players must tap buttons around a circular screen as colored rings reach them. It looks and feels silly at first, but once you get warmed up and choose a harder skill level, suddenly it becomes really fun. And addicting. I was sad that Dance Dance Revolution was nowhere to be found, but MaiMai more than made up for it. There was also an amazing air hockey game called "Big Bang Smash!" that unloads dozens of tiny pucks onto the court for a minute of pucking madness. It was awesome.

Big Bang Smash! Air hockey on  a sugar high!

What else is there in Kumamoto? I can't forget Kumamon (not the Digimon), Kumamoto's friendly bear mascot! Thanks to Kiyomasa, this city is able to market its namesake with Kumamon toys, Kumamon t-shirts, and Kumamon's smiling visage on everything from cookies to face towels. I don't have any great photos of or with him, even though he is everywhere in Kumamoto, but I did get a face towel... Another mascot is the adorable puppy you see below. I can't remember its name, though, or what exactly he represents. Kawaii-dom, if nothing else.

강아지 (kangaji)! こいぬ (koinu)!

And... I'll sign off with some shots of our beautiful hostel, the "Dyeing and Hostel Nakashimaya". It's part traditional dye store and part traditional inn. Its cozy rooms have tatami mats for sleeping instead of beds and trunks with heavy locks instead of lockers. The lounge area has tons of manga, stunning decor, ancient maps, and modern computers. Every inch of the hostel is exquisite and charming, every figurine placed so that everywhere you look you're reminded that you're in Japan. Even the stairwells were decorated. Again, I wonder how well all the pieces fit together chronologically... is it classy or kitschy? Well, I trust the hostel owners' taste. It was too bad we only spent one night here, but it was enough to leave a solid impression. I highly recommend it.

That's a kid's samurai costume!

Gorgeous paper art.

Oh, and here's a video of some of the arcade games. We're a long way past the days of DDR...

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...