The Legal Battle for Marriage Equality in Korea

The year 2015 has seen marriage equality (legalization of marriage between two men or two women, also known as gay marriage or same-sex marriage) coming into effect in Ireland by popular vote and in the United States by Supreme Court ruling. Now, the stage has been set for Korea's own legal showdown, as a well-known gay couple has filed a lawsuit against the district office that denied them a marriage license in 2013.

Kim Jho Gwang-soo, a film director perhaps best known for his feature film Two Weddings and a Funeral as well as his LGBTQ activism, and his partner Kim Seung-hwan (David Kim), have found themselves at the forefront of the battle for sexual minorities' equal rights, at least in terms of media focus.

The following is my translation of the first few paragraphs from a Daum News article:

On the afternoon of July 6th, a film director shed tears in front of many cameras, supporters, and a large audience. Behind him was a court house, and before him was the world's prejudice. He said to those before him, "I beg of you to recognize our relationship before I die." He was Kim Jho Gwang-soo, one-half of the country's very first gay couple that held a public wedding ceremony in 2013.

The couple (부부) Kim Jho Gwang-soo and Kim Seung-hwan appeared at the Seoul Western District Court (서울서부지방법원) in Mapo-gu last Monday afternoon. The two of them had filed an appeal against the proceedings of the Family Registration Public Office, and this was the day of their hearing. Previously, the two had held Korea's first gay public wedding ceremony on December 10th, 2013, which is International Human Rights Day (세계인권의 날), and had also filed applications for marriage licenses. However, the Seodaemun District Office refused them, citing the civil definition of marriage. This is the country's first gay marriage lawsuit, and the case has now begun.

(I especially like how the Sino-Korean word "부부" was used to refer to the couple, since the Chinese characters "夫婦" refer to a man and a woman, but its usage for the case of Kim Jho Gwang-soo and Kim Seung-hwan acknowledges, in a way, that their relationship is equal to the traditional kind of couple. At the same time, the gender-neutral English loanword 커플 is also used to refer to them in this article, which is also progressive in its own fashion.)

From a HuffPost Korea article, the Seodaemun District Office's reasoning for rejecting their original license was that "same-sex marriage is invalid due to the settled civil definition of marriage" ("동성 간 혼인은 민법에서 일컫는 부부로서의 합의로 볼 수 없어 무효") as being between one man and one woman. However, the couple's appeal, submitted last May, states that, "nowhere in the civil law are there provisions against same-sex marriage, and through an interpretation of Section 36, Clause 1 of the Constitution that recognizes the right to marriage and equal rights, same-sex marriage must too be accepted." (민법 어디에도 동성 간 혼인 금지 조항이 없고, 혼인의 자유와 평등을 규정한 헌법 제36조 1항에 따라 혼인에 대한 민법 규정을 해석하면 동성혼도 인정된다")

During the news conference, Kim Jho Gwang-soo said, "I promised not to cry in court, but actually I ended up crying," and "I only ask that you recognize our relationship (단지 우리 관계를 인정해달라는 것), but I want to know why we are receiving so much hate. I've done my military service and fulfilled all my obligations as a citizen, so why do I have to appeal to the court, crying [for my equal rights]?"

The HuffPost article also has plenty of photos (courtesy Yonhap News) from the news conference following the court appearance (which was not open to the public). In the audience were supporters sporting rainbows and carrying signs saying 평등, 사랑, 존업 (Equality, Love, Dignity). There were also, of course, protesters, who carried signs saying things like "A male daughter-in-law? A female son-in-law? NO!" and "Our children need a mom and a dad!"

The news conference following Korea's first same-sex marriage lawsuit appeal (Yonhap News)

Every single one of the articles I've seen about this trial have referenced the recent US Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality. Even this opinion piece written by Kim Jho Gwang-soo himself (which I will try to translate later, but it's so long...) begins with the news of victory from America and a quote from President Obama. Historically, Korea has taken cues from the United States in the political and social spheres, but when it comes to rights for sexual minorities, many of the Korean groups that oppose them are actually playing the anti-foreign intervention card in a gamble to preserve Korea's moral traditions.

But with growing international pressure, plus domestic pressure as events like this year's enormously successful Korea Queer Culture Festival (and Pride Parade) greatly increase the visibility of Korea's LGBTQ community, the issue is sure to take center stage in the near future. And when that happens, the status quo could very likely change. The hope is that while the United States took around ten years to come around to complete marriage equality (with the last two years in particular seeing the tides turn dramatically -- watch this amazing video illustration!), Korea, a country whose public opinion and social environment can evolve quite quickly, will shift in favor of full rights for sexual minorities in even less time, followed soon by its laws.

Links and Sources
- Kim Jho Gwang-soo's HuffPost Korea opinion piece (Korean) and a public Facebook post he wrote about his feelings about the legal battle ahead (Korean)
- My Fair Wedding, a documentary about Korea's first publicly gay couple, came out on June 4th (English)

- Three short articles (in English) about Korea's first gay marriage lawsuit, here and here and here.

- Two longer articles (in English), from The Telegraph and Korea Joonang Daily.

- The articles (in Korean) that I translated/used as sources, here and here.

Poké-Hanja!

Learn hanja with Pokémon daily!

I'm just going to leave this here for your enjoyment. I am so happy that this exists. (For those who need an explanation, it uses the Pokédex entries for Pokémon to explain certain Korean vocabulary words that can be written using hanja, or Chinese characters. In this case, 部分, or 부분, means "each part," as in, "Each part of the center of Acousta/Starmie's body, called the core, radiates a different colored light each time it is seen.")

Vocab!
Pokémon = 포켓몬 (Pocket Mon)
Hanja = 한자 (漢字)
Pikachu = 피카츄
Gotta catch 'em all! = 반드시 노려라 포켓몬! / 포켓몬 get 하겠어!

지리산에 비가 오는 날 - Rainy Day at Jirisan

Ghosts hiking Jirisan...

Jirisan (지리산/智異山(1)) is one of South Korea's most famous mountain ranges. It spans three provinces in the south of the peninsula and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. About one hundred of these visitors are students from my school! The second-years have an annual trip to Jirisan, and this time, I went along.

The plan was to walk part of the way up to the mountain -- the peak, being 1915 meters/6283 feet, was definitely not doable -- and visit a temple famous for its 비구니, or Buddhist nuns, a nature/culture educational park, and a museum dedicated to a 16th-century Confucian scholar named 남명 who apparently built a school on the mountain.

Unfortunately, the weather was pretty awful all day. It rained on and off, and everyone was given thin rain coats to wear during the hike. It was like wearing a garbage bag, actually. I got wet from the rain and from the sweat produced because the plastic poncho wasn't breathable. Despite this, I enjoyed the time I got to spend with my students. During the nature walk, I chatted with them and mostly ignored the tour guide, admitting to my students that although I can understand some Korean, a full-on lecture was beyond me. But he talked about some of the special flora and fauna of the mountain, including Korean kiwis and some kind of tiger, and also showed us a mud house that was built decades ago when people still lived deep in the forest.

After the hike and a lunch of mountain herbs bibimbap, a bunch of students jumped into the river and had a massive water fight -- in the rain, no less! That was a lot of fun to watch; I would have joined in, too, but I hadn't brought a change of clothes...

Water fight!

The museum was boring, not gonna lie. And after that, we visited Jirisan High School, Korea's only completely free private school, for a short (and somewhat awkward) educational exchange. Their school is very interesting: it's extremely small, with a student body of about 50, and their educational focus is on service and building citizenship. The students are extremely well-mannered! I'll admit it: when they did their 인사, or bowing greeting, in perfect unison, our students seemed pretty 촌스럽다(2) in comparison... On the other hand, this school's shoestring budget is funded only by monthly private donations and receives very little support from the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education, whereas CSHS is like this giant magnet for scholarships and corporate sponsorship and all that. I felt awkward when I watched our school's introduction video because it flaunted just how well-funded we are and made Jirisan High School look, well, pretty 촌스럽다 in comparison.

And that was that! I had a good day, despite not being able to see the full beauty of Jirisan and not really learning too much from what was supposed to be an educational field trip. The good thing was that I got some photos with my students. I'll try to take more tomorrow, which is the last day of school!

Me with one of the second-year classes. They are all 찝찝해(3) and kind of miserable, but somehow look somewhat happy!

- - -

(1) 지리산 means something along the lines of "Mountain of Strange/Secret/Alternative Wisdom". The vice principal tried to explain to me exactly what it meant, but I never really understand what he is saying to me. I figured out, though, that the students go on this trip annually so that they can find some sort of wisdom and build character. Haha.

(2) 촌스럽다 describes things that are humble and perhaps uncivilized because they're out in the countryside; rustic, unsophisticated, provincial.

(3) 찝찝해 -- I don't know if I spelled that right -- means drenched or uncomfortably wet.

P.S. Today was my last day of taekgyeon training... I think 사범님 was actually tearing up as we finished. I kept thinking, "This is the last time I'll do X," X being whatever stretching, kicking, or sparring skill we went through. And when we ended with 명상, or meditation, I let my mind wander back to the very first day of taekgyeon, sixteen months ago... And the very last day will be tomorrow, when instead of training, we're just going out for drinks and stuff.

Haeinsa Cafe / Wordplay

A bit of cute wordplay at the Haein Cafe: 해맑게 인사하는 사람들...

A multi-orthographic linguistic puzzle! What does "海맑게 印寺하는 사람들" mean?

If you look carefully, you can see that this phrase uses two scripts: hanja, or Chinese characters, and hangul, the Korean writing system invented in the mid-fifteenth century. In ancient times, Korean was written entirely in hanja, but after Hangul was promulgated, it began to replace hanja. Today, few hanja are used, and then only in specific contexts; you might come across a few characters in newspaper headlines and official documents, but it's slowly falling out of common use.

Now let's examine these hanja. First, you have 海, which means "sea". It is pronounced 해 (hae). Then, you have 印 and 寺, which mean "stamp" or "mudra, a symbolic Buddhist gesture" and "temple", respectively. They are pronounced 인 (in) and 사 (sa).

Anyone familiar with Korean Buddhism will recognize these three hanja as the name of one of Korea's famous temples, 海印寺 (해인사/Haeinsa). What do they mean in the context of this phrase, however?

In fact, there's a bit of wordplay involved. As the Chinese characters are read with the Korean pronunciation, they are not intended to retain their written meaning. Instead of meaning "sea", 海 (hae) is simply part of the word 해맑게 (haemalkge), which means "brightly, purely". This 해 (hae) actually means "sun" in native Korean.

As for 印寺 (insa), the two words are essentially a homophone of 人事, or 인사 (insa). 인사하는 (insahaneun) means "greeting, bowing politely". And 사람들 (salamdeul) means "people", so...

Altogether, the phrase means something like, "People who greet brightly and purely." Maybe it makes more sense like this: "People who say hello with a warm smile (and a bow, because Korea)."

So as it turns out, the phrase has nothing to do with the sea or temples, but the clever part is that this was found printed on the menu for the cafe at Haeinsa. Thus, the cafe used the name of the temple as homophones to welcome its patrons. I love the ingenuity!

- - -
Stray observations:
1. The menu is printed on beautiful hanji (한지/韓紙), a thick, coarse paper that has dried leaves and flowers embedded in it.

2. The spelling of "cafe" in Korean (까페/ggape), is a little unusual. Usually, it's 카페 (kape), with an aspirated [k] from the American English pronunciation. Instead of that, ㄲ represents a tense, unaspirated [g]. Perhaps this came from an attempt to transliterate the French pronunciation instead of the English one.

3. More hanja (한자/漢字) in the top right corner: 茶來軒, or 다래헌 (daraeheon). I've never encountered this word before, but it means a traditional teahouse. Literally, "a house or high pavilion where you can order tea." NB: don't think Korean words written with hanja are just borrowed from Chinese. 茶來軒 means nothing in Mandarin, as far as I'm aware. Also, the more common words for "teahouse" are 찻집 (chatjip) and 다방 (dabang/茶房).

4. Unrelated to linguistics: why does Haeinsa have its own cafe, anyway? Is it so that after you worship and commune with nature, you can get an iced caramel macchiato to keep you tethered to modern society? I enjoyed my seven-dollar (?!) iced 유자차 (citron tea), but the very existence of the cafe seemed incongruous to me, like the Starbucks located inside the Louvre or the stuffed animals sold in the 9/11 museum gift shop. I guess cafes are now just as integral to Korean culture as thousand-year-old temples, so this is an unsurprising mix of new and old.

Sanghyung Lee

A Konglish joke:

I've never met a man named Sanghyung Lee. But if I do, I hope he's my type.

Get it? ;)

Okay, let me explain. Korean people like romance, and they like talking about their Mr. or Mrs. Right. Or your Mr. or Mrs. Right. I get asked all the time if I have a girlfriend. When I reply in the negative, the next question is always either, "So are you going to get a Korean girlfriend?" or the ever-so-slightly subtler, "So who's your ideal type?" And the word in Korean for "ideal type" (not the Weberian term) is 이상형 (理想型), pronounced ee-sahng-hyoung.

Google Images search of "이상형" returns lots of beautiful women, followed closely by lots of beautiful men. Also, blended portraits of celebrities (remember Average Faces?) to project onto one's 미래의 여친 (future girlfriend).

My Korean teacher once jokingly reminded our class that we were learning how to describe the perfect partner, not a weird older brother (異常兄), which is pronounced the same way. But when I hear the word, rather than thinking of Tim or Dan, I keep thinking that it sounds like one of my students, who is named Sanghyun (without the 'g'). There are definitely Korean men named Sanghyung (상형), although the hanja is probably different. Some people might think the name means "hieroglyphs", since that's all I get from an image search of it.

Google Images search of "상형" (象形), which is the "hiero-" part of "hieroglyphs", returns lots of ancient Chinese characters and stones with Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphs. My future love (愛) is going to have yellow, heart-shaped hair.

And since Lee (이) is the second most common surname among Koreans, there's got to be a real 이상형 out there. I haven't met one yet. But if I do...

I'll ask him if he's tired of the joke yet.

Fulbright Youth Diplomacy and Activism Conference (YDAC) (& two random holidays)

Dear friends, happy Pepero Day! I got a large chocolate pepero (called "pocky" in Japan and the US) from an anonymous student, and today's lunch included a packet of almond pepero, but otherwise, nothing special yet.

Pepero Day is a day to show a little love... and a lot of consumerist tendencies. The holiday was completely manufactured by snack food companies. What better day than 11/11 to buy your friends and lovers (literally) tons of the sweet stick-shaped crackers and spend money that you could otherwise be donating to...

YDAC! The Youth Diplomacy and Activism Conference, run completely independently by Fulbright teachers in Korea, is held once each semester. Teams of bright and hardworking high school students compete in a day-long series of debates about everything from foreign policy to social issues in their own country. There are four conferences throughout the country, including one in my province. My students do not participate, but my colleagues' students do, and they need your help!

Without warning, YDAC lost its funding for its upcoming fall conference, and its organizers are scrambling to come up with enough money to secure transportation, food, and the venue for the conference, all of which have been completely free for students in the past. Will you help us meet their fundraising goal? About $300 more is needed! There are only 5 days left!

You can contribute to their fundraiser here: click on this link.

That's all for my shameless plug. 안녕!

[edit] I found out from a student today that there's a traditional Korean holiday that also falls on 11/11 but which has been around for quite a bit longer. That holiday is 농업인의 날, or Farmers' Day. Farmer's Day apparently started in the mid 1960s, a few decades earlier than the earliest recorded Pepero Day observance, when livestock and agriculture cooperatives in the northern province of Gangwon-do (a very rural part of the country) got together and... did stuff? They chose the 11th day of the 11th month because in hanja, or Chinese characters, "11" is written as 十一 (shibil/shi2yi1), which can be combined to form 土 (to/tu2), the character for earth or soil.

About a decade ago, when Pepero Day was really taking off, people either 1) didn't like the cultural competition, 2) were concerned about the amount of sugar and empty calories kids were consuming on the day, or 3) both, and launched a campaign to distribute 가래떡 (garaetteok), a kind of long sticky rice cake which, when paired, is also shaped like the number 11, instead of the chocolaty 과자. Hence, 가래떡 데이 vs. 빼빼로 데이. Today, after taekgyeon practice, I received two cute packages of 가래떡, bringing my own 11/11 full circle. Well, tteok is certainly healthier than pepero, but honestly, it's not as good a treat. ;)

가래떡 (garaetteok), squishy cylindrical rice cakes, shaped like the number 11. Happy Garaetteok Day!

Korea, the Courteous Country

While reading a report written by one of my students, I came across a phrase she hadn't translated into English. The sentence went something like, "In history, Korea has been known as 동방예의지국, but these days, it is not living up to the name."

I was curious about the phrase, and, obviously, the report was supposed to be written entirely in English, so I asked my student to explain what it meant. Unfortunately, she was at a loss as to how to properly translate it. So, I turned to my co-teacher.

Taken as a whole, 동방예의지국 translates to "the courteous country in the East". Breaking it down, we have 동방 (dongbang), which refers to the East, 예의 (ye-i), which means 'etiquette', 지 (ji), a possessive particle, and 국 (guk), which means 'country'. All of these words are traditional Sino-Korean words (especially that possessive particle) that can be written with hanja, or Chinese characters, like so: 東方禮儀之國.

My co-teacher explained all this, but she also wasn't sure where the phrase itself came from. After a bit of research, she found out that the name was one that China gave to Korea thousands of years ago. In the 산해경 (Sanhaegyeong/山海經), an ancient almanac compiled between 200BC and AD200, a pre-Three Kingdoms Korea was described as "courteous" by the Chinese geographers and proto-anthropologists.

While my student was using this tidbit of ancient sociology to bolster her argument that the increasing moral decrepitude and general lack of politesse among today's Korean youth is dishonorable and unacceptable, my co-teacher offered a different perspective: the Chinese likely didn't know or even care about common Korean societal mores way back then, and the only reason the people of this neighboring country were deemed "polite" was that they never invaded China. Perhaps, in a sense, respecting one's fellow nations instead of flexing one's war-mongering, imperialism-driven muscles in the ancient world could be interpreted as a kind of etiquette.

In my experience, the notion that Koreans are extremely courteous is nevertheless quite pervasive in this country. Foreigners are always educated in the proper ways to offer gifts, greet one's seniors, save face, and jump through many other metaphorical hoops in order to adapt to this culture. I like that it can be caricatured, though: a quick image search for the phrase "동방예의지국" turns up several photos of Koreans doing 인사 (insa, a bowing greeting) to trucks and other inanimate objects. I want this to go viral, but hadoukening seems to have won out for now.

"무개화차님, 안녕하십니까?" From 서울신분 "Boom".

Photos from Jeju

Well, it's been a rather gloomy and dismal day, and that's not just on account of the weather. It's gotten cold in Changwon lately, and there have been scattered rains. Also, awful things are happening in the United States and around the world. So it's time to go to my happy place and relive memories from Jeju Island (where I attended the Fulbright Spring Conference two weekends ago).

This was the view from my hotel room! It was in Seogwipo, on the southern coast of the island, looking south at nothing but ocean.

First stop on the one-day tour of the island: famous volcanic rock columns making interesting formations at the water's edge.

The peak of Sunrise Peak! (일출봉정상/Ilchulbong jeongsang) (taken by Adam)

It took about 20 minutes to get to the top, and the wind was blasting us the entire time. Here's another shot at the peak, facing east.

Looking west, back toward the island... it was gorgeous! 아름답네요! I love the colors of the water and the rooftops.

Down by the beach, Jeju's famous female divers were looking for shellfish. When they found their catch, they'd discard the beautiful shells. But this one I picked up in a tide pool. (Seems like I also got photobombed by Ashley.) (taken by Katelyn)

Cuttlefish/squid (오징어/ojingeo) drying on a line on the coast. Nom nom nom...

"I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams."

A Jeju pony! Riding one is on my Korea bucket list.

Have I mentioned yet that it was super windy and cold all day? Jeju is famous for its women (the divers), rocks, and WIND!

Super-windy. 바람이 불었어요.

But then we went somewhat inland to chill by a beautiful river and take a short hike to see a waterfall.

And here is the aforementioned waterfall, called Cheonjiyeon Waterfall (천지연폭포), or Sky-Land Waterfall. The hollowed-out bottom portion is made up of softer, porous volcanic rock, which has been worn away by the splashback of the waterfall, while the upper granite portions remain.

Since my departing flight was on Monday evening, I had time to hike up a hill in Jeju City with some Fulbright friends at sunset.

We also visited an arboretum. Ginger is standing in a sculpture of the hanja (Chinese character) that reads 木 (목), or tree. Adam is doing Gangnam Style because he is silly. We also got dinner, and I had 제주 육개장, and it was delicious.

서예 - Korean Calligraphy

Six "fonts" for Hangul calligraphy; the phrase is: 창원한글학당: Changwon Hangul Hakdang (School). Plus, some hanja on the very left. I can read about half of the characters... pity.

Our calligraphy teachers demonstrating their skills!

Korean calligraphy, called 서예 (seoye), is an art that has been practiced in the country for hundreds, even thousands of years. The calligraphy that uses Chinese characters, which were introduced to the peninsula in the 2nd or 3rd century, is called 한자 (hanja). In 1443, King Sejong and his court invented a script for Korean that wasn't based in Chinese characters; this new writing system is called 한글 (hangeul), or Hangul. Currently, Korean calligraphy includes character writing in hanja and Hangul, as well as minimalist still life paintings of things like trees and flowers.

Yesterday was "Korean Culture Day" at the Korean class in Jungang-dong. I was only vaguely aware that there would be some food provided at the class, but what I didn't realize was that we were going to have a husband-and-wife pair of calligraphers come to show us their art and teach us the art itself. That, plus the 귤 (kyul/tangerines), 김밥 (kimbap/rice rolls), and 떡 (tteok/rice cakes) made it a party.

There was also a lottery at the end of the class/party, where winners received a calligraphy painting done by one of our teachers. I was the first one called! That's unusual... I almost never win lotteries of any kind. But I took home a nice painting of some reeds, as well as a painting of a hanja character: 忍 (Mandarin: rěn; Korean: in), which means "longsuffering", that the teacher did for me just on a whim.

It was fun to chat with the Korean teachers about hanja and how much they did or did not know. I also had a casual conversation with one of them about his Mandarin studies in college. A feeble attempt to retain my rapidly declining Mandarin...

Well, I didn't learn much Korean yesterday, but I got a taste of Korean culture, plus some souvenirs, so I guess that's good enough!

They also helped some of us make our own paintings! According to the teacher, traditional Korean painting is much simpler and minimalist than what you'll find in most Chinese paintings. There's a lot of white space left on the canvas.

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!

The Big Rock and the Pig Head

I witnessed something fairly unique yesterday. At around five-o'-clock, my co-teacher announced that there was going to be a special ceremony outside at the front of the school, and that it wouldn't take long, so I should attend. Curious, I joined her and all of the school's faculty and staff.

Front entrance of my school.

In this photo I took a few weeks ago of the front entrance of my school's campus,  there is definitely not a big rock on top of that small brick platform on the left. Instead, there are trees.

But now, there's a big rock on it! The trees are gone, replaced by an enormous sculpted hunk of granite with hanja and Korean carved into it. I remember seeing it for the first time earlier this week, but I must not have realized that it hadn't always been there.

So, when I arrived at the "special ceremony" with my co-teacher, the rock was covered by a large white sheet. As it turns out, this was an unveiling ceremony for the sculpture.

One of my coworkers told me that the four Chinese characters were the school's motto: 元亨利貞 (yuán hēng lì zhēn, something like "first, prosperity, benefit, loyalty"; and in Korean: 원형이정, won hyeong yi jeong). But she herself questioned the necessity of a giant boulder in front of our campus. It was, after all, a huge investment from the school, the price tag being an estimated $10,000 USD. (Her speculation -- in brief because I don't want to talk about school politics, yet -- was that a rather pushy member of the Parents' Union thought it inappropriate that our school didn't have one, and as he was himself in the business of carving big rocks, offered his services, astronomical costs aside.)

3... 2... 1...

Ta-da!

The unveiling ceremony was nice and official and all (look at those white gloves!), but after the rock was uncovered, what happened next was extremely interesting. A table was brought in front of the sculpture. The table was laden with fruits, candles, incense, a giant rice cake (떡), a dried fish wrapped in bundles of thread, and an entire pig head. Yup, the boiled head of a real pig, right in the middle of it all.

The principal (left) goes forward to give insa.

I watched in curiosity (and some strange apprehension) as my school's principal gave insa at the altar by prostrating himself three times in front of it and then putting an envelope of money inside the pigs mouth. My coworker explained the symbolism: the incense was to ward off bad spirits, and the pig was offered to good spirits to promise prosperity; that's why people put money in its mouth (and also stuck bills in its ears). And if the pig head happens to be smiling, you get extra good luck. The threads that were wrapped around the dried fish represented longevity. And the rice cake was... well, I think that was just there because Koreans eat rice cakes in every conceivable situation.

This was the first time I've ever seen a traditional Korean ceremony of this kind. My coworker also made it point to tell me that I was lucky to have been able to see it. Although it's a traditional ceremony, it's actually becoming less and less commonplace these days. She even admitted that it was the first time she had witnessed this kind of ceremony herself (but she is Buddhist, so I imagine that she is familiar with the whole insa thing in similar situations).

With the food on the altar and everything, I felt a mix of innocent foreigner interest and religious uneasiness. As a Christian, I knew that I was definitely not going to prostrate myself at the altar or put money in the pig's mouth, even though many of the other teachers and staff members did. And I'm glad that nobody pressured me to, either. As for the food, I had a brief moment of panic when I was offered a bit of rice cake and bit into it: does this count as eating food sacrificed to idols? But that quickly subsided when I remembered 1 Corinthians 8, in which Paul concludes that the mind prevails over matter in situations like these and you shouldn't make a big deal of things that... aren't a big deal.

So that said, I'm filing this one under "cultural experiences" and look forward to other random and unexpected happenings of a similar caliber. And with that, I leave you with the Lord of the Flies himself!

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Oh and yes, this thing is actually eaten afterwards. A special machine flattens the thing whole and turns it into boiled pork slices, served with dipping sauce.)

All About 창원 (Changwon)

One thing I've found is generally the case here in Korea: folks are helpful and well-meaning but won't often give you all of the information you desire. When it comes to directions, laundry, or hey, even important information about your placement school and city, I've had to figure things out for myself.

I've written before about how cultural workshops are always hit-or-miss here at Orientation. Yesterday's workshop, cultural introductions to the ETAs' respective placement regions, was a miss. The reason why was obvious: in all of Southern Gyeongsang Province (경상남도) last year, there was only one ETA. Basically, nobody had ever been before, no one knew anything about any of the cities in it, and thus there was no information for Rachel (in Gimhae), Ryan (in Jinju), or me (in Changwon). The presentation I attended could have been titled, "Cool Stuff to do in Daegu and Busan (Sucks For You If You're Somewhere Else)".

That being the case, yesterday afternoon and evening I decided to do some sleuthing of my own. Thanks to Google and Naver (네이버, Korea's preferred search engine), I found out a lot about my city, and I'm proudly disseminating that information now.

Panorama of Changwon, from Wikipedia.

Changwon means "Bright Land". All Korean cities can be written with hanja, or Chinese characters, so I can tell my parents that 今年我住在昌原. 昌 means "sunlight", and 原 means "source or origin", so when I looked it up, I thought at first that my city was called the source of sunlight. It's rather poetic.

As it turns out, Changwon is not simply located in Southern Gyeongsang Province (慶尚南道 in hanja), but it is also the capital city of the province. It is the 9th most populous city in Korea (after Seoul, Incheon, Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju, Ulsan, and Suwon), but probably only recently jumped into the top ten. I say this because today's Changwon was created when three smaller cities, Changwon, Jinhae, and Masan, merged in 2010, thereby tripling its population. The number is now a little under 1.1 million (compare to Philadelphia's 1.5 million in the city proper or Fremont's approximate 215,000).

After Wikipedia, I found Changwon's English website and plumbed its depths for photos and interesting random facts.

The Junam Wetlands, north of the city. Because we're in the south, this wildlife area becomes a huge destination for migratory birds in the winter. I can't wait to see them!

As a coastal city, it's famous for seafood. Local specialties include anglerfish (아구찜, agujjim), pufferfish, and Korean sushi, none of which I've ever tried but probably will. I might even try live octopus... Aside from seafood, I've heard that watermelons (수박... go figure?) and persimmons (감) are a regional favorite. Hooray! I wonder if Korean permissions are anything like Taiwanese persimmons...

NUBIJA bike terminal

Changwon calls itself "The Environmental Capital". One awesome perk is that it boasts the first public bike-rental program in Korea, called NUBIJA (which stands for Nearby Useful Bike, Interesting Joyful Attraction, I kid you not; but it's also a portmanteau of 누비다, nubida "to go here and there" and 자전거, jajeongeo "bicycle"). For a little less than $20 a year, you can check out any one of over 4,000 bikes from among 230 bike terminals in the city and ride it around for two hours. I like this a lot. I'm not an avid biker, but aside from being a fantastic carbon emissions-reducing initiative, it also seems like it'd be a fun way to see the city and local parks like the Junam Wetlands when I'm on my own or have friends visiting.

And here is a cute and ridiculous video that promotes the NUBIJA program.
I'm stoked that I'm moving to a city that's striving to be an example of eco-friendliness in Korea. On the other hand, Changwon is also a heavily industrial city. The original Changwon (pre-unification) was Korea's first planned city, re-envisioned in the 1970's to be the economic powerhouse of southern Korea (but it seems as if Busan has already taken that title?). So instead of beautiful beaches all along the coast, it's mostly ports, shipyards, and factories for companies like LG, Hyundai, and Samsung. The municipal organization is really interesting: the 대로, or Great Road, is a huge boulevard that stays perfectly straight for twelve kilometers. This road also acts as a boundary between the southern, factory-filled half of the city and the northern, residential-and-everything-else half. Take a look at this screenshot from Google maps:

The district of Changwon called Uichang, which was the original Changwon before it incorporated Masan and Jimhae. See all the blue roofs? Those are factories. The 대로 is highlighted in yellow. My schools is way up north, on top of a small hill.

So Changwon is more of a port city than a beach town. Still, the coast means milder, more temperate weather, at least compared to Seoul or Daegu. I'll still see all four seasons, and maybe even a typhoon or two.

What else? If I take the KTX, Korea's high-speed rail, I'm only 150 minutes away from Seoul. There are some universities downtown, which means I might have a chance to take Korean classes. As for a Hana Center where I can volunteer with North Korean defectors, I will probably have to travel to Busan in order to do that. Those are only found in larger cities. Lastly, some of Changwon's sister cities in the US include Houston, TX, Jacksonville, FL, and Jersey City, NJ.

I'll be reading up more on my city as time permits. I chanced upon the city's official WordPress blog, which is pretty cool and written in intelligible English. The posts alternate between random plugs for restaurants or kinds of foods to announcements on the latest renewable energy plan being put into action. Changwon seems to be very proud of itself as a quickly-developing city. The promotional video on their website says it all: "Changwon wants to become the best city in the world." Well, more power to them!

Anyway, that's enough for now. But you'll likely be hearing more about my city and my school in the weeks and months to come. The more I find out, the more excited I get about where I'm going!

Carved in Stone (동해, pt. 2)

Our Donghae weekend vacation continued on Friday afternoon with a visit to the Mureung Valley (무릉 계곡), a region about an hour's drive from our hotel. It's a park with lots of intense hiking trails and some absolutely beautiful landscapes (경치, kyongchi) that were great to photograph (remember, 사진 찍는것을 좋아해요!).

The purpose of our visit was a continuation of a cultural workshop on Buddhism that we'd sat through earlier in the afternoon. But before we arrived at the Samhwasa Buddhist temple (삼화사), everyone was distracted by this gorgeous portion of the river that we happened across first.

You're looking at a giant slab of rock (people in the photo for comparison) sticking out of a river with Chinese characters carved into it. The biggest are in the center of the photo, but beneath it are hundreds more names in a smaller size.

The river grew very shallow around this giant slab of rock, such that most of it was exposed, dry, and walkable. Carved into the rock in many places, in 한자 (hanja, Chinese characters) large and small, were hundreds of Korean names and family names. I never found out why they were there, but it was very cool to walk around and try to read them. I even found my own family name, 鄭, which in Korean is 정 (jeong, or Jeong/Jung/Chung)! It was fairly common, as were 金 (Kim), 李 (Lee), and 朴 (Park).

Zheng Shou... something! Maybe we're very, very, very distantly related.

After the river -- where most of us wanted to stay forever -- we hiked a bit further up the mountain and arrived at Samhwasa Temple. There was a big drum, a big bell, and a wooden fish instrument used for many ritual purposes in the temple. The big drum immediately made me think of taiko back at Swarthmore. The bell made me think -- oddly, but not that oddly considering Sara, Jason and I bonded over a shared love of Pokémon -- of Pokémopolis and the giant bell that awoke a monster Gengar, as well as the ridiculous looking bell thing to the right. And lastly, the wooden fish was based on an interesting folk tale that involved a monk being turned into a fish with a tree growing out of its back...

Some of us got a chance to ring the bell (eastern bells are rung from the outside, no clapper on the inside), play the drum (in the shape of the Chinese character 心, meaning heart of mind), and knock the inside of the wooden fish. According to the Zen Buddhist tradition, playing these instruments were supposed to generate love and empathy for all living things and the Earth.

Jaeyeon and Bridget try their hand at ringing the giant bell. Everyone and their mother had a camera! Behind them you can see the green and red wooden fish that looks like a dragon.

Another very cool part of the temple was found on the upper level. There were rows upon rows of paper lanterns with what I assume are prayers attached to them. I don't know what the Korean on the lanterns means: 락왕생? If you know, please enlighten me! Regardless, it was a very pretty sight.

[edit] Seven months later... My host parents have informed me that the lantern actually says 극락왕생. I didn't notice the top character first. It means a wish for safe passage into heaven or the afterlife. (극락/geungnak is heaven or paradise, and 왕생/wangsaeng means passing into the next world.)

Paper lanterns with prayers attached to them. I wonder how people feel about having their prayers displayed publicly like this, for anyone to read.

So that was the temple. I enjoyed taking a look around and photographing everything aesthetically pleasing, but I was excited about coming back to this park to tackle one of the many trails the spanned the mountains all around. Below on the left is a photo of me with a pretty part of the river behind me. The next day, I saw a lot of the river... photos to come!

Me at Mureung Valley. Photo taken by Katelyn!

Cecile doing some painting at the temple.

And lastly... a dragonfly! Because there were dragonflies everywhere in the temple, and they kept landing on peoples' heads. But I wasn't quick enough to catch that. Instead, here is one resting on top of a lantern.

A dragonfly! 잠자리 (jamjali)