May in South Korea

May is an interesting month in Korea, filled with a vast array of festivals and intimate family/cultural events. It starts just as the cherry blossoms fall from the April foliage, and by the end the weather is closer to the summers I know back in Boston- temperatures reaching upwards of 80. My teacher at 대리초 (Daeri elementary) tells me the spring time only lasts for about 3 to 4 weeks… and I believe him now. I can’t complain though; as a old soul who once lived in Cambodia, I concur that hot weather suits me better than most others.

Me with my Korean-language class

Just before the month began, I decided that this would be a month for positive self-improvement. This meant making some changes to my life that would benefit me in the long run and also give me some rest from my life on social media. This meant no facebook, no drinking, no smoking, exercise every day and watch my eating habits more closely…. and fix my posture, and hold things farther away from my face, and try to learn Chinese so I can better speak with my girlfriend who lives in China.

Me and Jinpei!

May has filled me with such productive and positive energy! I’ve nearly finished the first section of my Chinese language program… not chapter but section!! This is a bit of a big step for me because all this time I’ve spent off of facebook I’ve been getting surprisingly efficient and engrossed in the Chinese language. Going to Shanghai a few weeks ago also bolstered this love I never knew I had. Perhaps next year I will be finding a new life there. Who knows? Traveler life is far from predictable. I’ve started selling calligraphy or giving it away as gifts too. I figure I can give some good Chinese stuff to westerners, and then give some Korean style calligraphy to Chinese friends I may one day meet. I also have an article getting published in the Dudespaper soon (more on that later, so check back). So many good things in such a short time! Writing this has been the most time I’ve spent at a computer for non-work reasons.

 

My caligraphy. Not good yet but whatever

Jeonju Calligraphy Museum

I visited the Jeonju Calligraphy museum the Friday before Children’s Day to get a better idea of the styling of traditional calligraphy. Three great ones are below (left: bronze-age Chinese. Middle: Korean. Right: traditional Chinese).

 

I digress; for I mentioned before that May is a time of celebration in Korea! Every weekend I am not out traveling, I am missing a festival. The weekend I spent in China made me miss the 다명(Damyeong) bamboo festival, last weekend was Buddha’s birthday; a day bursting with festivals. Because Buddhism is very traditionally celebrated but the country is now predominantly Christian, the temples will offer a free lunch to laymen during the morning, and every other town will initiate its own reason to celebrate something different (like Osu with dogs, Namwon with it’s love story, etc).

I decided to go to the 오수(osu) dog festival with the Chinese family from my Korean language class, although our region is more famous for a festival in 남원(Namwon), which celebrates a story similar to Romeo & Juliet. They even do a traditional Korean wedding that I am sure is unforgettable. Going to Osu had it’s benefits though!  I got to see so many cute dogs, spend time with my friend and her family, practice more Chinese speaking, and get to be an impromptu member of a Chinese cultural parade.

Other celebrations in May include Sports Day which is a randomly chosen day for students to play sports all day… I love it because I don’t need to teach those days 😀 There are many field trips, family day, children’s day, teacher’s day, and parent’s day. It’s a great day to give gratitude to the people you love… (below are my Daeri students on sports day)

 

If you don’t got a loving family living in Korea, this is a perfect time to travel as all these days happen close to one another. This was the time I went to Shanghai to see my girlfriend. My birthday happened to be the following Monday, so it was nice to be cuddled up with someone I love in another country. Probably the first happy holiday I’ve had since I left the States (Family-oriented holidays like Christmas and New Years were incredibly lonely for me, and filled with bad luck aparently).

Did I mention that Shanghai and China in general is very beautiful. The pollution is a bit of a shame, but the streets and everything all over Shanghai were so clean! recycling was very prioritized and rubbish bins everywhere. This was so lovely because in Korea, I get self-conscious about finding someone else’s rubbish pile to toss my own when I am out in the city (people clean these piles every morning though).

Jinpei and I in Shanghai

 

The Shanghai tower was so amazing, with it’s glass floor, and the food was so good, tea shops everywhere. I just can’t get China out of my head, even though Korea is so beautiful and peaceful now too. The people seem to have gotten a bit friendlier as well. Must be the ice melting off of everyone!

The glass floor seriously freaked me out to be honest

Anyway, if you had to ask me, the best time of year to come to Korea is the Month of May. There is always something going on, good weather, and fun to be had. Here are some extra photos of my students celebrating a day off hiking with me, a birthday gift, and celebrations being had so far this month:

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Korean Buddhism and Songsu Mountain

I just realized it’s been about two months since my last post, but that’s ok. You haven’t really missed out on much. Before I start the post, here is an update on life the last two months (you can skip to the *** part just above to the mountain picture if you want to get right into the content) I spent most of January too broke to do anything because of my Cambodia trip, and February in Korea is a mix of extremely boring, cold, and depressing. In that time my girlfriend and I split (mutually, still good friends but I was still sad over it), I got terribly sick, and I learned that I was allergic to amoxicillin by breaking out in hives all over my body. Doctors didn’t really help much with it. I also learned that February’s Seoullal 설날 is the best time to travel out of Korea because everything is closed. I spent that time in bed with hives, no money, and a sore heart. Desk warming after the holiday was also a pain. I gotta say I’ve never felt so desperate for work to start back up again!

March brought some great fortune though! I finally got my bike and got to take it for a long long ride in the countryside (here is a pic below. I will make an individual post about biking in Korea. the long story short on that is thus: Korea is an amazing place for cyclists!!)

The hills and mountains here make it a tough workout though! no joke! I think there was only one major mountain/hill I had to bike up/ down for my 20km ride (short but sweet hour bike ride. It was a little late), but it added 500km ascent to my Strava stats!

We also got some new teachers who are very social and outgoing which is great! The other teachers here all work in the same building so they socialize a little less with us traveling teachers (they are good folk though! Just different schedules and things going on for em). The weather has gotten better, I started talking to a very lovely girl who lives in China (probably my next adventure after Korea!), and all my new schools are so great and supportive! I have to teach at 6 different schools, but they are all amazing. Finally making friends with teaching staff and being taught great techniques for my lessons. I cut down on my drinking and my initial anxiety over Korea is fading. I have cute students in my elementary schools who either beg me to play a mobile Call of Duty-like game called “Special Soldier” (the boys obviously haha) and the girls try to teach me Korean. I feel like my turbulence is ending, though lesson planning kills me a bit (SO many lessons!!). But my teaching skills have improved so much compared to last year!

****All that being said, I’ve been in need of a little spiritual grounding. Because my Korean is so little it’s hard to communicate, I haven’t really been able to go to a temple and my meditation practice seemed to have hit a wall. Luckily a good friend of mine here, 태구 (Taegu), and his family are very close friends with a head monk at a hidden yet famous temple not too far from me in the mountains of Songsu (성수산).

I’ve been practicing Buddhism since I was very young. I started meditation in 1st grade to counter my ADD problems because I hated taking the medicine for it (thanks 90’s internet and Ask Jeeves search! I don’t even know if Ask Jeeves is still a thing lol!). And from there I piecemeal’d a practice together, met many great teachers from all over. Even still; I spent a lot of time in college still trying to figure out what it is all about. Even my time spent in Cambodia, or the hidden temples throughout MA left me with more questions than answers. I got a lot of different pieces of advice and some lessons from those I was fortunate enough to work with, but never a very precise answer to a lot of the mysteries that westerners encounter when really trying to figure out traditional Buddhism and life of the monks.

Going to this temple, named Sangiam 상이암 (literally “Left Ear”), as a friend and guest gave me a chance to explore a temple complex in a way that I’ve never been able to experience before. I got to walk around the meditation hall, was taught proper Korean prostration, saw the guest house (which I can stay at any time! They are so kind here!), the head monk’s private meditation chamber, and an amazing meditation lesson!

A bit of history:

This temple, although small and hidden, was the temple where the wise King Sejong’s grandfather, King Taejo Yi of Jeosan, went to worship. He renamed the temple when he heard of his grandson’s birth. King Sejong is the scholar-king who created Hangul, thus scattered throughout the temple rocks are carvings in the ancient Korean-Chinse language (since the current writing system didn’t exist yet). It is very beautiful:

This stone below is potentially one of the founding monks (스님). The first character , 태구 tells me, means “3” Maybe it was one of three monks?

There is also a small fresh mountain spring here. You see them all over Korea near the mountains. Fresh water from the streams that continuously pour down the mountains are collected in small pools for drinking if you are passing by. At first I didn’t know what they were or what you do with them. The first time I used one was when I was biking up the small mountain near my town. I felt like I was dying by the time I reached it because I am out of shape. I stopped here and saw that there was a small spring of water and some ladles. Without knowing what they were for, I drank anyway! Turns out I was doing it right! This is the one near my town, 임실:

It’s a little plain compared to the One at the temple, which was so calm in its appearance.

The area around the mountain is very rural as is, so it isn’t spoiled by heavy tourism, thus the nature trails are very scenic and beautiful. The sounds of creeks and small animals fill the air. Guests build small stone towers along the way in hopes that their wishes will come true. There is also an abundance of wild life around the mountains as well.

Not long after arriving to the temple itself, I was greeted by 2 cute black goats which were shy at first, but then came back with a small family of maybe 6. I think it was good luck! My Chinese Zodiac sign is the goat (probably why I look better with a beard). I told my previously mentioned Chinese friend about it and she is certain it is a sign of good luck! I do too. I feel like I am finally feeling more contentment with life here after a very rocky winter. Everything is looking up!

I didn’t get photo’s from when they were all together and coming rather close. You could hear them “mie mie-ing” to each other. Last time I went to a temple, it was in Daegu and I was approached by a wild boar. I swear I am the snow white of mountain animals.

The temple complex itself is small but very peaceful and beautiful. It has a larger guesthouse with a library, a smaller one which is only a single room, a dormitory for the monks, a small meditation chamber for the monks, a smaller one for the head monk, and a room for basic cooking, meeting guests, teaching,and living.

The main meditation/prayer room for laypeople is rather beautiful. Because it was empty and I was there with 태구 I got to, for the first time, shamelessly walk around and take pictures. In Cambodia, the US, and other temples I’ve been in, I’ve never been able to get a good look or photos of a room like this. Always too nervous to disturb people’s prayer or to do something that might be disrespectful… which was always a shame because these rooms are absolutely beautiful!!

I spent the evening meditating in this hall under the training of a monk in red robes (with too many names, so me and another monk there just call him “Red Monk”). His teaching was absolutely amazing.  Friendly yet somber, a good teacher. I was able to make a movement with my meditative slump I had found myself in. During the session I had nearly forgotten where I was, yet while still knowing where I was. I felt this human worldly connection with all living things while contemplating the Koan “This pear, it is not a pear. How is that so?” I don’t know if I found that answer but I found myself closer to the people around me. Less of a clutch on the ego; less feeling of separation from people.

This meditative style is different from Theravada which is mainly focused on an empty mind and breathing in and out. The breath and empty mind is the Koan itself. With Korean style Buddhism, it is more related to Zen. You meditate to gain both focus and endurance.

The world is separated into two sections: the outer gates: sight, smell, hearing, taste, feeling. The inner gate and ego is “thought.” To know one you must know the other.

When you meditate you think
“I see this thing (and it makes me feel___”) Who am I that feels like ___ to this sight?”
“I hear this sound (and it makes me feel____”) Who am I that feels____ to this sound?”
same with the rest of the outer gates.

You contemplate each answer the same way. The idea is to question each thing, and each answer until you find “0” (zero) nothing. and understand it in the context of Buddhism. Being a monk means learning the culture and traditions of Buddhism along with finding a way to always ask each of these questions with every action you take so that you are aware of everything you do. When this can be achieved, nothing you do or feel is automatic, but a conscious and controlled mindful action. I spoke with a monk named 데산 스님, who had been studying for 13 years. He is so open and friendly and everything he said was full of joy, beauty, and meaning. The kind of person you can’t feel uncomfortable with because he speaks to you with the style and sincerity of an old friend. Even he considered himself a beginner, as did the Red Monk.

I had a lesson on our worldly connective state and how existence only exists because of condition. I am only here writing this due to specific conditions taking place over thousands of years. Remove even a single Condition and I may not exist. Remove a single condition post birth and I might not be a teacher in Korea. This too tied into the Koan about the pear. This might seem like something you hear from The Butterfly Effect, but when you meditate on it, you see so much more than an interesting movie concept. Before we departed I learned the word “Inchin” (I don’t know the spelling) but the meaning is “the seed is the condition for the tree” It’s a very important word in Buddhism…. but in Korean it is a slang word for bitch too. There is always humor with monks!

Dharma lesson aside, here are some photos of the monk’s meditation chamber, guest house, and paintings inside of the large prayer room. I’ve rarely felt so peaceful and at home. Next chance I have, I will stay a night there and continue my study 🙂

 

There is much more too, but that would make for such a long post!
After we finished I went out for Chinese with 태구 and his mom. She is excited to show me some pottery and calligraphy next time we meet. She is very sweet! I need to learn more Korean so I can properly thank her for her kindness. 🙂

Pray for Starwars

Ok. Don’t know where the source of the featured image I used is, but, Starwars is going full throttle in Korea in the same way it is in the US. It hasn’t been spoiled for me yet (Thank glob!) but until now I spiritually wasn’t ready for it. Thankfully I have a movie theater literally behind my house so I will be able to see it somewhat uninterrupted in the coming days.

Last friday, this kind of stuff in the picture above is what I had to deal with. It was my last day teaching at a school that I was so happy to be finished with (I like some of the staff and love most of the students… but this school was both my main school and my most challenging). The students at all my schools had “last day syndrome” so even though I was playing Miyazaki movies and Adventure time with Korean subs, they were going crazy all over the place.

Thankfully, I already finished one of my schools for the semester, so I had 3 free days to kick it anywhere I wanted. Because I have a habit of being poor but my bank account was looking nicer than usual (a rare but welcome sight), I was ready to go anywhere and spend as little as possible in the place I landed. This time, I decided to go for Daegu, or more specifically for the sake of story progression, Gayasan mountain at the Hein Sa (해인사) temple an hour and a half from the city.

This is the gate to the national park. It’s an hour and a half bus ride from Daegu city but well worth the visit.  From Imsil to Jeonju to Daegu to Hain Sa… and back to Daegu, I think I spent most of that day on the bus. I took a bus at 9:30am from Imsil (임샬) to Daegu ( 대구) which took me about 3 to 4 hours, arriving at 12:30pm or so. I spent an hour getting myself to the Hostel (that I spent one night in)….before navigating the subway back to the same exact bus stop as before via subway.

I wish I could say I stayed the night at the temple… which you can do! It is so peaceful and beautiful (as you will see). The price isn’t as bad as those in the city. Unfortunately I already paid for my accommodations at the guest house. As I write this however, I am in a love-hotel in a part of the city where I think it is safe to say I am the only foreigner lol! The price is right (finally learned to be assertive and barter where I can. Wrestled the price down by 20,000won). It’s very garish though. I like it because I know I can get it cheap enough, the rooms are cozy, and it is near where my girlfriend lives… but it is soooo sleazy! I didn’t bother taking photos of the room. It’s covered in all sorts of butts and things… It’s a very funny environment. Here I am, alone, in a room covered in butts watching the 6 starwars episodes on TV, just enjoying the heat and nice whirlpool tub (hahaha)! It also does not have a 4th floor because the number 4 is bad luck here. Not the only building I’ve seen that didn’t have a 4th floor.

To make up for the lack of sleezy pictures, I’ll show you the instructions for sharks trying to use the toilet and some photos of the Hostel I stayed at the night before. The hostel was very nice and probably the only one (or other one) in Daegu. No other travelers there though! Everyone was from Korea. I think Daegu misses out on some love because it is the 4th largest city, it’s midcountry, and although people say the nightlife is cheaper than Seoul, I dunno if I agree. Don’t get me wrong. It is a huuuuggeee city! However, I think Seoul takes the cake because it is so populated and diverse that it just happens to have more plentiful and cheaper venues as a result of how many people go there and the competition.

 

With that being said, other than seeing my girlfriend again, the temple was probably the most amazing part of the trip. I’m planning to go back very soon.
A brief history of the temple before I get into more photos: Hein Sa is one of the most important Medicine Buddhist temples around. It contains a collection of over 80,000 wood blocks containing the Korean Buddhist cannon: The Tripitaka Koreana (the largest cannon in the world). Unfortunately this temple has constantly been under attack and burned down by invaders. I think it’s been burned down three times. The first time was by the Mongolians who also managed to destroy all the woodblocks (about 700-800 years ago). Then the monks spent another 16 years re-carving the blocks using more advanced techniques of preservation. Then the Japanese burned it down (but the library remained intact), and then it got burned down again by accident (and yet again the woodblocks were kept safe by some miracle). The last attempt was during the Korean war, but a really dedicated fighter pilot who was probably also pretty annoyed at how many times this place kept getting burned to the ground, valiantly shot down all those who tried to destroy it. There are no smoking/fire signs everywhere. I think the guy putting them up was like “I swear on me mums life, if this place burns down ONE MORE TIME!”

This turtle-dragon gravestone was about 1km from the temple itself. Once you get there, there are more. I think the dragon on top is guarding one of the Dragon Balls.

A small retreat of some sort outside of the temple area by 0.5km

This is the first gate leading into the temple complex

A path leading to the second gate. I don’t have a photo of myself but as you can see from my shadow I’m decked out in my cloak and cowboy hat. I stuck out like some kind of wizard. Kids and adults gave me stares looks of awe as I walked around the complex.

A tree with wishes on it.

One of four important bells hiding around the country. In my Seoul Searching post, I showed a photo of the bell in Seoul. I think there are four towers too. Maybe if I ascend all four towers and see all four bells I will gain magic powers.

A cool dragon hiding next to the bell

Beautiful view next to a sign written in ancient Chinese

Decorations like this are all over the rooftops around the temples. The intricacy of some of the paintings and carvings is breathtakingly ornate. You can find something beautiful in almost any direction.

One of many small houses filled with very ornate Buddha Statues. I think head monks sleep in here

Here is one of them. I didn’t get a photo of the large Buddha inside the main hall of warship because it was a more auspicious place. I didn’t want to be disrespectful and take photos of people praying, especially before doing so myself…. on that note, I need to learn how things work here. I am versed in the Theravada tradition and Khmer style of prostration… Here they are Mahayana and they have their own way of prostrating. I probably looked funny doing it the way I knew, so I’ll need to learn more of the customs involved!

This is the gate to where the woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana are stored

And this is a close-up of the inside. It wasn’t open today so I could only observe from a distance. The construction of the building is so advanced and astounding to engineers even today. It has the windows stilted in a specific way for humidity control, with charcoal beneath floorboards opened at very specific lengths. The government tried to make a new room for the woodblocks using the most advanced technology for temperatures and humidity adjustment available (which you know must be nuts because Korea lives in the future)… unfortunately the whole thing was scrapped because the test-blocks started to get mildew and they couldn’t fix it.

These are some pictures I took just outside the “photo area” where you could stand in front of a picture of the wood blocks so it would look like you were actually in the room. I thought the view outside of it was nicer

This tree has an interesting story to it. One of the important Buddhist scholars spent his last days on this hill, playing lute and attracting beautiful birds. He hit the ground with his cane and in its place this tree sprouted. There really is a very mystical energy coming from it. They call it the hill of the Scholar. I felt like I was being wordlessly whispered to as I stood on top of it.

I don’t know what this is, but it’s pretty.

After climbing down the mountain I bought some Reishi Mushrooms… but a wild boar wanted them more than I did! I think I made a friend!

I later left the mountain and crashed for the night at the Hostel. I did look around downtown for a bit but I got kind of bored from being on my lonesome. Found a bus bar though!

There are two more topics I want to touch on before ending this post. One is how awesome the names of places around here are. Because English is sort of a lingua fraca here and not tied to any of the cultural value we put on it, you see total disregard for interpretation of language. This means a lot of stores end in the word “story” like “jazz story, tea story, jacket story” etc. You also get some rather…amazing names too like these below. If I open a business, I want to do it in Korea so I can give it a name of utter nonsense. It’s a lot like how Americans get Chinese/Japanese tattoos without knowing or caring what they mean. You might have “water” inked on you in Chinese, but it’s the same character used in words like “sewer system, bottled water, toilet water, hose, lake, puddle, etc”

I love it though.
The last thing I want to talk about, because I didn’t get much of a chance to in my Seoul Searching post, is the subway systems in Korea.

The subways here are outstanding. I’ve only seen two of them; Seoul’s and Daegu’s. The one in Seoul at first glance will make your head spin but after a minute or two of figuring it out, you see what makes it so great (I use an app to help me with Seoul since it is so massive). Daegu’s is a lot smaller but SO efficient! I’ve taken a taxi which took me an hour to go where the subway took me in 20 minutes. Daegu’s subway system is what Boston’s should be. Everything is nice and clean, bathrooms available, directions laid out. As an enthusiast of hating Boston’s subways, I can say this was very pleasing. I miss absolutely nothing about the cold dingy slow and terrible Boston subway system. One of my first memories of the Boston subway was bringing my friend’s little brother with us there. The smell had him dry-heaving.

One thing that caught my attention is how subway stations act both as modes of transportation and shopping malls. Most of Daegu’s station stops are pretty simple, but the one in the downtown area is literally a sprawl of underground shops and food stores. It’s incredible when you are looking for your gate and you run into this:

FOR SHAME BOSTON! FOR SHAAAMMEEE!
Imagine what could be done if private investors could transform our terrible system into something this beautiful and convenient. Everyone in the city goes down and through here. Why hasn’t this opportunity been taken yet??

Other than that, I will leave you with some photos demonstrating how easy they make the subway to navigate, how cozy it is in there, and how safe it is. Words can’t describe it. The rails run so smoothly that you don’t even need to hold onto anything when it moves. My days of a rail surfer in Boston are over for now it seems. It takes no skill to stand up in these things while they zoom around at redonkadonk speeds.

Stairs going down one of many numbered gates so you know where in the City you are going to:

First the gates are closed, and a screen / intercom tells you when it is coming. The same systems are inside the train too, in English. You always know where you are going.

Train arriving

people get on and off

There are plates in the ground with color-coded arrows going all over so it is hard to get too lost.

 

It was an exciting trip! At the end of the day, I got to cuddle up with my Dahkling (Thai for “monkey butt”.. it sort of sounds like the word “darling” when you say it… Yeaahhh it’s a great pet name 😛 ) and sleep off the day… and then I went to a bar

 

I’ll be going back today! (It took me a few days to finish writing this). but then later I’ll be off for Cambodia so my next post will be more about returning to my home away from home in South East Asia. No podcast this month, but I’ll have a good one coming up this January!