Having been a bit more than a month, and only days from leaving, I figured I should give some account as to how I've been spending my time.
The larger part of most days is spent in the room, there being nothing nearby to see, and, for a few weeks there, the air quality was disastrously bad, owing to a great swirling miasma that blew here from China (Korea adds its own contribution to the soup they breathe, but the larger part of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Chinese). Nevertheless, some of the time I sally forth during the day to get a coffee or a bite of lunch or some shopping, and gone for no more than an hour at most. The time spent in the room is poking at the internet or reading. (I have been reading a great deal of clinical literature in preparation for the impending return to school, but after finishing another book on Jungian theory, I opted to take a break from non-fiction to enjoy the "light" stylings of Umberto Eco, in his Island of the Day Before. Being a semiotician, he has much to say, but sometimes too much at a go, which is why I am taking a break from my break, so to speak, to write this post.) For a while there I was watching movies I had always wanted to see, but I fell out of the habit as I increasingly spent my television time watching the adventures of the comedian Marc Maron's new kitten. As with reading books, time spent on cats is no waste of time.
Cherry blossom season came early this year, by several weeks. I don't know if it was a record in Korea, but it was Japan's earliest cherry blossom blooming in 1,200 years. They do not smell much, but they look like I wish snow was, and with the occasional hint of pink. We visited Seoul two weekends in a row, by rail and metro, while the blooms were showing, to see an art museum and gather a few presents to thank people who have helped manage our affairs at home in our absence. Because I spend all my time in the old part of Cheonan, where there are no cherry trees, I wasn't even aware they were in bloom, much less had seen any. They are a gorgeous riot and I am pleased they came in time for me to see them.
Meanwhile, other flowering plants have started to succeed the cherries in blooming. We went to Hyeonchungsa Shrine in Asan, dedicated to the great admiral and savior of the nation Yi Sun-shin (1545-98), which I had seen on the previous trip, but Laura had not. I had been holding off bringing her there until I knew spring was underway, because the brown sterility of winter does not do justice to Hyeonchungsa's beauty in the other seasons. The wait paid off, apparently, for there were still cherries, and now magnolias and forsythia and lilacs and azaleas and all sorts of blooming trees and shrub that we didn't recognize. It was such a spectacle that if it had been a landscape painting, you would have thought the painter was a liar. Luckily Laura took photographs. She was less interested in the historical architecture, but it's hard to blame her for being distracted by such a display. We had intended to go from Hyeonchungsa to the actual grave of Admiral Yi on nearby Mount Eorasan, but could not find a way there on our taxi app.
Spring has even come to this part of Cheonan, as the dormant streetside gingko trees I had hardly noticed before, have started to bud, and now there is greenery even in this mass of neon and concrete. For this sight, too, I am grateful. Tomorrow, the 13th, I go to get a test, which you now, finally need to fly to the U.S., so I can leave the 16th and get back to Corning to take charge of our affairs, get the fur babies back, and discharge some obligations. When Laura can leave is somewhat more open-ended, but tentatively we think she can leave at the end of May (perhaps even in time for our wedding anniversary, but I don't want to disappoint myself by hoping). The separation will be the longest we have ever been apart, and it's certain we will spend every day wishing it to be done and over with. Still being here for perhaps six weeks, Laura may yet choose to write a post or two for the blog.
I have been keeping a list of a few random observations as they occur to me, which I present here in no particular order. I have condensed several related thoughts under one heading, so please excuse any wandering in oversized paragraphs.
Restaurants. There are some curiosities of dining in Korea. When you enter, you immediately sign the contact tracing sheet and have your temperature taken. You then sit yourself wherever you want, though out of habit we hesitate a bit to see if the waitress has some place she'd rather we sit. Some places will seat foreigners near a window, to show how hip and worldly the establishment is, while others will hide foreigners in the back, so as to signal something else. Dining alone is not always possible, but most restaurants have a list of noodle soups (jiggae) that can be ordered alone or as an accompaniment, the latter if you're with a group. Koreans prefer to eat socially, so they are suspicious of solo diners being antisocial or perhaps not worth socializing with. When you're done, go to the register and present your credit card. There's no tax and no tipping. Things may be changing as takeout culture takes hold in the pandemic era, but boxing leftovers is thought of as something the poor do, and no Korean, however mean his circumstances, ever wants to be perceived as poor. There is no such thing as Burns' "honest poverty" here. This might not be universal, but it's widespread enough of a custom that restaurants might not have even stocked suitable containers, even if they wanted to accomodate a diner.
Lastly, much has been made about Korean food being spicy. Northeasterners will have a tougher time of it, but generally I don't find it terribly hot. It is, however, senselessly so, as the chiles that Koreans use have very little flavor apart from the heat sensation, and I accept heat as the tradeoff for flavor. That said, you become accustomed to it very quickly, and nothing has been so hot as to make me stop eating it on that account.
Street crime. There is none that I have noticed. People will leave bicycles in public without locks. I've seen people toss their wallets into shopping carts, with no fear that anyone will grab it when the shopper's head is turned. This is probably some combination of Confucian terror of shaming their family, respect for property, and a rather harsh penal system. As for threats to one's person, there is the occasional bar fight, or some drunkard may splash your shoe with vomit (the Koreans are famous binge drinkers), but in general I have felt very safe here, as elsewhere in East Asia. There is some groping of women on the Seoul metro, however, though increasingly it has been taken more seriously by the police and women, I understand, have begun to make a scene for the other passengers when it happens and shame, as I said before, is a powerful deterrent in Asia. This is not a uniquely Korean problem, and I have seen photos of the Tokyo metro where women have grabbed the hand of a groper and thrust it straight in the air for other passengers to see, the offender holding his head in shame while everyone stares disapprovingly at the perpetrator.
(Now all that said, white collar crime is a matter entirely apart. Corruption and embezzlement are rampant, and frequently make the international papers. If you don't believe me, a quick Google search will convince you.)
Appearances. Koreans are a noticeably vain people. Some of this is true vanity, though just as much is owed to the intense social pressure to conform to impossible ideals that is everywhere the soul-destroying bane of Koreans. These pressures fall hardest on women, of course, and some 25 percent of Korean women admit to having had cosmetic surgery. This has, in turn made South Korea the plastic surgery capital of the world and a destination for medical tourism. I have joked elsewhere that for $15,000 and the cost of a plane ticket, you can leave looking like the eighth member of BTS. I do not have figures on how many men have had procedures, but I cannot imaging it less than 15 percent among younger men. Oddly, these procedures are undertaken for the same reason women do, to look slim and gracile. You may have noticed that a lot of male K-pop stars look feminine, though I couldn't say why they feel the need. There is universal male conscription in Korea, and the young men all cut dashing figures in their uniforms. Why they would want to tone down that virility, rather than add to it as we would, is perplexing. Brands and labels are so important here, both for reasons of vanity and wanting to telegraph your prosperity, keeping in mind what I said above about looking poor. The thrift shop hipster aesthetic never made it to Korea. Westerners who buck branded culture and wear off-label clothes are thought of as eccentrics, which promotes the perception that we're all harmless, or clueless, or even endearing in our own way. To which I say vive la différence, and I hope my Hawaiian shirts have helped reinforce this image, or even, I may hope, point Koreans to a better, individualistic, multi-colored future for themselves.
Architectural beautification. This is amazing to me, because in the U.S., we long ago stopped making statues and designing buildings with fluted columns or making anything of cut stone. Rebar, cinderblock, bricks, concrete and cement is all we can do anymore. The Koreans though build all sorts of things in stone, with traditional, high artistic craftsmanship, particularly in restoring ancient sites, but even rail stations are made with cut, polished granite. Lampposts and manhole covers, too, are works of art. I think this impulse towards beautiful artistic infrastructure is largely due in part to the widespread destruction of the Korean peninsula during the 1950-3 war, where few structures were left standing. South Korea is aggressively rebuilding its ancient cultural edifices using the traditional ways, and some of that restrained aesthetic, and a sense of needing public works worthy of Korea greatness, shows itself in how they design and build contemporary, secular public architecture. I think this is also due to there being less of a suspicion towards artists as we have in the U.S. as a result of the culture wars. Here art is still traditional and less threatening, whereas at home it has sometimes gone off the deep end, whether ideologically or in form, and made itself a target of conservative wrath. So it's easiest that we don't fund art anymore. And our stinginess toward public infrastructure (and any whiff of a tax increase, no matter how rich a tax bracket one may inhabit) just isn't shared by Koreans. They build, and they build beautifully.
