What's it like in Taiwan for the Chinese New Year?
A little underwhelming, frankly. What we didn't know coming from the West is that it is primarily a family holiday, that is celebrated behind closed doors, with meals and mahjong games. So while we were expecting fireworks and music and lion dances, most of the holiday has taken place away from our eyes. In this way, it more resembles our Christmas than it does Western New Year.
We waited up for fireworks on new year's eve, but didn't hear anything. The next day, and every day since, we've heard the occasional burst of firecrackers, but it turns out fireworks are banned in urban areas. We've waited for a municipal display, since that's what we do in the U.S. in areas where fireworks are banned, but no dice. We did see a very brief shower of fireworks in the reflection of a nearby building, so there's that. I heard drumming, but only on the first day.
The new year festival is six days long. Garbage trucks--which play a jingle, not unlike ice cream trucks back home--were out in force Friday, and weren't seen again until today, the fourth day. Most businesses remain shuttered, but most restaurants and grocery stores have stayed open, thankfully, albeit with abbreviated hours.
Some of the superstitions surrounding the new year are familiar to us in the West: cleaning house before the new year, paying all outstanding bills, and eating pork. Less familiar is avoiding cutting one's hair or nails on the new year, or using knives. I'm sure there are scores of others of which I am unaware.
What observances I have seen are chiefly decorations: most buildings have red vertical banners with calligraphy on both sides of the door, and also red silk lanterns, usually in multiples, more for smaller lanterns and fewer for larger ones. The lobby of our building has out bowls of oranges, and gold-colored "ingots" full of interesting Chinese candies. The traditional greeting is gong xi (gung shee), meaning "Congratulations," though I have been greeted with "Happy new year" in English, too. One gentleman working the lobby desk even gave me the traditional salute of the left hand wrapped over the right fist, which is a very sincere and touching gesture.
While taking out our compost, I saw a family using a brazier the building set up for residents to use, burning offerings of so-called "hell money" (seems like a pejorative term, but I don't know of an alternative term), imitation paper currency for the propitiation of ancestors. Also, later on, I walked past the temple around the corner, and it was fairly buzzing with people burning paper offerings (not only hell money but also origami ingots made from metallic paper) and incense. I half-suspect the fireworks we saw refected were set off at the temple.
So, while I still hear the occasional staccato pops of firecrackers (some went off just now), commercial life is picking up and the new year festivities seem to be ramping down, for the time being. The end of the new year season is the Lantern Festival, which takes place the 15th day after the new year (Feb. 11th this year), and we have some hope of seeing public festivities then.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
First days in Taichung
The other day Laura and I met up with an American coworker's husband and daughter who live in the building with us, and we went to see the National Museum of Natural Sciences, which is just at the end of the block. It fancies itself an international institution, but only some exhibits were bilingual.
I should say something about the language. The official language here is Mandarin Chinese, but the commonly spoken language is the Minnan dialect from the central coast of mainland China. Most people speak some English. Young, fashionable-looking people speak the best English. Older or downscale workers tend to speak less English.
Signage and product packaging is inconsistently bilingual. Luckily we have the Google Translate app on our phones, which can take a picture of text and somewhat translate it, and more reliably, it can listen and audibly translate. We used this facility at the grocery store, where we were able to talk to a stocking clerk to locate various items.
For the one or two of my readers who know and care about such things, where Chinese is written in English (mostly roadsigns), Taiwan is slowly transitioning from Wade-Giles romanization to Pinyin. Most roads have been renamed (our street is Guanqian, formerly Kuan-ch'ien) but cities are still rendered in Wade-Giles. So it's T'ai-pei (usually without the apostrophe and hyphen, Taipei), not Taibei, and Taichung/T'ai-ch'ung, not Taizhong. I'm fond of Wale-Giles for being old-fashioned, but it's really a mystifying system. I mean, how is it that Peking and Beijing are the same word?
The museum is very nice, and despite not being to read a lot of the displays, it was informative. The coworker's daughter is 5, and she eventually tuckered out, so there is still another wing or two we haven't explored. Which is fine, because the tickets are something ridiculous cheap, like 100元 (yuan, or New Taiwan Dollars, NTD/TWD), which is US$3. Also on the grounds are the botanical gardens, of which we saw a little, but there's a lot more we didn't.
When we left our friend, we wandered off to find a grocery store. Sidewalks are interesting features here. They tend to be extensions of the shop they're in front of, so you may find yourself stepping around tables or merchandise. The materials for sidewalks can vary with the storefront--cement, wood, tile, sometimes marble--and are often not level from store to store, so one has to continually watch their step in areas thick with shops. Also, sidewalks tend to be used as parking spots, so there's a lot of squeezing past parked cars and mopeds. Crosswalks are a little scary, as vehicles turning don't wait for pedestrians to finish crossing, but weave around them, particularly the mopeds.
For walking, the weather is lovely. It has been consistently in the low-70s during the day and mid-50s at night, sunny, and humidity around 60%. It's very much like California in the winter, after the rainy season is over.
We found our grocery store and while small, it had most of the items you would need, of course with the caveat that the packaging is occasionally a hermeneutical adventure. We ended up with mostly produce, since it is very obviously what it is. We got a dragonfruit, which is Laura's favorite, but red inside instead of white. Alarmingly, it can turn your pee red, but it's a harmless effect. We also got oranges, which are unusual in that they are somewhat smaller than American varieties, sweet, with a fine flesh and little membrane, a thin rind, and little pith.
This is a convenient spot to mention that trash in our building is sorted into paper and packaging waste, and organic matter. Packaging waste we can leave in trash cans on the landings in the service stairwell, but organic matter has to be brought down to the lobby and out a side door near the parking garage. So far fruit trimmings are the only thing we've had to discard separately. Most of what we eat at home is either packaged food or leftovers from dining out. Dining here is very cheap, and we of course don't have much in the way of cookware. Our microwave temporarily stopped working last night, and it was a moment of panic.
The night before, we went to a pizza place across the green from our apartment building with Laura's coworker and family. The pizza was very creditable, with a thin, chewy crust, nicely toasted. They served Sierra Nevada beer, which was a comfort to our companions. The staff were young, trendy people with a good handle on English.
Later, we went to the 7-Eleven around the corner, and passed a halal Indian restaurant. The owner or one of his employees saw us and invited us to dine, and we replied we would soon. I've said this elsewhere, but there is something comforting about encountering Indians abroad. Our cultures overlap, they speak English, and it's as good as meeting with a Briton or Canadian. It's one of the happy accidents of the often dubious legacy of the British Empire. When we were in Montréal and I was too tired to navigate the French-Canadian culture anymore that day, we went to an Indian restaurant and it was a very soothing, welcoming place to be.
We went back there last night for dinner, but did not see our proprietor friend. I had the tandoori tikka with onions and peppers, and Laura had butter chicken curry, and it was quite nice. The clientele was entirely Chinese, as was the woman serving us and working the register, though I glimpsed South-Asian men working in the back. But it does seem to be a place of meeting for whatever Muslim community is in Taichung (there's supposedly a pretty mosque somewhere around here), as the bulletin board is full of inspirational quotes and informational flyers for Muslim youth daycamps and charities.
The Chinese new year is fast approaching (Saturday), and can last the whole week, during which stores are closed or have reduced hours, and cabs are scarcer and charge higher fares. Already we're finding ATMs are emptied out, as one of the customs of the new year is to exchange red envelopes containing auspicious sums of money (800 or 1,000元, I'm told). So this afternoon we're going back to the Carrefour (where we can use a credit card) to stock up as best we can and hope for the best. Supposedly the greenway out front is the setting for a lot of organized new year festivities, so we're well-located to observe the goings-on. I hope to see a dragon costume, but who knows. There is probably a schedule posted somewhere, but I doubt it's in English. Nevertheless, photos (on Facebook) and text will follow.
I should say something about the language. The official language here is Mandarin Chinese, but the commonly spoken language is the Minnan dialect from the central coast of mainland China. Most people speak some English. Young, fashionable-looking people speak the best English. Older or downscale workers tend to speak less English.
Signage and product packaging is inconsistently bilingual. Luckily we have the Google Translate app on our phones, which can take a picture of text and somewhat translate it, and more reliably, it can listen and audibly translate. We used this facility at the grocery store, where we were able to talk to a stocking clerk to locate various items.
For the one or two of my readers who know and care about such things, where Chinese is written in English (mostly roadsigns), Taiwan is slowly transitioning from Wade-Giles romanization to Pinyin. Most roads have been renamed (our street is Guanqian, formerly Kuan-ch'ien) but cities are still rendered in Wade-Giles. So it's T'ai-pei (usually without the apostrophe and hyphen, Taipei), not Taibei, and Taichung/T'ai-ch'ung, not Taizhong. I'm fond of Wale-Giles for being old-fashioned, but it's really a mystifying system. I mean, how is it that Peking and Beijing are the same word?
The museum is very nice, and despite not being to read a lot of the displays, it was informative. The coworker's daughter is 5, and she eventually tuckered out, so there is still another wing or two we haven't explored. Which is fine, because the tickets are something ridiculous cheap, like 100元 (yuan, or New Taiwan Dollars, NTD/TWD), which is US$3. Also on the grounds are the botanical gardens, of which we saw a little, but there's a lot more we didn't.
When we left our friend, we wandered off to find a grocery store. Sidewalks are interesting features here. They tend to be extensions of the shop they're in front of, so you may find yourself stepping around tables or merchandise. The materials for sidewalks can vary with the storefront--cement, wood, tile, sometimes marble--and are often not level from store to store, so one has to continually watch their step in areas thick with shops. Also, sidewalks tend to be used as parking spots, so there's a lot of squeezing past parked cars and mopeds. Crosswalks are a little scary, as vehicles turning don't wait for pedestrians to finish crossing, but weave around them, particularly the mopeds.
For walking, the weather is lovely. It has been consistently in the low-70s during the day and mid-50s at night, sunny, and humidity around 60%. It's very much like California in the winter, after the rainy season is over.
We found our grocery store and while small, it had most of the items you would need, of course with the caveat that the packaging is occasionally a hermeneutical adventure. We ended up with mostly produce, since it is very obviously what it is. We got a dragonfruit, which is Laura's favorite, but red inside instead of white. Alarmingly, it can turn your pee red, but it's a harmless effect. We also got oranges, which are unusual in that they are somewhat smaller than American varieties, sweet, with a fine flesh and little membrane, a thin rind, and little pith.
This is a convenient spot to mention that trash in our building is sorted into paper and packaging waste, and organic matter. Packaging waste we can leave in trash cans on the landings in the service stairwell, but organic matter has to be brought down to the lobby and out a side door near the parking garage. So far fruit trimmings are the only thing we've had to discard separately. Most of what we eat at home is either packaged food or leftovers from dining out. Dining here is very cheap, and we of course don't have much in the way of cookware. Our microwave temporarily stopped working last night, and it was a moment of panic.
The night before, we went to a pizza place across the green from our apartment building with Laura's coworker and family. The pizza was very creditable, with a thin, chewy crust, nicely toasted. They served Sierra Nevada beer, which was a comfort to our companions. The staff were young, trendy people with a good handle on English.
Later, we went to the 7-Eleven around the corner, and passed a halal Indian restaurant. The owner or one of his employees saw us and invited us to dine, and we replied we would soon. I've said this elsewhere, but there is something comforting about encountering Indians abroad. Our cultures overlap, they speak English, and it's as good as meeting with a Briton or Canadian. It's one of the happy accidents of the often dubious legacy of the British Empire. When we were in Montréal and I was too tired to navigate the French-Canadian culture anymore that day, we went to an Indian restaurant and it was a very soothing, welcoming place to be.
We went back there last night for dinner, but did not see our proprietor friend. I had the tandoori tikka with onions and peppers, and Laura had butter chicken curry, and it was quite nice. The clientele was entirely Chinese, as was the woman serving us and working the register, though I glimpsed South-Asian men working in the back. But it does seem to be a place of meeting for whatever Muslim community is in Taichung (there's supposedly a pretty mosque somewhere around here), as the bulletin board is full of inspirational quotes and informational flyers for Muslim youth daycamps and charities.
The Chinese new year is fast approaching (Saturday), and can last the whole week, during which stores are closed or have reduced hours, and cabs are scarcer and charge higher fares. Already we're finding ATMs are emptied out, as one of the customs of the new year is to exchange red envelopes containing auspicious sums of money (800 or 1,000元, I'm told). So this afternoon we're going back to the Carrefour (where we can use a credit card) to stock up as best we can and hope for the best. Supposedly the greenway out front is the setting for a lot of organized new year festivities, so we're well-located to observe the goings-on. I hope to see a dragon costume, but who knows. There is probably a schedule posted somewhere, but I doubt it's in English. Nevertheless, photos (on Facebook) and text will follow.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Nihao from Taiwan
Since I haven't traveled abroad in a few years (apart from a long weekend in Montréal), I haven't made any posts to this blog, which is a dedicated blog for travel updates and observations. Well, the wait is over, as we're now in Taichung, Taiwan for the next three months.
Unlike the trip to Korea, this time I got to fly first class, which is the first time I've ever flown anything other than coach. There are various attractions and detractions to the experience:
- You generally do not have a lateral neighbor, with your "pod" taking up the entire side of the aisle, and the pods are staggered so no one is directly across from you.
- You get to recline, all the way flat if you like. This is obviously the biggest attraction, as flying 18 hours or whatever sitting straight up is frankly torturous and inhumane. It is not perfect, however, as the seats are still somewhat hard and covered in sweaty blue naugahyde, and I found it difficult to sleep.
- They feed you constantly. Really, it was a bit much. I'd go brush my teeth and put my Invisalign trays back in, and here comes the stewardess with another course. Please, spare a couple courses and send it back to the suffering souls in economy who are getting by on pretzels and maybe one dry sandwich halfway through.
- On the major leg, from Detroit to Narita, we had our own door and were on the upper deck, which is entirely first class. From Narita to Taipei, however, it's one big cabin, so they seat you, get you a glass of champagne, and they march the proles past on their way to the cattle pen in the back. I felt shame from deep down in my anarcho-communist soul.
- We had an opportunity to use the first class lounge at Narita. Apart from being able to recline, this was the other big attraction of having a first class ticket. There is plush furniture everywhere, a free buffet, free alcohol (I decided on a small tot of sake, to celebrate landing in the country of my near-birth), private restrooms and even showers. Hopefully one of our layovers on the way back will give me a longer opportunity to explore the lounge for other amenities I might not have noticed.
Customs at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport was fairly low-stress. The border control agent took my landing visa form, asked what I was visiting for, how long, and what sort of domicile I would be taking up. She took my photo and fingerprints and we were off to claim our baggage. If you have nothing to declare, you go through a turnstile labeled "Nothing to declare," and that's it--no forms or questions. We took out cash at an ATM, hopped on hotel shuttle, and check into our room.
The hotel was nice, but nothing exceptional. The breakfast was pretty good though, with Western, Chinese, and Japanese items. I recall eating pork belly stewed with cubes of tofu, rice, vegetarian fried noodles, a couple pieces of sushi, various forms of seaweed (some good, some bad), bamboo shoots in a pepper sauce (delightful), and then a tongful of bacon.
The hotel called us a cab, and we made the hour and 30-minute trip down to Taichung. The area between the airport (which itself is a distance away from Taipei) and Taichung is somewhat older and more industrial, but Taichung itself is comparatively newer and more prosperous.
We made it to our apartment building, the entrance of which is somewhat recessed and hidden, and were stunned when we entered the lobby and found marble floors, marble columns, great glass skylights, and a garden atrium. Also a desk with an attendant, and various red festoonery for the looming Chinese New Year.
We met with the relocation agent and landlord. She was nice, but he seemed a little intense. He was also strangely dressed like a teenager, despite being easily in his 40s, maybe 50s. His baseball hat had a flat brim and "Hi haters" embroidered in script. He went through the apartment in great detail, explaining the use of every gadget, knob, and lever, noting any preexisting dents or stains or scratches (for our benefit; he already had photos of everything), and then walking us through a packet of diagrams of various appliances and remote controls over-labeled in English. I can now operate the TV, but everything else I just punch buttons randomly until I get the desired result.
Undoubtedly you've seen photos and video on Facebook, but to describe the apartment, it's on the top floor (the landlord called it a penthouse, with some evident satisfaction), the 27th, and the apartment itself is two floors. It's decorated in what I would call a sleek Asian modern style, with a lot of wood and straight lines and all the furniture somewhat low to the floor. There is cabinetry everywhere, far more storage than we would need even at home. In fact, the whole place is 1,600 sq. ft., which is 200 more than our house in Indiana and 600 more than where we're renting in Corning. I'm a little confused, as it has three full baths, but only 1.5 bedrooms (the office has a guest bed). I'm thinking the layout was probably designed for a couple with a single child, or none. Since the light switches for the guest room can only be gotten at by climbing across the bed, it seems like the bed may not have been part of the original vision.
While furnished, the place has no linens for the beds, kitchenwares, trash baskets, clothes hangers, etc., so we headed off to the nearby Ikea. I have never been to one before, but it seems like a stressful place. Of course, I had already had a busy day and it was on a Saturday afternoon in a densely populated city. What we didn't pick up at the Ikea we got the next day at the Carrefour. Carrefour is quite nice and exhaustively stocked, but nothing terribly unusual about their wares, except that the Taiwanese seem to prefer flat, folded toilet paper to the kind on a roll we're used to. Nevertheless, you can get the stuff on a roll for a slight premium.
In general, Taichung is very clean and very modern, and apart from Chinese signage, would look like any other place in the developed world. Probably newer, even, with an emphasis on landscaping that I, as a Californian living in New York, miss and appreciate. However, as with city traffic in Korea, you're best to watch yourself in the crosswalk and be sure to buckle up in the taxi. On the highways, the cabbies still speed, but they're less casual with traffic rules. In the city, though, anything goes. Make a yewy mid-block in front of a traffic cop, who cares. Our cabbie did that, and even waved to the cop, who waved back.
We've been by taxi much of the time, and these are pretty easy to catch. You can get the desk attendant to call you one, and tell them ahead of time where you're going, and they'll also write down instructions in Chinese for the driver. When you're ready to go home, go to the nearest busy corner and stick out your hand. Hand them your card with the address in Chinese, and it's done, easy as that. Like in many countries, payment is exact and any attempt to tip the driver is a source of confusion.
A quick note on the Taiwanese character: everyone so far has been friendly and quietly deferential. In this they remind me more of the Japanese than the Koreans, having a concept of face (mian) and harmony (huh ping). Which is not to say that I dislike Koreans, just that they can be a little prickly and rough around the edges in random interactions. The same could be said of the Scots, I might add. The only thing approaching rudeness I've encountered here was an indifferent convenience store clerk. But the convenience store itself was indifferent, too.
What have we eaten since we got here? We first were taken to lunch by a group of company expats to a place called the Gordon Biersch, which is a chain outfit that's supposed to be like a German brauhof, but apart from the beer is fairly standard American chain restaurant fare. Dinner was my choice, so we went to a dim sum place across from our building, which was very excellent and very cheap. The staff spoke no English but did have an English menu available to point at. And then yesterday for lunch we went to a place called Mr. Onion, which is kinda like a steakhouse but more like an Asian impression of a steakhouse. My filet of chicken was pretty much tonkatsu with a sweet-and-sour sauce. Not advertised as such. I ordered plum-and-lime juice, which is a little weird but also refreshing.
Dinner last night was instant noodles. Lunch today will be instant noodles, too. But then I'm thinking I might go outside to explore the block and, if this doesn't tucker me out (doing anything in a very foreign, non-English-speaking country is a double-effort), I might visit the national museum of natural sciences which is across the green on the next block up.
More in a day or two.
Friday, July 18, 2014
The day to eat the chicken--Laura's post
So, this Friday was a holiday celebrated in South Korea. Asking my coworkers for more details, I found that Friday was "The day to eat the chicken".
Picture of samgyetang on Wikipedia
Two of the three lunch items in the cafeteria were chicken in broth, and the third appeared to be sliced roasted duck. One chicken in broth was a small whole chicken in a soup, and the other was a full chicken leg in a soup. Lunch was very well attended, with festive colored signs everywhere (presumably saying something about the holiday).
"The day to eat the chicken" wasn't enough information for me, so I scoured the internet for more details. Three hottest days of summer are identified according to the lunar calendar, and celebrated as holidays to mark the passing of summer. These are the sambok days: chobok(beginning), jungbok (middle), and malbok (last), and there's 10 days between each holiday. On these days, Koreans celebrate by eating full nutritious meals, served piping hot, to give them strength in the summer heat.
I had one of the most popular nutritious meals, samgyetang, a ginseng-chicken soup*. It was reminiscent of our typical american chicken soup, with a few differences. The chicken leg was still on the bone, with no meat separated out into the soup. The broth contained green onions and rice, and was very flavorful, but without salt. Instead, a pile of mixed salt and pepper was served alongside for the diner to add as desired. The usual panoply of sauces and accompaniments came with this soup, and today they were kimchi, pickled daikon, mung bean pancakes with tentacles (octopus? squid?), white rice, sesame oil with salt, korean miso, and fresh zucchini.
I've been doing more than my fair share of sweating since I came to South Korea, both in and out of work, and perhaps samgyetang had been just what I was missing. I certainly found it delicious and refreshing, and I only wish I'd be here to enjoy the rest of the sambok days.
Still, I think we'll be able to get in a few more adventures before we head back to the states next week. Tomorrow we plan to head in to Seoul again, to see the main traditional market in Insadong. I'll be on the lookout for interesting pottery, and plan to enjoy tea in a few of the many teahouses there.
*The internet also suggests that sambok days are when it's traditional to eat dog for it's nutritional value. They did not appear to be serving it at the work cafeteria, and I think the tradition has mostly fallen out of favor. I have seen a lot of pet stores here with some adorable little critters, and several Koreans toting their dogs around in baby carriages. To me, this suggests that dogs are falling squarely into the pet category these days.
Picture of samgyetang on Wikipedia
Two of the three lunch items in the cafeteria were chicken in broth, and the third appeared to be sliced roasted duck. One chicken in broth was a small whole chicken in a soup, and the other was a full chicken leg in a soup. Lunch was very well attended, with festive colored signs everywhere (presumably saying something about the holiday).
"The day to eat the chicken" wasn't enough information for me, so I scoured the internet for more details. Three hottest days of summer are identified according to the lunar calendar, and celebrated as holidays to mark the passing of summer. These are the sambok days: chobok(beginning), jungbok (middle), and malbok (last), and there's 10 days between each holiday. On these days, Koreans celebrate by eating full nutritious meals, served piping hot, to give them strength in the summer heat.
I had one of the most popular nutritious meals, samgyetang, a ginseng-chicken soup*. It was reminiscent of our typical american chicken soup, with a few differences. The chicken leg was still on the bone, with no meat separated out into the soup. The broth contained green onions and rice, and was very flavorful, but without salt. Instead, a pile of mixed salt and pepper was served alongside for the diner to add as desired. The usual panoply of sauces and accompaniments came with this soup, and today they were kimchi, pickled daikon, mung bean pancakes with tentacles (octopus? squid?), white rice, sesame oil with salt, korean miso, and fresh zucchini.
I've been doing more than my fair share of sweating since I came to South Korea, both in and out of work, and perhaps samgyetang had been just what I was missing. I certainly found it delicious and refreshing, and I only wish I'd be here to enjoy the rest of the sambok days.
Still, I think we'll be able to get in a few more adventures before we head back to the states next week. Tomorrow we plan to head in to Seoul again, to see the main traditional market in Insadong. I'll be on the lookout for interesting pottery, and plan to enjoy tea in a few of the many teahouses there.
*The internet also suggests that sambok days are when it's traditional to eat dog for it's nutritional value. They did not appear to be serving it at the work cafeteria, and I think the tradition has mostly fallen out of favor. I have seen a lot of pet stores here with some adorable little critters, and several Koreans toting their dogs around in baby carriages. To me, this suggests that dogs are falling squarely into the pet category these days.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Panmunjeom, City of Brotherly Love
As explained in another post about the DMZ, the cease-fire line between the two Koreas zig-zags the 38th parallel (38°N), and on either side there is a 2km-wide "demilitarized" no-man's land. Each side maintains a civilian farming village in the DMZ for propaganda purposes--the South village agriculturally productive, the North village mostly for show--and the former village of Panmunjeom, site of the "Joint Security Area" (JSA), where both militaries literally stare each other down on either side of a row of three one-room conference buildings, each of which are smaller than the portable classroom you might have had 7th grade health class in.
Starting out at 5:30 in the morning, I took at cab to the rail station, got the 6:25 train to Seoul, and arrived a bit past 7. I then took the subway one stop to City Hall, then slowly found my way to the Lotte Hotel for the 8:30 tour. From here you board a bus with assigned seats, and are taken to Camp Bonifas, a United Nations Command base just outside the DMZ. Though it is a UN base, with the flags of 16 countries flying, I only saw ROK army personal plus a couple U.S. soldiers. We were assigned a minder in the person of an ROK soldier and given bright yellow badges identifying us as UN guests.
At a visitor center set up at Camp Bonifas, we were given an historical briefing, including details of the Axe Murder Incident (1976), in which a U.S. army captain named Arthur Bonifas was killed, hence the name of the base, and the Soviet Defector Incident (1984), in which a Soviet citizen fled across the border into the South, pursued by KPA soldiers who then holed up in a sunken garden bed and engaged in a 20-minute firefight with UN forces. The point being, I think, that violent incidents can and do suddenly start without warning. They then made us sign waivers of liability holding the UN, U.S., and ROK blameless in the event of our injury or death in the even of enemy action.
We then boarded another bus bearing UN placards, told to sit in the same seats we had on the civilian tour bus, and headed into the DMZ, winding down an empty road, surrounded by foliage on all sides. Quite suddenly we were in Panmunjeom, dominated by the Freedom House, an impressive new structure ostensibly for the Red Cross to host cross-border family reunion, should they ever be allowed, but mostly, I suspect, as a way to stare down the DPRK's equivalent structure, Panmungak, in similar fashion to the "flagpole wars," where North and South built successively taller flagpoles (phallic substitutes), the North finally topping out at 160m with a 300kg flag, beating the South's puny 100m/150kg.
We were then ushered out of the bus and into the Freedom House, where we waited several minutes for the all-clear to proceed into one of the conference buildings. Since the Axe Murder Incident (more below), UN and KPA personnel have been absolutely separated, with the only jointly held territory now limited to the conference rooms which straddle the border. So only after verifying the buildings were empty were we allowed in them.
The buildings inside and out are a garish, unhealthy shade of UN blue. Inside is no bigger than double our hotel room, and considerably smaller than a portable classroom, as I've said. It consists of a door south, a door north, two observation rooms with one-way glass on each end, a conference table straddling the border, and two others, each by one door or the other. Inside are two impossibly still ROK MPs, in M1 steel helmets and aviator glasses, in a taekwondo ready pose, one at the head of the main table, the other by the DPRK door. As was explained to us, these are the cream of the ROK army. They have to be a certain height, good-looking, practice judo or taekwondo, and have a perfectly clean security background--even having divorced parents is disqualifying for service in the JSA. All this is meant to be psychological warfare against the KPA.
We were then allowed to mill about the room, the only instruction being we weren't allowed to take any photos looking south, only towards the North. This was the only time we were actually, technically in North Korea, and not by much more than 12 feet, at most. After a few minutes we were ushered back outside to stand on the steps of the Freedom House to take photos of the North Koreans (of which there weren't any in sight) and Panmungak. The minder walked back and forth making sure we stood in a single line on a single step, though after a while we sorta began to mill a bit on the step to get better photos this way or that.
It was then, quietly, that two KPA guards appeared on balconies of two buildings bookending Panmungak. Then out of Panmungak came soldiers who marched up to the border (marked by a low concrete step between the conference buildings) and took their positions opposite the ROK guards. The ROK guards, as previously described, stand in their martial arts poses, two with the bodies half exposed by the corners of the buildings, one standing fully exposed in the center. Three KPA guards, meanwhile, are positioned so that two face each other right next to the concrete step, and a third faces Panmungak, with his back to the South. While this can be explained symbolically, the practical reason suggested by our tour guide is that this allows the third soldier to intercept any defectors who decided to make a dash for the South, as happened in the 1984 incident. The KPA guards were wearing short-sleeved summer uniforms, like their ROKA counterparts, the first year our tour guide has seen them wearing a different uniform between cold and warm weather, and ballistic helmets in a PASGT shape, which the tour guide said appeared a couple years ago, replacing the more familiar, and formal, peaked cap. The reason for the appearance of the KPA soldiers became evident when a large tour group--composed entirely of Westerners to look at them--appeared on the balcony of Panmungak to take pictures of us. I felt strange for not feeling like I was in any particular danger, and for enjoying the peace and quiet of the place. But it was also a strange feeling to know there were other Americans and Europeans on the other side--us on the steps of the Freedom House, them on the terrace of Panmungak--maybe 200m apart, and we couldn't even wave to each other because of this artificial, man-made separation in front of us. Maybe that's how Koreans on both sides feel all the time.
I was asked on Facebook if the North looks any different: in Panmunjeom, not really. The northern buildings are older than the Freedom House, but then so too are a lot of the UN buildings. The North has a clean-swept but slightly weathered look, and the brutalist look of Panmungak is dated, in the same way a lot of mid-century SUNY campus buildings are back home. From the Dora Observatory, one can see over the other side of the DMZ, which looks a bit more built-up than the ROK side, but largely deserted. If one travels back down the highway along the Imjin River towards Seoul, on less hazy days you can see North Korean hills which have been clear-cut for fuel for heating and cooking.
Here's a link to another blog whose author traveled through North Korea and saw Panmunjeom from the other side of the border: http://www.lindsayfincher.com/category/asia/north-korea
When our minder figured we'd seen enough, we were ushered back into the bus and returned to Camp Bonifas. Along the way we saw the "Bridge of no return," where POWs were exchanged in 1953, as well as Checkpoint Three, site of the 1976 Axe Murder Incident. Prior to 1976, the whole of the JSA was jointly controlled by both sides, with KPA and UN soldiers in physical proximity, and buildings mixed together. A situation occurred where a poplar tree had come to obscure CP3 from Observation post 5, the nearest UN post. Meanwhile the KPA had erected three posts around CP3, creating what was called the "Loneliest outpost in the world." UN Command then decided to cut down the poplar to restore the line of sight between CP3 and OP5. A squad of men, including U.S. Army captain Arthur Bonifas and 1LT Mark Barrett, came out to cut the tree down. A KPA officer told them to stop, and when they ignored him, the KPA seized their axes and hatcheted the officers to death, wounding the rest of the squad save one. A couple days later, the USS Midway had been moved close to shore, and the UN responded with "Operation Paul Bunyan," where 60 armed men, 30 vehicles, attack helicopters, and even F-4 Phantom and B-52 Stratofortress overflights. The UN soldiers, this time armed with chainsaws, took the tree down while the KPA watched silently from a distance, then departed. Ultimately the JSA was divided into security areas with a strict division, and Kim Il-sung issuing a statement of "regret." The KPA outposts on the UN side were then dismantled.
At Camp Bonifas we had time to go to bathroom (under CCTV surveillance, signs told us) and visit the gift shop. I ended up with a set of DPRK banknotes and coins, the banknotes being former issue but the coins being in present circulations, and a pair of carved Korean wedding ducks. These are traditionally given at a wedding, with ribbons tied around the beaks to remind the couple that silence is a virtue. They're then displayed prominently in the home, beak-to-beak to show the couple isn't quarreling, and then they're given to the couple's eldest daughter on her wedding day, and passed down that way. After that we were taken for lunch at a Korean place in Paju and served bulgogi, where I had a chance to chat with my seatmate on the bus, an Austrian kid backpacking his way around Asia. Is it true few Americans have passports, he asked. Is it true most Americans don't speak any language besides English? True and true, I said. About a third have passports, and a quarter speak two or more languages. Which, I noted, has implications for the American worldview and foreign policy.
On the way back to Seoul, we had the chance to chat with a North Korean defector, with the tour guide as a translator. She had left the North some few years back, taking her family with her. She paid off a border guard at the Yalu River, and they snuck across the frozen river at night, and then a network of smugglers transported them to Thailand, where the ROK maintains a refugee camp for defectors. She said most escapees never make it that far, either being shot by border troops, drowning in the Yalu, or being arrested by the Chinese and repatriated to North Korea, where they are most certainly executed. The one family member she left behind was her husband, she didn't say why, but presumably he was loyal to the regime, or she didn't much care for him, or both. A cousin with a telephone later told her that her husband had been subsequently arrested, held for 10 days, then released when the police were satisfied he didn't have prior knowledge of the defection. She had kept it a secret from him for three years.
The answer to the question of "why" was the mass starvations in the 1990s. When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, the government shut down for a month and food wasn't distributed. Then as the '90s wore on, food shortages became full-on famines, where even the army was only getting 700kcal a day. She said they'd send around a wagon twice a day, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., to collect the dead. North Koreans remain genuinely fond of Kim Il-sung, but have no confidence or respect for his son or grandson, and are obedient only out of fear. There is about 30 percent of the population she says that is privileged at the expense of the rest, and these are the ones in the government and army hierarchies, and these are the ones propping up the regime. The rest of the population is sick to death of it, often literally, but is paralyzed with fear.
On this cheery note, we were dropped off at the Lotte Hotel again. The tour guide asked me if I thought Panmunjeom was scarier than the Third Tunnel of Aggression, and to her surprise I said no. "There's nowhere to run in a tunnel. At least in Panmunjeom, I have the illusion I could run for cover and hide."
After this I walked up the street to try seeing the Anglican cathedral again. It was "meh," much more interesting from the outside than the inside. The woman at the door strangely, for an Anglican, spoke no English, but somehow I convinced her to show me the crypt chapel, where a magnificent memorial brass covers the body of a former bishop. She then showed me a picture of their bishop meeting Queen Elizabeth II in Seoul in 1999, of which she was obviously very proud. I headed back outside to catch the metro back to Seoul Station and the KTX to Cheonan-Asan and home. I saw a gaggle of clergy in collars in the parking lot, smoking like the iron hinges of hades. I asked if they were the cathedral chapter, and they gave me the most profoundly blank look. None of them spoke English. Anglicans, in the Korean city with the most and best English-speaking Koreans, right next to the British Embassy, and not one of them speaks English. It was a strange feeling to cap a day of strange feelings.
Starting out at 5:30 in the morning, I took at cab to the rail station, got the 6:25 train to Seoul, and arrived a bit past 7. I then took the subway one stop to City Hall, then slowly found my way to the Lotte Hotel for the 8:30 tour. From here you board a bus with assigned seats, and are taken to Camp Bonifas, a United Nations Command base just outside the DMZ. Though it is a UN base, with the flags of 16 countries flying, I only saw ROK army personal plus a couple U.S. soldiers. We were assigned a minder in the person of an ROK soldier and given bright yellow badges identifying us as UN guests.
At a visitor center set up at Camp Bonifas, we were given an historical briefing, including details of the Axe Murder Incident (1976), in which a U.S. army captain named Arthur Bonifas was killed, hence the name of the base, and the Soviet Defector Incident (1984), in which a Soviet citizen fled across the border into the South, pursued by KPA soldiers who then holed up in a sunken garden bed and engaged in a 20-minute firefight with UN forces. The point being, I think, that violent incidents can and do suddenly start without warning. They then made us sign waivers of liability holding the UN, U.S., and ROK blameless in the event of our injury or death in the even of enemy action.
We then boarded another bus bearing UN placards, told to sit in the same seats we had on the civilian tour bus, and headed into the DMZ, winding down an empty road, surrounded by foliage on all sides. Quite suddenly we were in Panmunjeom, dominated by the Freedom House, an impressive new structure ostensibly for the Red Cross to host cross-border family reunion, should they ever be allowed, but mostly, I suspect, as a way to stare down the DPRK's equivalent structure, Panmungak, in similar fashion to the "flagpole wars," where North and South built successively taller flagpoles (phallic substitutes), the North finally topping out at 160m with a 300kg flag, beating the South's puny 100m/150kg.
We were then ushered out of the bus and into the Freedom House, where we waited several minutes for the all-clear to proceed into one of the conference buildings. Since the Axe Murder Incident (more below), UN and KPA personnel have been absolutely separated, with the only jointly held territory now limited to the conference rooms which straddle the border. So only after verifying the buildings were empty were we allowed in them.
The buildings inside and out are a garish, unhealthy shade of UN blue. Inside is no bigger than double our hotel room, and considerably smaller than a portable classroom, as I've said. It consists of a door south, a door north, two observation rooms with one-way glass on each end, a conference table straddling the border, and two others, each by one door or the other. Inside are two impossibly still ROK MPs, in M1 steel helmets and aviator glasses, in a taekwondo ready pose, one at the head of the main table, the other by the DPRK door. As was explained to us, these are the cream of the ROK army. They have to be a certain height, good-looking, practice judo or taekwondo, and have a perfectly clean security background--even having divorced parents is disqualifying for service in the JSA. All this is meant to be psychological warfare against the KPA.
We were then allowed to mill about the room, the only instruction being we weren't allowed to take any photos looking south, only towards the North. This was the only time we were actually, technically in North Korea, and not by much more than 12 feet, at most. After a few minutes we were ushered back outside to stand on the steps of the Freedom House to take photos of the North Koreans (of which there weren't any in sight) and Panmungak. The minder walked back and forth making sure we stood in a single line on a single step, though after a while we sorta began to mill a bit on the step to get better photos this way or that.
It was then, quietly, that two KPA guards appeared on balconies of two buildings bookending Panmungak. Then out of Panmungak came soldiers who marched up to the border (marked by a low concrete step between the conference buildings) and took their positions opposite the ROK guards. The ROK guards, as previously described, stand in their martial arts poses, two with the bodies half exposed by the corners of the buildings, one standing fully exposed in the center. Three KPA guards, meanwhile, are positioned so that two face each other right next to the concrete step, and a third faces Panmungak, with his back to the South. While this can be explained symbolically, the practical reason suggested by our tour guide is that this allows the third soldier to intercept any defectors who decided to make a dash for the South, as happened in the 1984 incident. The KPA guards were wearing short-sleeved summer uniforms, like their ROKA counterparts, the first year our tour guide has seen them wearing a different uniform between cold and warm weather, and ballistic helmets in a PASGT shape, which the tour guide said appeared a couple years ago, replacing the more familiar, and formal, peaked cap. The reason for the appearance of the KPA soldiers became evident when a large tour group--composed entirely of Westerners to look at them--appeared on the balcony of Panmungak to take pictures of us. I felt strange for not feeling like I was in any particular danger, and for enjoying the peace and quiet of the place. But it was also a strange feeling to know there were other Americans and Europeans on the other side--us on the steps of the Freedom House, them on the terrace of Panmungak--maybe 200m apart, and we couldn't even wave to each other because of this artificial, man-made separation in front of us. Maybe that's how Koreans on both sides feel all the time.
I was asked on Facebook if the North looks any different: in Panmunjeom, not really. The northern buildings are older than the Freedom House, but then so too are a lot of the UN buildings. The North has a clean-swept but slightly weathered look, and the brutalist look of Panmungak is dated, in the same way a lot of mid-century SUNY campus buildings are back home. From the Dora Observatory, one can see over the other side of the DMZ, which looks a bit more built-up than the ROK side, but largely deserted. If one travels back down the highway along the Imjin River towards Seoul, on less hazy days you can see North Korean hills which have been clear-cut for fuel for heating and cooking.
Here's a link to another blog whose author traveled through North Korea and saw Panmunjeom from the other side of the border: http://www.lindsayfincher.com/category/asia/north-korea
When our minder figured we'd seen enough, we were ushered back into the bus and returned to Camp Bonifas. Along the way we saw the "Bridge of no return," where POWs were exchanged in 1953, as well as Checkpoint Three, site of the 1976 Axe Murder Incident. Prior to 1976, the whole of the JSA was jointly controlled by both sides, with KPA and UN soldiers in physical proximity, and buildings mixed together. A situation occurred where a poplar tree had come to obscure CP3 from Observation post 5, the nearest UN post. Meanwhile the KPA had erected three posts around CP3, creating what was called the "Loneliest outpost in the world." UN Command then decided to cut down the poplar to restore the line of sight between CP3 and OP5. A squad of men, including U.S. Army captain Arthur Bonifas and 1LT Mark Barrett, came out to cut the tree down. A KPA officer told them to stop, and when they ignored him, the KPA seized their axes and hatcheted the officers to death, wounding the rest of the squad save one. A couple days later, the USS Midway had been moved close to shore, and the UN responded with "Operation Paul Bunyan," where 60 armed men, 30 vehicles, attack helicopters, and even F-4 Phantom and B-52 Stratofortress overflights. The UN soldiers, this time armed with chainsaws, took the tree down while the KPA watched silently from a distance, then departed. Ultimately the JSA was divided into security areas with a strict division, and Kim Il-sung issuing a statement of "regret." The KPA outposts on the UN side were then dismantled.
At Camp Bonifas we had time to go to bathroom (under CCTV surveillance, signs told us) and visit the gift shop. I ended up with a set of DPRK banknotes and coins, the banknotes being former issue but the coins being in present circulations, and a pair of carved Korean wedding ducks. These are traditionally given at a wedding, with ribbons tied around the beaks to remind the couple that silence is a virtue. They're then displayed prominently in the home, beak-to-beak to show the couple isn't quarreling, and then they're given to the couple's eldest daughter on her wedding day, and passed down that way. After that we were taken for lunch at a Korean place in Paju and served bulgogi, where I had a chance to chat with my seatmate on the bus, an Austrian kid backpacking his way around Asia. Is it true few Americans have passports, he asked. Is it true most Americans don't speak any language besides English? True and true, I said. About a third have passports, and a quarter speak two or more languages. Which, I noted, has implications for the American worldview and foreign policy.
On the way back to Seoul, we had the chance to chat with a North Korean defector, with the tour guide as a translator. She had left the North some few years back, taking her family with her. She paid off a border guard at the Yalu River, and they snuck across the frozen river at night, and then a network of smugglers transported them to Thailand, where the ROK maintains a refugee camp for defectors. She said most escapees never make it that far, either being shot by border troops, drowning in the Yalu, or being arrested by the Chinese and repatriated to North Korea, where they are most certainly executed. The one family member she left behind was her husband, she didn't say why, but presumably he was loyal to the regime, or she didn't much care for him, or both. A cousin with a telephone later told her that her husband had been subsequently arrested, held for 10 days, then released when the police were satisfied he didn't have prior knowledge of the defection. She had kept it a secret from him for three years.
The answer to the question of "why" was the mass starvations in the 1990s. When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, the government shut down for a month and food wasn't distributed. Then as the '90s wore on, food shortages became full-on famines, where even the army was only getting 700kcal a day. She said they'd send around a wagon twice a day, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., to collect the dead. North Koreans remain genuinely fond of Kim Il-sung, but have no confidence or respect for his son or grandson, and are obedient only out of fear. There is about 30 percent of the population she says that is privileged at the expense of the rest, and these are the ones in the government and army hierarchies, and these are the ones propping up the regime. The rest of the population is sick to death of it, often literally, but is paralyzed with fear.
On this cheery note, we were dropped off at the Lotte Hotel again. The tour guide asked me if I thought Panmunjeom was scarier than the Third Tunnel of Aggression, and to her surprise I said no. "There's nowhere to run in a tunnel. At least in Panmunjeom, I have the illusion I could run for cover and hide."
After this I walked up the street to try seeing the Anglican cathedral again. It was "meh," much more interesting from the outside than the inside. The woman at the door strangely, for an Anglican, spoke no English, but somehow I convinced her to show me the crypt chapel, where a magnificent memorial brass covers the body of a former bishop. She then showed me a picture of their bishop meeting Queen Elizabeth II in Seoul in 1999, of which she was obviously very proud. I headed back outside to catch the metro back to Seoul Station and the KTX to Cheonan-Asan and home. I saw a gaggle of clergy in collars in the parking lot, smoking like the iron hinges of hades. I asked if they were the cathedral chapter, and they gave me the most profoundly blank look. None of them spoke English. Anglicans, in the Korean city with the most and best English-speaking Koreans, right next to the British Embassy, and not one of them speaks English. It was a strange feeling to cap a day of strange feelings.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Lakeside park, Seoul palaces, and shopping trip to Cheonan
On Thursday Laura and I walked to the fabled lake south of Asan, about 3 or 4km from the hotel. There we found a very nice view of the lake, together with a model of a turtle ship, various trellises, arbors, boardwalks, exercise equipment, sculptures, and even a petting zoo (goats, sheep, rabbits) along the 1.5km path circling the lake. What we never got to was the actual lake, though we only did about a third of the way around and back. It was always 50 feet away or more. But if we weren't allowed to go up to the lake, then why? A protected source of drinking water for the city? Fear of Communist saboteurs? Or was it all industrial runoff that would melt our feet off ere we'd waded in half a foot?
In any event, by the time we got back to the entrance, we were very warm, as it was supposed to be 33°C that day. Nevertheless, we saw on our map there was supposed to be a monument to Admiral Yi Sun-shin across the street, so we stopped for a breather in the shade before continuing on to see the giant bronze statue in front of a huge carved granite tableau of one of his many famous battles. We then set off back to the hotel, thoroughly wilted with heat and humidity, though it was only noon.
Saturday we caught the KTX to Seoul, then took the one hop on the metro to City Hall. We first saw Sungnyemun, the South Gate, a monumental roofed gate in an ancient city wall that no longer exists. It seems as though the Japanese destroyed it, but the Koreans duly rebuilt it after they left. As this was by the famous Namdaemun Market, we decided to stroll through there. There wasn't much of interest, mostly clothing which we knew would never fit our typically American physiques. We did see boiled silkworm larvae, which we had heard about but wondered if we'd see any. I am told the smell is disgusting, but luckily the wind wasn't blowing in our direction. From here we hoofed it back in the direction of the metro stop and the palaces. Along the way we stopped at the Bank of Korea Museum, which has information on production, circulation, withdrawal, and destruction of money, as well as various specimens from around the world.
From here we walked to Deoksugung, the Western Palace, across from City Hall. We saw the changing of the guard, who are good at drilling, and have neat period costumes, but are in fact not guards so much as reenactors. The palace itself is a collection of mid- to late Joseon buildings, famous for being the refuge of King Seonjo during the Japanese invasions of the 16th-17th centuries, and the gilded prison of King Gojong at the hands of the Japanese in the 20th--most of which have been destroyed or rebuilt. I have seen a lot of traditional Korean architecture at this point, and I have to admit it's blurring together a bit. Invariably, all these buildings are constructed the same way, varying little except in dimensions and ornamental painting. They all have a similar story, too: Koreans build them, the Japanese burn them down, the Koreans rebuild them, the Japanese pull them down and build other stuff, the Koreans pull down the Japanese stuff and rebuild their own earlier stuff. Deoksugung Palace is also home of the national contemporary art museum, so we took a stroll in there, as well, before heading off to the great main palace, Gyeonbokgung.
Gyeonbokgung Palace is at the end of a great boulevard with a mall in the center. Along one side of the boulevard is the American Embassy, which, in contrast to the British Embassy (which we'd seen earlier) with its lone, sleepy security guard, is heavily fortified by a tall fence topped with razor wire and a policeman every so many feet. This also explained the score of police buses parked down the boulevard, with riot shields lined up against them. It seems that anti-American sentiment is waxing in South Korea, and anytime protesters want to make a big fuss, they target the U.S. Embassy. Judging how comparatively ignored their embassy is, I think the British got out of the empire-building business at the right time.
Along the boulevard mall are monumental statues, first to Admiral Yi, and then to King Sejong the Great, inventor (or patron of the inventors) of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. At the end of the mall is Gyeonbokgung, the main palace, torn down to build the Japanese colonial governor's headquarters, itself torn down to put the old palace back up. The gate is again guarded by impressively costumed but fake guards with blunt halberds. There's not much to say about it, in that it looks like the other palace, only scaled up, and unlike Deoksugung, it is overly crowded without intimate access to any of the buildings. Both buildings contain no artifacts, furnishings, etc., to show what the buildings looked like in use. The landscaping was better at Gyeonbokgung, however, with several ponds packed with fish and waterlilies, and it sits propitiously with its back to picturesque Bugaksan Mountain to the north, and somewhere unseen to the south, the Hangang River.
Headed back towards the metro, we were subjected to the bullhorn rantings of Korean evangelicals, threatening passersby with hell if they didn't convert. Their vinyl banner said as much, reading "Repent, Jesus = heaven, no belief = hell." I can't stand this shit at home, still less abroad. Koreans famously converted themselves to Christianity (at least the third of the country that is Christian--a third is Buddhist and the rest irreligious), but Americans have been dumping money and missions into Korea for the last 60 years, and have succeeded in establishing here the most fanatical, obnoxious variety of Christianity we have to offer. Of course, what's unfortunate is the reaction to Soviet imperialism is American and Christian imperialism. Your only alternative to imperialism in Korea is another flavor of imperialism. Maybe it's Buddhism that's the third way here, but even that was imported from abroad, only somewhat longer ago.
We had a hearty Japanese dinner at Seoul Station, then headed home on the KTX.
The next day Laura had it in mind to do some shopping in Cheonan, the next big town over from Asan. We took the metro from Asan, and here I clearly noticed a phenomenon I'd only peripherally noticed before: Korean women, largely older ones, avoiding sitting next to me on public conveyances. One woman sat down next to me because there were no other seats, then promptly moved to the other side when another seat opened up; a second woman sat next to me, and when the other seat next to her opened up, she scooted into it. Also next to a man, but at least the other man was Korean. Coming out of the metro, we had to slip past some earnest evangelical cultists pressing literature on exiting passengers. Thus, we'd hardly arrived at Cheonan, and already the trip was soured.
Having come out the station on the less attractive side (quite literally the wrong side of the tracks), with no map and only the occasional wifi signal, we stumped north up a long street, then headed east again, since the market she wanted to visit was northeast of the metro station. I declared the town a dump and grimly pressed on, while Laura was becoming a bit unraveled by the roughness of her environs. I reassured her there was little violent crime in South Korea, with scant success. Crossing back over the tracks, we found ourselves in an appreciably better neighborhood, and after a bit of guesswork and backtracking, at last came to our destination, a shopping mall thick with human beings to an extent reminiscent of Guinness bee-beards. Now it was my turn to be freaked out, since I like no space to contain more than one or two of the species.
We repaired to a Pizza Hut, since we were hungry, it was air conditioned (remember, it's 90 degrees here, with 90 percent humidity and no breezes, every day), relatively quiet, and we were curious about how the chain's offerings differed here. They are in fact quite different, and we ordered a bulgogi and garlic clove pizza, pointing to a picture the menu, as it was entirely in Korean and English is less frequently spoken in Cheonan, hoping against hope it was indeed beef and not grilled squid or the like. Despite the unorthodox toppings, it was in fact better than any Pizza Hut I've suffered in the U.S.
Having got a bit of my calm back, and both of us cooler and fed, we headed back into the mall next door, and Laura got several lovely pairs of earrings as keepsakes of the trip. Done fooling with the metro, we caught a taxi back to Asan and the hotel, then later went out for a more properly Korean dinner of galbi, barbecue.
Today I ventured out briefly to the post office, then found myself chatting with some Mormon missionaries at the CVS, for no reason than that they were bright-eyed American kids. No talk about religion--could they smell the superior religion wafting off my holy brow?--just where you from, how long you been here, how are you making out with the language, and so on. I made my purchase and wished them well, reminding them to take care to look both ways when crossing the street. In Korea, it's deadly earnest advice.
Tomorrow early I head off to see Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area in the DMZ, briefly stroll across the border into North Korea, and catch my first glimpse of the fierce and much-feared KPA soldier. Should be fun.
Ferry tsu Tsushima, part II: The issue into Izuhara
Tshusima is a Japanese island more or less equidistant between Japan and Korea, about 40km long and no more than 10km wide at any point, and administratively part of Nagasaki. Entirely mountainous and largely unsettled, it has been not only a meeting place for the Japanese and Koreans, it has been the occasional launching point for Japanese invasions of Korea, as well as a nest of pirates preying on Japan and Korea both. The capital and principal port of Tsushima is Izuhara, where our ferry docked.
Coming ashore, we weren't asked to declare anything. An immigration officer, a portly middle-aged man in blue uniform and peaked cap, seemed interested in the fact that I was arriving in the morning and departing in the afternoon, less fearful of my activities in Japan and more personal interest in my interest in Tsushima. He seemed like a great people watcher. Having gotten loose from customs, I exited the building into a comparative steam bath and started down the road on foot. Immediately on my right was a revered old hill, called Tategami, or the Standing Turtle, which is nevertheless covered in a metal mesh to protect the buildings below from erosion and rockfall. I didn't know it at the time, but there's apparently a shrine at the top of it. Knowing that I owed a 1700Y cash fee to the port before I could disembark, the first thing I did was set out for the post office, which my map said hosted a global ATM. I got out my money, and then headed across the street to the Red Cabbage, the local grocery store, as Laura is a great fan of grocery stores.
I think she would have liked the Red Cabbage. Not only does it have a true diversity of items, the store was visually interesting, not just with great produce, but great advertising and funny advertising, with murals of farmers and a model of Godzilla's foot crushing through the ceiling. I took lots of photos (Facebook) for Laura, but could find nothing that interested me for lunch. I went down the street and found the Hotto Motto, a bento lunch counter. For 600Y and some, I got tempura veggies and chicken on a bed of rice, plus iced green tea. The lady behind the counter spoke no English, but I got along just fine by pointing at pictures in the advertisements on the wall. Having found the entrance to the former Kaneishi Castle, I sat on a low wall and dug in. I was starved, and the meal was cooked perfectly. At one point a little boy wandered by and said "Hi," and I was sure to return a friendly "Hello," albeit through a mouthful of rice.
The gate of the former Kaneishi Castle is part gate, part donjon, and part pagoda, and was reconstructed in 1990, from what remnants (a stone foundation?), and from what historical records (drawings? contemporary surviving structures?), I could not say. From there I walked to the former castle gardens, which today is mostly just a pond, some Zen boulders, and part of an old wall. I didn't get very far, and only took a few photos, before a gardener shooed me out. The gate was open and the garden was supposed to be open to the public, so I don't know what happened. There's also supposed to be a 300Y fee, but I didn't see anyone to take my money, so. But there wasn't much to see, so I scampered off.
The path from the gate to the garden then continues around to dump you at the end of the street you started the path on, in front of Banshoin Temple, a Buddhist shrine built in 1615 by the 20th daimyo (lord) of the So clan to honor his father, the 19th daimyo. The temple isn't original, having been reduced to ashes on several occasions, but the gate is, flanked by two scary looking wood-carved statues of Buddhist demons. I paid a 300Y fee to enter the grounds, though I skipped the temple itself, as I didn't care to remove my shoes, which at that point were already a bit muddy just from walking the 50 metres from the ticketing window to the temple porch (or stupa stoop, as I'd like to call it). I leaned in though and got a few photos. It doesn't appear to be a regularly ritually active site, but offerings are left on a daily basis.
Heading back out and to the left, one continues up a giant stone staircase lined by ishidoro, stone lanterns of a funerary cast, the fire and smoke of which remind visitors of the ethereal, airy nature of the soul. Here along the way were terraces containing the graves (ashes) of the So clan, the daimyos of Tsushima. These are all stone pillars in the form of a stupa, surrounded by a low stone wall, sometimes attended by a stone bodhisattva. Generally the higher one went, the more recent--and ostentatious--the graves. Here you are truly ascending into the rainforest that is the Tsushima hillside and mountains, and everything is wet and carpeted with various mosses and slimes. The photos fail to capture just how green everything is. That combined with the age of the site, and the stone walls and graves, gave everything a distinct Indiana Jones flavor.
Many people do not attempt to climb the Banshoin graves because of health and fitness issues, but I made it to the top, and then back down again, no worse for the wear than a mosquito bite. At this point I decided my next destination should be Hachimangu Shrine, a Shinto temple to the southeast along the main street. I should mention here what the neighborhoods are like. Generally, except for two major thoroughfares with proper two-way traffic, all other steets in town are more like alleys, where cars can only pass with considerably difficulty. They are all lined with neatly dressed and fitted stone. Houses are very compact, and no space goes to waste. That space not occupied by the house or parking for a single vehicle is usually given over to carefully cultivated ornamental gardens. And odd though typically (according to Laura) Japanese feature is the presence of a vending machine on every corner--no matter how abandoned--selling small cans of coffee, soft drinks, or soup. Almost as frequent are Jizo shrines, small hutches containing the effigy of the kami or bodhisattva Jizo, a creepy hairless doll-like figure, supposed to help the sick children of people leaving offerings, usually coins. Who collects these coins is unknown to me, but it seems like brisk business.
Hachimangu Shrine is noticed from the main road by its large stone torii, an sort of arch or gate that delineates sacred space from the profane. It was free, especially in that it was empty of any people who could accept a fee. Coming up a few flights of stone steps, one walks right under a roofed gate towards the shrine proper, past rows of graves, a sacred spigot, and a roofed rack or screen to which are tied various prayers or spells, to the left; to the right seem like a series of practical buildings. At the end of the paved walk is the shrine itself, but the doors were closed and even the approach to peek inside was barred by a low stone table or altar. Headed back out the gate, there were two smaller shrines, each with their doors slightly open, empty but for a broom in the one. Both had smaller shrine buildings behind these, but they were closed up and inaccessible except through the fore-shrine, which I was pretty sure weren't for visitors to enter unbidden.
I then came back out of Hachimangu and crossed the street, headed south to Kokubunji Temple through a warren of side streets. The good thing about Izuhara is that it is so small that if you head in generally the right direction, you will presently stumble across whatever you're looking for. Kokubunji is an active Buddhist temple, the modern building sited on the former site of the first temple, from the early 19th century, which burnt down. The gate however seems to be original, and Kokubunji was the lodging for the Korean late Joseon delegation. Behind the temple, stretching back into the hills, are countless more graves, presided over by stone stupas. By this point my feet were well-blistered, and though the temple presently had some sort of activity going on, I decided to take my shoes off to instead sit on the steps to one of the graves and nurse my feet. Though I might have enjoyed seeing the inside of a Buddhist temple, the language barrier frequently means I skip things where the practical difficulties outweigh the cultural or historical value to be gained.
Having re-taped my feet, my next and last sight to see was Seizanji Temple, another active Buddhist site much more in the Zen stamp. This temple was much less visible from the street, but once inside, had rock gardens, raked sand, delicately pruned shrubbery, and all the rest. Again, there was something going on inside--there were shoes piled up under a split curtain emblazed with a tsuru mon, or crane emblem, but even if I wasn't ridiculously tired and suffering in the feet, it would have been too much to have tried to join in on whatever was going on. Out back of the temple was again another hillside graveyard, disappearing up into the hillside forest, much further than I dared climb, given my feet. I surveyed the whole town and port of Izuhara from here, made my peace, and proceeded down from the graves, through the temple grounds, back down to the main road. At length I returned to the terminal and waited the couple hours until the ferry would begin boarding again. I caught a wifi signal, gave my wife an update, and tried to doze a bit on an out-of-the-way bench.
We got back on the ferry without any kind of departing customs or immigration control. My seat this time was a single both window and aisle seat on the port bow. On the way out, I counted more than 30 trawlers, all within a thousand metres of each other, setting to their evening task of squid fishing. I tried to sleep a bit, but my neighbors in the two seats behind me were two Spanish women lisping to each other at a great clip, as they had been that morning, and every time I'd seen them out during the day. I could not imagine what they had left to say to one another, but they kept at it, and loudly. Back at Busan, they seemed to have some difficulty, after we were X-rayed again, with the immigration officer, who did not speak Spanish, and was having trouble with whatever heavily accented scraps of English the women could muster. I handed my declaration to the customs officer--nothing to declare, except a belly full of Hotto Motto--and headed out the door to find a taxi. The fellow I enlisted would only take me to Busan Station (rail) for a flat fee of 10,000W (almost three times the rate by distance), but I was tired enough that I didn't care. Understandably, I don't think a 3,400W fare at rush hour has much profit in it, but my ferry ticket had been unexpectedly discounted 30,000W (I never understood why), so I thought I could afford it. What I couldn't afford was to try cab after cab trying to get a better rate.
The ferry had arrived at Busan at 18:30; at Busan Station, I bought my KTX ticket, got a bulgogi burger at the Lotteria, and boarded the train at 20:00, arriving at Cheonan-Asan station at 22:10. I didn't sleep at all on the train, instead watching a Korean nun in the seat across from me repeatedly nod off into the Lives of the Saints that prefaced her Bible. I caught a cab to the hotel, got up to the room--Laura was already at work for the night--stripped, showered (I felt like a prune stewed in its juices), and then crawled into bed, only to find I wasn't as tired as I should be. My blisters certainly didn't help.
As incredibly tiring, painful, and occasionally scary (Busan Station overnight) as it was, I'm glad I made the trip. I have always wanted to visit Japan. My parents were Marines in Okinawa in the '70s, I was conceived there, almost born there, and was raised by my parents on stories of their time living in Japan. And compared to the hustle and bustle of Korea, and the occasional brusque manners of its inhabitants, I found Tsushima quiet and easy, and the Japanese there to be gentle and retiring. I don't know if I felt any womb-bred sense of belonging to the soil there, but Tsushima itself was a satisfying experience.
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