Weekend adventures in Taichung

Laura spent the first couple weeks working nights as the experiment ramped up, but once underway, she got to work regular daytime hours, including weekends off.  So for her first weekend off, we set out to see a traditional Chinese teahouse.

This was challenging for me, as I have been fighting off a flareup of what my friend, fellow priest, and chiropractic physician Shane Cobb says is surely a herniated disc.  We had to walk about 3km to get to the teahouse, but it was worth the effort.

In the middle of the a very busy road is the Wu-Wei Teahouse, which is a haven of greenery and traditional architecture and foot bridges over koi ponds.  Wu-wei is a Taoist term, which translates to something like "effortless action" or "acting without acting" or "creative non-action".

We were ushered to a private room and seated on tatami mats at a low table.  Presented with a menu, Laura ordered chicken soup whereas I had the fried pork, and both came with an array of side dishes including rice, picked salads, red beans in broth (the beans are okay; the broth though tastes like chocolate milk), and daikon soup.  Laura also ordered edamame, but it came chilled with a sort of anise seasoning that I didn't care for.

We also ordered tea, 20 grams.  This was advertised as tea for two, but after 10 grams, we had had plenty.  A waitress showed us how to make tea the traditional way.  The tea steeped in boiled water in a small teapot; after a minute and 30 seconds, the tea was poured through a strainer into a small pitcher.  The pitcher was poured into nosing glasses, which after they were poured into the drinking cups, we were encouraged to sniff.  All of these vessels had Chinese names, but the only one that stuck in my memory was im-bei for the drinking cups.

The tea we had was an oolong from the Alishan Mountains of Taiwan, which was grassy with a hint of citrus.  The waitress said the tea was good for eight infusions, each steeping time increasing by 15 seconds.  Each infusion was about eight ounces.  Do the math, and that's a lot of frickin' tea.  We were in no way to make another 10g of tea, so Laura bagged took the dry tea leaves to go.

On the way back, we popped into a stationery store.  Rilakkuma (Japanese, "Relax-bear") was of course everywhere in evidence, but Taiwan has fallen in love with a new character: Gudetama. Gudetama (a Japanese onomatopeia) is a clinically depressed egg yolk who hides in his shell, complains about getting up in the morning, is harassed by chopsticks, and often pulls bacon over himself in an effort to go back to sleep.  He's great.

Laura also bought an iced tea.  It was supposed to be citrus tea.  The tea itself was nice, but the tapioca pearls were a little weird, and the bits of kumquat rind were frankly a distraction.

On our way home we wandered across a festival, with a marching band, a man in a mirror suit, and a magician with a parrot.  Laura was very pleased.  I was also pleased, in that this presented many opportunities to sit and rest my herniated back.

The next day we went to see the nearby botanical gardens, which share the same grounds as the museum of natural science.  In the middle of the gardens is a glazed dome, under which there are waterfalls and streams and all sorts of tropical plants.  In the basement there is a cafe, and you can see the fish underwater behind a plexiglas window.  There are catfish there that can swallow a small dog.

Later we tried going to the Carrefour, but our taxi driver dropped us off at a place called the RT-Mart.  Either there was something wrong with our written instructions, or he's getting a kickback for dropping off hapless foreigners at the RT-Mart.  We were able to get most of what we needed, however, and though we failed to catch a cab back, we were still within walking distance of home.  We were chagrined to walk past our usual grocery store.

We decided on an easy dinner of pizza at the pizzeria across the greenway, which is convenient for those days when you don't want to fight for your dinner.  They make a cheese pizza Laura enjoys, and they offer a pineapple and ham pizza I appreciate.  The staff is young and speak excellent English. Our frequent dining companions from the company have practically taken up residence there, since after a long day at work, it's just easiest for them.  (It should be said they're traveling with their five-year-old daughter).

This evening, for the second time in the last week, we went to a yakitori place (the "yakitorium," I call it), which is a Japanese-type restaurant were various meats and vegetables are grilled on skewers, like shish-kebab.  I have eaten chicken skin, chicken cartilage, chicken butt (the menus here sometimes offer dubious translations), and chicken heart.  Weirdly, the cartilage was the tastiest.

We've also eaten at two Indian restaurants.  Of the two, the best was the won run by Pakistani immigrants (I've written about them before--they were the ones who invited us in), which is a drier, Punjabi-style cuisine.  The other place was a bit wetter with tastes of coconut milk and tomato sauce, but not my favorite.  Laura, however, preferred their naan, which is not an insignificant consideration.  But they also served short-grained Asian rice, unlike our Muslim friends, who serve long-grain basmati rice.  Choice of rice has got to approach quality of naan in importance.

Laura's post--Taxis and technology

Whew, it's been a long week and a half of night shift.  Mostly since we arrived in Taiwan, I've been working.  So my time has been heavily structured around getting to work, and working (and eating and sleeping in the off hours).  That said, I'd like to share a little of my experience with taxis and a specific bit of technology.

Taichung is a busy city with lots of cars (and even more motorscooters), and I wasn't interested in joining the fray for the three months we're here, so for trips of any significant distance, we use taxis.  That means I'm ridng in taxis at least twice a day during the week.  Mostly the language barrier hasn't gotten in my way.  The relocation company provided both Ian and me with business cards, printed with our names and the apartment address in both English and Chinese.  I also recieved a laminated card from a colleague that says, again in English and Chinese, "Hi, Driver. Would you please take me to Corning, Taichung plant" and includes the address.  So, as long as I'm going to work or home, I'm pretty well covered.

Except when written Chinese doesn't work.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but at least one taxi driver responded to the card with puzzled looks and a long string of language I didn't understand.  I tried my Google translator, but couldn't get him to speak into it.  I pulled up the GPS on my phone with the Corning Plant as the destination, but all the street names were in English, and it didn't seem to help him.  Eventually, I used the translator to tell the driver I was going back into the apartment building to get the attendant.  Again, I was able to use my translator, this time to tell the attendant that the driver didn't understand where we were supposed to go.  He made a concerned face and rushed out the door to speak with the driver.  A minute later, he came back in to get his personal phone to give the driver directions.  After another few minutes of discussion, it seemed like we were ready to go. I had my phone with GPS in front of me for that ride, hoping that we'd actually get to the plant, or that if we didn't, I could find a way to redirect us.  Although we made a few turns at the last possible opportunity, the driver got roughly to the right area and I was able to direct him the rest of the way.  But that's just one ride out of two dozen.

Working the same shift, the cast of taxi drivers has been surprisingly repetative.  I've gotten the driver I talked about above again, although this time he knew exactly where to go.  There's a fellow available when I get off night shift at the plant who calls me "Sir" everytime he speaks to me.  There's a guy who plays soft music and sips fruit drinks, and mostly during these rides I fall asleep at least once.  There's the driver with the car full of lace doilies who we also rode with back from a grocery store. Last night I got a speed demon that I hope I don't see much of in the future (but boy I got to the plant fast).  

Realistically, this repetition in drivers is probably because I'm calling a taxi from the same location at the same time every day.  Now that I'm switching to day shift, there will likely be a new cast of characters.  But I admit that I like to imagine that by the time I leave, we will all know each other.

Alright, time for that bit of technology I mentioned.  Badge systems for door access are common enough, and that's the system we use to get into the apartment building.  But on the way out of the building, everything is touchless proximity sensors.  There's a small black circle, about an inch in diameter, with a red light around the edge.  Waving or holding a hand a few inches in front of this circle causes the red to change to green and the door to unlatch.  I've encountered this sensor at the apartment, at work, and in shops.  I enjoy a culture allows me to use the Force to open doors multiple times a day.

Well, I guess that was a short bit about technology, so here's one more note.  Google Translate is a phenomenal help here.  I've been able to find baking soda and sticky rice with the help of an attendant at a grocery store, read washing machine instructions, avoid a laundry detergent with bleach added, assemble a rice cooker, and learn a little functional Chinese on the side.  With the help of Google translate, I feel so much more capable in Taiwan than I did in Korea.

An update on the Chinese New Year

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.