A Few Random Photos from Gyeongju

These are just a few random photos from Gyeongju. The first is the front of a box that was in the closet of our hotel. I thought the sign was a little strange.... hmm.... The third photo isn't of a hill, but of a tomb. Like I said in an earlier post, instead of graves, dead bodies sit above ground. So when it came to burying those of very important status 1000 years ago, they did the same, just that the hills they made were much bigger. So the hill-like thing is actually hollow inside. They were gorgeous.

G-Dragon's "Heartbreaker"

So like all of my female students are in love with this guy, which I don't really understand... I haven't quite made up my mind yet, though generally I am not partial to asians with blond hair. ^_^ 

Chusok in Jeju

So this past weekend I went to Jeju-do, an island south of Korea, where I spent the Korean holiday, Chusok, with my host family and my host mom's inlaws. It's quite lovely, though I really didn't have any time for sight seeing, since we were only there from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. Below are a couple of pics of the shoreline. In the top picture, the well-like shapes protruding from the water actually have fresh water flowing out of them. Tasting fresh water coming out of the ground so close to the ocean was a bit of a surprise!

So Chusok is a harvest holiday where people get together with their families and pay respects to their ancestors. I'm sure all families celebrate it slightly differently (just as there are no two exact ways of celebrating Thanksgiving in the US). We visited my host mom's inlaws and all together there were 3 families and the grandparents. Each respective family slept on the floor together in their own room. 

The day of Chusok (Sat) for me went as follows. We got up and cousins came over. The men of the family performed a certain ancestor ritual in the home, offering food and drink to the ghosts or spirits of their dead predecessors. We ate a big breakfast, after which I helped with doing all of the dishes. Then we went to the cousins' family's home and repeated (giant meal and all). After leaving the cousins' family's home, we went to the graveyard where all of my host mom's husband's family are (including her husband). 

Graveyards in Korea are different from those in the US. Instead of the body being buried under the earth, they stay on top and are covered by dirt and eventually grass. They look like soft mounds of earth, and each have the presence of a person in a way. They have this very peaceful, if almost comical presence to them. And there were many of them in the graveyard, all belonging to their family. They bowed to the ancestors that still resided in their living memory. I only bowed to my host mom's late husband. After paying our respects, we proceeded to have a picnic amongst the dead. Though while all of this was going on, all we could hear was the crying sound of dogs coming from a nearby dog farm. So the whole experience was a little surreal, being in the presence of these bizarre tombs, listening to the sounds of soon-to-be-eaten dogs, and paying respects to people who up until a month ago I had no connection to. Surreal, but moving nonetheless.

Later in the evening one of the uncles took us around the seashore, so we could at least see some of the island while we were there. While on our travels we stopped at a small seaside restaurant and ate the freshest squid I've ever eaten in my life. So fresh in fact it was killed right in front of me! It was a little unnerving watching the tentacles still squirming about minutes before I was about to consume them raw, but I got over it pretty quickly when I discovered that it was delicious! And it was interesting, b/c as we ate the freshly julienned squid, the little spots of coloration were actually moving in sort of a blinking manner. All motor movement had stopped in the tentacles, but the little dots were all blinking like crazy. It was strange, but absolutely tasty.


So in the end, I won the approval of the grandparents b/c I did a lot of dishes (basically for all the meals that were eaten this weekend) and I ate everything that was put in front of me. I never realized that my love of food and lack of pickiness would help me win over the hearts of Koreans, or anyone for that matter. 

This Photo is for Val, My Tall White Sis

Yeah, I took this photo at a Dunkin Donuts in the Jeju airport thinking of you Val. It does indeed say "Garlic Glazed." I unknowingly took a bite of a sugar glazed bun-like-thing that was offered to me, and I think it was either garlic or scallion glazed. To my surprise it was actually quite delicious! So yeah, it's official, they have garlic donuts in Korea!

Murakami Frustration

For Americans who are not aware, Haruki Murakami has a new novel out, called 1Q84. I see posters all over Korea advertising this new book and much to my dismay it is only available in Japanese and Korean here (though not surprising since it just came out in May). The title is a reference to George Orwell's 1984, though there is a Q in the title b/c the Japanese word for the number nine is pronounced, "kyū". (and as a side note, one of the Korean words for the number nine is pronounced "koo")

Yeah, so I have this brand new Murakami book dangling in front of my face all the time and I can't read it!!! How frustrating. And what's even more frustrating is that the English translation will probably take at least a good year or two to come out. Gahhh!!!

If you want to read more about the book's release, you can check out an article here. Sighhhh.

Art, Seoul, and Adoption

So this past weekend I was back and forth from Gumi to Seoul Friday night through Wednesday. I got to eat Indian food Friday night with ETA friends, and man, I didn't realize just how much I missed variety in my diet until the taste of paneer hit me. Mmmm.

Saturday day I met up with a friend of Steph's and we walked around the 삼청동 (samcheon-dong) area all afternoon. There are a ton of galleries in that part of the city and it had a very artsy feel to it, so I was quite pleased. Below are some photos of work that I saw.

After partying in Seoul Saturday night I went back to Gumi, only to return to Seoul again Monday night. There I met another friend of Steph's (so another Korean who studied at SFAI), and she was nice enough to let me stay with her and her family. As a side note, most Koreans if they are not married yet, will continue to live with their families until they get married. This doesn't have the same stigma as it can have in the United States. But also in Korea there is less space and so property is more expensive here, so it makes sense.

So moving on, Seoul part II was really cool b/c Steph's friend, Eun Young is super nice and really smart, and so I felt really comfortable hanging out with her. We went to the Kyobo bookstore and unsuccessfully attempted to find Murakami's new novel in English (which I will express my frustration in another post, hehe).

I then had my meeting with HOLT. I was lucky that Eun Young went with me b/c the building was difficult to find. She took a nap in the building while I met with the social worker. I got to see all of my original adoption papers in person. I was good, kept my cool and didn't cry. There were a few moments where I thought I would, when the social worker was translating notes on my mother. At one point she was saying, to paraphrase, that despite choosing to give the baby up, she still loved the baby very much. Gahhhhhh. That almost did me in. I also got to glance briefly at the paper work my adoptive parents filled out 20 something years ago. It was strange b/c I recognized my dad's handwriting immediately. It just gave me such a strange feeling, to see and immediately recognize something so familiar in such an unfamiliar environment. 

As for my search, they have my mother's full name and identification number, so she's as good as found. However bureaucratically speaking, this will take some time. HOLT will put in a request to the government, asking for her current contact information. This could take up to one or two months. Then once HOLT receives her info, they will attempt to contact her, and it's up to her if she wishes to respond. So now I play the waiting game....

After my HOLT appointment, I went to the Seoul Art Museum to check out a show that opening that night called "City_net Asia 2009." It was a pretty cool show, they were showing contemporary work from 4 Asian cities, Seoul, Istanbul, Tokyo, and Beijing. Below are some photos that I covertly took. Shhh, don't tell anyone....

That night while Eun Young was at a faculty dinner, I met one of her friends (also a painter) and she happened to work for HOLT as a translator in the past. And so with her were 3 other adopted Koreans, from Denmark, New York, and Sweden. Man, I really wonder where the next 9 months of this grant year are going to take me.....

KFC in Seoul, mmmm

So the coleslaw (which was contained in that green sealed plastic cup thing), was more watery and chopped more coarsely than its american counterpart. However the taste was exactly the same. ^_^