Capturing a modern Korean tragedy

Advertising in the subway in Seoul.

Transform yourself.
Become more like a westerner, less like an Asian, less like a Korean.
Bigger eyes, narrower face, gentler brow lines.
The key to success.
Or so it would seem.

A muffin

This evening Jules and I went out for dinner to on of our favourite meat restaurants just down the road. We've made a decision to eat a lot less meat this year, and so we haven't been out for a 'meaty dinner' for ages.

The restaurant is quite a popular one, has homely wooden architecture and interior and a nice family vibe. The service is always excellent, as are the samgyeopsal (thick bacon BBQ) and dweji galbi (pork rib BBQ).

Our dinner was yummy as usual, and the service great: the waiter BBQed all the meat for us at our table, and made sure we never ran out of any side dishes: one thing I really appreciate about Korean restaurants. Side dishes are "eat all you can" and in good restaurants your side dishes will never be empty.

The cherry on top, though, was when the owner's daughter came over to our table and brought us a big chocolate muffin! What a darling! She looks about 10 years old, and was a bit shy to speak English (despite her mother and the waiter's encouragement) but bringing us the muffin was brave enough in itself!

Kindness and generosity are two characteristics of Korean people which I will remember for ever. Little incidents like this make me appreciate our experience in Korea all the more, and as we start drawing near to the end of our stay here, I am going to try and make a point of 'capturing' more of them.

Thanks muffin girl!

Meet The Cambodians

Man and his dogs

This is one of my favourite photos from Cambodia. Rice field, person, dogs, birds, greeen! This is a special kind of rice which they grow in the dry season. It takes three months form planting to harvest, which is very short, and it is very nutritious rice. They can only grow it in the flood plains of large rivers and the Tonle Sap lake where the soil is very fertile.

Bicycle Lady

Bicycles are the predominat form of local transport for Cambodians, they are everywhere! This lady was pushing her bike past one of the temples in the late afternoon. Pity the shadow of the photographer snuck into the bottom right corner of the pic!

"Bag for you, Lady! Only 3 dollars, bag for you lady?"

There are people selling souvenirs and refreshments to tourists everywhere! One of the most amazing things abot Cmabodia is that even though most of the population are desperately poor, there are hardly any beggars. People seem proactive and proud, and so everyone is trying to sell something. Bags, t-shirts, scarves, postcards, cooldrinks, guidebooks etc. One has to learn very quickly to say 'No, thank you!' firmly, but nicely! The hardest is saying no thanks to the cute little kids who've been sent to sell a pack of postcards or 5 bracelets for a dollar. They are almost irresistible. But there is a problem with parents taking their kids out of school to sell things and bring an income into the family so it is something one must try to avoid.

Waiting Game

This lady was selling fresh pineapple outside Preah Kahn temple. How much time these vendors must spend just waiting.... and hoping.

Boys on Bikes

They are riding past Angkor Wat temple. As we did our rounds of the temples I often wondered how the local people who live their daily lives 'in the shadow of Angkor Wat' must feel about it. Do they ever stop and take in it's magnificence? Do they just see it as an income? Do they wonder what all the fuss is about? Do they wish they could get rid of the hordes of tourists....I certainly did! But I was one fo them too.

Everybody loves to watch monkeys!

We were so enjoying watching this troop of monkeys in the grounds of Angkor Wat, and we weren't the only ones either. These boys were on their way somewhere, but stopped their bikes to have a good luck and laugh at the monkeys and their silly antics!

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, diddeliddi...

If Bicycles are the main mode of transport, motorbikes come a close second.
And coconuts are the main staple after rice. A very typical scene.

Chicken 'Indaba'

'Indaba' is a Zulu word for a gathering to discuss important matters. If only I knew the Cambodian equivalent, for this is certainly what was happening here. This was our bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Jules had seen a lady loading in a bunch of live chickens into the bowels of the bus as we left Phnom Penh, and when we stopped at this restaurant for a break, they were all dead! How terrible! We had got a faint whiff of something 'turpentiney' while we were in the bus, and I suppose it must've been much worse in the bottom of the bus and too much for the chickens. Such a tragic story. The owner was understandably irate, but the bus driver was taking no responsibility.

Chicken 'Indaba' Victims

self-explanatory!

Playing and Sleeping.

I love how kids just get on with having fun - often in such an ernest fashion, too!
She was playing in a pile of building sand near the restaurant where our 'chicken' bus stopped. I guess the doggie was just tired.

Studying.

These are the children of Mr Lei, the boat driver and jungle-trek guide at Rainbow Lodge.
The older brother was helping his younger brother to learn how to read - or so it seemed.
Education is one of the biggest challenges in Cambodia: because of high levels of poverty, many children work from a very young age. So many kids are on the streets selling stuff to tourists or helping their parents in the fields or elsewhere. Ensuring decent education for these children is a real challenge. Seeing these two seriously studying a book every afternoon while we were at Rainbow Lodge was heartening.

Boy's Best Friend.

Tagging along with screams of laughter!

I took this photo from our boat from Koh Rong island back to the mainland. These two boys were on their way out fishing when our boat passed them. They couldn't resist the opportunity to hang onto the rope and tag along for a while! They hung on pretty tight but eventually they were both flung off. They were having an absolute ball!

Plodding along.

Water buffalo are such an important asset to Cambodian farmers.

Apsara Beauties.

This was a traditional dance show we watched in Siem Reap - these wowen dancers are known as 'Apsaras' and stone carvings of them are all over the temples of Angkor.
I hadn't realised how many similarities there are between Cambodian and Indian culture. This dancing reminded me quite a bit of tradiitonal hindu danicng I've watched in Greytown!
Hinduism has beenthe state religion of Cambodia - or the Khmer Empire - on and off since about 50 A.D. Angkor Wat is the biggest Hindu temple in the world. In between, Buddhism has also had a big influence on the spirituality of the Cambodian people, and currently Buddhism is recognised as the dominant religion, but there is still a lot of Hindu influence in the culture. Cambodians who speak English sometimes show a hint of the kind of accent one hears from Indian people speaking English as a second language.

The wheels in Cambodia go round and round...

This picture is rather iconic, if I say so myself: magnificent, ancient stone temple in the background, and Cambodians on the top 3 forms of transport in the foreground: Tuk-tuk, bicycle and motorbike.

Floating Market on the Tonle Sap lake.

See previous post for details...

BIG HAT!

MOM and DAD! Do you remember the picture of me wearing Dad's big deerstalker hat?
Here it is all over again...in Cambodia! I think she is just a lot cuter!

Mr Tao

He was out Tuk-tuk driver for the first three days in Siem Reap. What a friendly, kind and humble man. He took us everywhere we wanted to go and was always more than happy to wait for us. We had some interesting chats with him which helped us gain some insights into 'ordinary life' in Cambodia. Bless him. This view of him from behind is so typical of our experience there!

Merry Christmas in Korea

We had a wonderful Christmas weekend! Thanks to our dear parents we had lots and lots of gifts and treats! I managed to produce lots of lovely sweet & spicy Christmas biscuits, Gluehwein and Christmas mince pies.

Thanks to our friends in Korea for good times: the Christmas Eve dinner on Thursday night, walk on Geumosan on Saturday morning, delicious pa-jeon and makkeoli for Christmas lunch, Sherlock Holmes (movie) on Christmas afternoon, Suanbo & Weoraksan snow, Cockburn's Port, pheasant & makkeoli on Boxing Day and a dinner party and live music to finish it all off with a flourish!

Here's to a fabulous 2010!

Christmas Decor at School

For the ten days leading up to Christmas, I planned lessons for 'my girls' (students) to make Christmas decorations. Christmas is celebrated in Korea, to some extent. Christmas Day is a national holiday, the big depratmnet stores play christmas music and sell piles of toys and christmas trees and cards, and Christian families usually go to church and spend the day together.

The Christmas spirit is, however, not as we know it at home. Christmas is a minor holiday in Korea copared to the other biggies (Chuseok and Lunar New Year) and the Christmas spirit is more of a commercial one than anything else. This is of course partly true in western countries, but all in all there are more social activities leading up to Christmas back home than here.

We experienced this last Christmas, and for us, it made being away from home over Christmas even harder. We had a good time and our lovey parents sent us parcels and we bought each other gifts but it was still tough. To make it easier this year, I threw myself, body and soul, into making the Christmas season a festive one: for myself and those around me. I was baking biscuts many nights a week, we decorated our house and had at least three big Christmas meals over the long weekend. Happy Christmas = Lots of yummy food, right?! :)

What I also did, was get Christmas cheer going at school. It is still strange to be at school right up until the the day of Christmas eve, but I enjoyed it so much more this year. I planned ahead a bit and managed to make a request for some money to buy stationery and other accessories needed to make christmas decorations. With our new principal, these kind of requests have become a reality and no longer a far off dream - what a pleasure! So off I went with the school's credit card and spent W120 000 at Sangju Stationary Centre. I bought lots and lots of colour paper, stickers, ribbons, glue, scissors, staples, etc. I had to do my calcuations quite carefully - by the end of the week, I would have seen about 650 students and I had to have enough materials for all of them.

Anyway, it all went swimmingly. The lesson itself was much more of a culture lesson than a language lesson: the girls told me that they don't usually make their own Christmas decorations, and they didn't know how to make gingerbread-man-chains, paper snowflakes or any of those simple paper crafts which we all learn at pre-school and make in our holidays at home. The most English they had to use was asking me for materials if they ran out "May I please have some more colour paper." " May I please have some ribbon." etc. This seems like very little, but believe me, it was difficult for some of them. What I liked about it is that it is REAL English which they are using to communicate with me.

They thoroughly enjoyed making the decorations and hanging them up along their allocated part of the windows at school. So many teachers commented on the festive, pretty windows and I really felt like the decorations brought more of a Christmas spirit to my school. Yeyyyy!

Why? I don't know, but it made me laugh!!

ONLY IN KOREA! Squid for Christmas!! :)

Instructions: probably much to difficult for most of the students to follow, but it helped me prepare and gave them some idea of the finished products.

This is Sujin. She is one of my favourite students. She is tiny and FULL of energy! Other teachers have problems with her in class as she has a very short attention span but she shines in my classes as most of the activities are high-energy. After every class, she stays behind and helps me clean up my desk and the classroom - she's my little angel!

Some of the girls took the opprtunity to make Christmas cards - for me and for some of their other teachers.

Some of the first grade students at the high school. In typical Korean-teenaged-girl style they're doing their best to obscure their faces. It's quite sad...most of thes egirls think their faces are too big, and they all want narrower faces like westerners. What a sad thing!

Mr Kang and I: He is my co-teacher at the high school and is absoultely wonderful. I think he is the main reason why I feel so much more at home at the high school than the middle school. He speaks almost perfect English and is so understanding and encouraging. He's also a real joker, so being in the classroom with him is such a pleasure.

Snowy Skiing at Muju Resort

Two weekends ago we went skiing at Muju resort. Muju Ski Resort os one of the biggest in Korea and is about 2 hours from here by car.

Arranging public transport to get to Muju was a bit of a nightmare - we were going to take a shuttle bus organised by the resort, but then it was cancelled at the last minute as they didn't get enough bookings. So then we were going to have to take two trains, a bus and a very expensive taxi to get to the resort. Our dear friend Seong-suk then came up with the brilliant idea of hiring a van (=mini bus). Her husband arranged a great deal for us and for W200 000 for the weekend it was very much affordable. I was the designated driver - the only one with an international drivers' licence - and fortunately it all went very well. Thanks go to Dan, a UK friend of ours, for taking over the tricky snow-driving!

We had a fabulous time at Muju: the weather was perfectly wintery! It snowed most of the time we were there - this was of course accompanied by very cold temperatures: it was around -7 degrees C most of the time, and at one point my eyelashes even began freezing shut (scary!!) but it was great for skiing. I am still not a very good skiier but I really enjoyed going down the slopes at my own pace, and by now I am relatively comfortable even going down the internediate slopes which is a real personal achievement!

My skills were really put to the test on Sunday afternoon when we decided to all go down the longest slope at Muju together. It is called 'The Silk Route' and starts high up in the mountains. When we got out of the gondola (=small cable car) at the top it was very misty and windy. We had lunch at the restaurant on top and then headed off to the slopes: well, the conditions were rather scary. By now the wind was howling and the mist and snow coming down so think one couldn't see more than about 20m ahead. This all on a relatively steep slope which had turned to ice. The wind had blown all the surface snow off the slope and it was treacherous and very, very slippery. Scary on smooth skis which are made for snow not ice!

Anyway, we took it really slow, and Lina, our 'Ice Angel' helped us avoid the worst of the ice. She is an experienced snow-boarder and it was very comforting having here there with us. The scary conditions lasted for about 2km of the slope, and as we got lower down it cleared a bit but it was certainly a rather nerve-racking experience - bonding for sure!

Our group for the weekend was as follows: Simon, Dan, Melissa, Lina, Julian and Jess. Lina is from the nearby town of Gimcheon and the others are all from Sangju. A combo of 2 Poms, 2 Americans and 2 South Africans. We had a fantastic time together and really look forward to another ski trip in February when we're back from Cambodia. Enjoy the photos!

Beautiful Muju Ski Resort: the resort is designed in a kind of Alpine Style - very well done actually!

An ice-cream in the snow at minus 7, I just had to!

The slopes! This was a beginner slope - one which I spent most of my weekend going down, just getting into it again and not putting too much pressure on myself :)

Who's who??

Go Team! from left to right: Simon, Melissa, Dan, Lina, Julian, Jess.

Cleaning the snow off the car, as more was falling! We really loved being in the snow, it is still such a novelty for us!

A Fascinating Tea Experience

Last week I had a surprising and wonderful experience. Initially I had the usual 'what's going on here?' kind of feeling which we as foreigners in Korea know so well, but that feeling soon changed to one of curiosity, respect and humility. Mr Shin, one of the senior teachers at my high school - the one who's mother's funeral ceremony I attended - came along on Thursday and told me that his friend at the local court wanted to have English conversation lessons. Thanks to interpretation by the ever-wonderful Mr Kang (my high school co-teacher), it turns out that Mr Shin's friend is the chief judge of the Sangju district court and that he wants me to give him and his staff at the court English conversation lessons. To discuss the details, he had scheduled a meeting for us on Thursday afternoon.

So off the three of us (Shin, Kang, Jess) went to the court. An important-looking place of course, with metal detectors in the foyer and finger-print entrance-security in the corridors. Once we entered the chief judge's office I suddenly felt rather small and lowly: he has a huge office with the usual 'important' couches for entertaning guests - similar to the ones one encunters in other important places in Korea. We bowed our greetings and took our seats.

The judge sat at the head of the table and infront of him the typical equipment for a traditional Korean tea ceremony were laid out. This took me by surprise, but it soon became apparent that this was his way of showing respect to us for agreeing to meet with him, and in no time the tea ceremony was in full swing.

Kang did a fabulous job of explaining to me what the judge was saying about the various pieces of equipment, different types of tea, preparation methods etc. I commented that one doesn't come across traditional tea ceremonies very often, and Kang translated that this had to do with the Japanese occupation which tried to stamp out a lot of Korean traditions. Tea ceremonies are generally associated with people of higher social standing, then and now, and this explains why the judge would have 'treated' us to this: as a way of welcoming us, but also maybe to make us appreciate that we were in 'important' company.

It seems that traditional tea ceremonies in Korea were becoming less and less common, but have recently been experiencing a kind pf 'revival', as a way of relaxing in the formal setting of the workplace, and re-connecting with traditional buddhist beliefs and a healthier way of life.

So the equipment which the judge, Mr Song Bong-Kie, used was as follows: a main teapot (symbolic of the father), a secondary 'teapot', a kind of shallow cup with a spout (symbolic of the mother) and a few small cups without handles (symbolic of the children). The tea leaves - he used early-harvest green tea - are placed into the 'father' pot and then it is filled to the brim with boiling water. It is left for about a minute, no longer, and then the tea is poured into the 'mother' pot/cup. From the mother pot it is then poured into the 'children' cups.

'Dad' teapot - with the symbolically phalic handle, 'Mom' pot in the background (as usual) and the kids lined up next to them.

We were each given a little cup and could drink our tea. The green tea leaves can be re-used three times, i.e. the 'father' pot is re-filled with water three times. I must note that the 'tea set' is very small compared to our western tea sets: the pots and the cups. The tea tasted lovely: a clean, green tea kind of taste which I'm sure I couldn't even fully appreciate.

He told us that he also uses Puerh Tea from China, which he buys in compressed cakes for lots of money. I definitely got the impression that doing the tea ceremony the really traditional and proper way required access to lots of money.

They asked me whether I drink tea: I said yes, but that I drink tea from tea-bags and feel that one can hardly compare the two. I tried to look bashful and I think I communicated myself quite well :) Mr Shin himself is also quite a tea connoiseur and often brings me traditional Korean tea to try at school. But he refuses to try my rooibos tea as it is in a teabag!

Then a friend of the judge's, a buddhist tea mistress, came to join us. She is a highly-respected tea master/msitress(?) and is the one who taught the judge all about tea and tea ceremonies. This appeared to be the really special part as she used some very fancy implements to prepare 'Malcha' tea - powdered green tea of the highest quality.

Equipment for making Malcha tea - powdered green tea. (photo courtesy of 'The Internet')

She used a different kind of pot - similar to the 'mother' pot - for this tea. A special bamboo spatula was used to place the powdered tea into the pot and then a little cold and then hot water was added to it. She then used a very strange looking implement made of bamboo: it looked like a cross between an old-school shaving-foam brush and a whisk.

She stirred the mixture very briskly for a few minutes and it got all foamy and green - a lovely bright colour. We each had a turn to drink the tea straight out of the mother 'pot' and then she made a fresh batch for the next person: it had a very strong, rather bitter flavour, but also very fresh. I quite enjoyed it! The judge then gave me a tea set: this came as a complete surprise to me, and I felt very honoured and humbled. He explained that the tea set was pottery and made in a wood-fired kiln by a well-known monk at a nearby temple.

Mr Shin later told me that I was very lucky to receive that tea-set as a gift as one cannot actually buy them: the 'special' monk who makes them only gives them as gifts. Now the pressure is on - I will have to ask Mr Shin to help me buy the 'right' tea to drink from my unique and precious tea set - and ask him to help me make sure I do it all right. Come on over and I'll show you all how :)

My special tea-set, wrapped in the traditional Korean way.

Post script:
At no point during our meeting did we discuss the English lessons. The closest we came was the judge asking me whether I needed to see a dentist, and inviting us to a dinner meeting with himself and his dentist friend where we would (maybe!) discuss the English lessons further (?). After the dinner his dentist friend would be more than happy to check my teeth! To be continued...