The next day we found ourselves strolling down a narrow street flanked by nondescript office buildings, coffee shops and small boutiques. We were on our way to see Jogyesa Temple, the central temple of Zen Buddhism in Korea.
At first we joked. "Wow, what a gorgeous temple," Melly said to me, pointing at a bland, gray office tower as we walked down the alley. It just seemed like such an unlikely place to find a temple of Zen meditation. Yet, moments later, we rounded a curve in the road and glimpsed the structure for the first time. The flanked roof, the intricate blues and reds and yellows hand-painted on wood--the elegant design was almost identical to the palaces we had been visiting the past few days. This still boggles my mind; clearly an architectural design can be repeated easily enough, but the designs on the curved log beams could only have been painted by hand! And each design was uniform, as precisely reproduced as could be expected by a human, and each repeated itself dozens of times on each structure, framing each support column, accenting each corner. And by now we had seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of these designs covering the palaces throughout the entire city. Impressive.
Jogyesa was taller than the palaces, and even more intricately painted. We approached from the back of the temple. Construction scaffolding was erected by a bay door on the rear of the building. Korean people were hauling crates and bags in and out of the bay door, to and from a truck parked just outside. Some of the people were dressed entirely in gray--presumably individuals participating in intensive temple-stay programs, or perhaps novice monks. It was a strange juxtaposition--our first glimpse of the temple looked like the shipping and receiving bay of a grocery store. That, along with the gray urban backdrop of the city that surrounded it, made the temple seem lost in time, a little bubble of elsewhere accidentally plopped in the middle of the city block.
I suppose this describes Korea as a whole pretty well. Traditional thought and manic techno-industrial growth play an epic game of tug-of-war across the whole peninsula. Or do they walk hand in hand? I don't know yet.
We walked closer, past the truck and bay door. The temple was covered with gorgeous murals telling the story of the Buddha: Prince Siddhartha Gautama in his lavish palace, the discovery of the people's great suffering beyond the palace walls, the turn to asceticism, the meditation under the Bodhi Tree, the Enlightenment, the Teaching. We wandered around to the front of the building. An old woman was praying passionately to a gray statue of the rotund, laughing Buddha. I watched her as we walked around the grounds. Her prayers lasted at least ten minutes. You gotta hand it to the Buddhists: they may be a bit less ADHD than most.
The temple grounds were spotted with tall, terraced statues and fountains. Bottles of water, fruit, and flowers were piled up at the base of each of these--offerings to the Buddha. We wandered around. We were the only foreigners there. We felt extremely nervous and out of place, and really didn't want to cause any international incidents. Luckily, there was a little office on the far side of the grounds that said "Foreigner Services." Better to be safe than sorry, we went inside and talked to a friendly Korean man who seemed vaguely confused at our unease. But he reassured us, all was well. We could enter the temple as long as we took off our shoes and didn't take any pictures. Fair enough.
Man I wish I had some pictures of the inside of that building. Not for the first time since arriving in Korea, I found my jaw dropping. Inside, the temple was one large room with four thin support pillars. Three enormous golden Buddhas, probably 25 feet tall each, sat in the front of the temple on a shrine piled high with fruits and flowers and water bottles. Each Buddha exhibited a different mudra (sacred hand gesture), and all three sat in front of a dazzlingly detailed wall painted with thousands of different Buddhas, deities, spirits, people, and things I couldn't begin to understand. The ceiling ascended in a series of levels. Hundreds of small colorful paper lanterns with prayers dangling down from them covered the first and lowest level of the ceiling. Just above them, more towards the center of the room, large lotus-shaped lamps, 5 feet across each, glowed with soft and ghostly neon colors, and still beyond that, a grid of smaller lotus-shaped lights glittered high at the top of the building like stars. One wall of the giant room was golden from ceiling to floor and covered in Hangul characters and candles. The opposite wall boasted another shrine with a smaller Buddha statue, this one also piled tall with flowers and fruits. Candlelight and lamplight filled the room, which was already bright from the gray light of the wintery afternoon pouring in through the tall windows opposite the giant golden Buddhas. A feast for the senses, and a delight for the eyes. I could have stayed in there just admiring the decor for hours. My brain lapped up the lush colors and patterns like a dog laps up water from a stream.
The temple was full of people, all of them Korean. Surprisingly to me, there didn't seem to be any sense of hushed reverence at all. People talked loudly to each other, people talked on their cell phones. Middle-aged women chatted loudly with each other while others repeated bowing prayers to the Buddha statue at their own pace.
We wanted to meditate in the temple, at least for a few minutes before we left. There was a stack of square gray cushions by one of the support pillars. Cautiously, Melly and I each grabbed one, always checking for reactions from the people around us, making sure we weren't breaking any rules of etiquette or offending anyone. We sat on the cushions in front of the center window at the back wall, and closed our eyes. The meditation was deep and satisfying, and we stayed there for ten minutes or so. It was at that point that I heard some impatient whispering from the women next to us. I opened my eyes, and, sure enough, they were whispering at Melly and me. Apparently, we weren't supposed to be sitting there. Oh God, how long have they been trying to get our attention? They gestured for us to move, to go to the side, to get out of our spot. They spoke quickly and brashly in Korean, shooing us, and we didn't understand. It was scary; this is exactly what I had hoped to avoid. Did they want us to leave the temple completely? Or just scoot over? Well, so much for peace of mind.
We stood up. The ajumma (middle-aged woman) who had shooed us then bowed to us with her hands clasped in prayer position over her heart--the universal gesture of "Namaste"--even though she still had something of a scowl on her face. Confused and nervous, we wandered away and circled around the room, looking at the decor. No one else seemed upset that we were there, and no one else was sitting in the middle of the back wall. Maybe we were just sitting in the wrong spot? We decided to sit back down on the side, in an empty spot amidst many other Koreans, for a few more minutes. Just enough to calm back down, we figured, to shake off the sense of anxiety that had just accrued. Just a few more minutes of meditation.
We sat down. The women (probably 85% of the people there were middle-aged women, for some reason) next to us smiled welcomingly. Ah, no problem here. We'll meditate a few more minutes and be on our--
Everyone suddenly sat down and became quiet. We heard the rhythmic hollow tapping of a stick on a gourd and saw a Jogye monk, complete with shaved head and long colorful robes, walk gracefully down the center of the room where we had just been sitting. The monk was wearing a lapel microphone, and said something in Korean. His rich voice resonated through PA speakers in the corners of the room, and everyone stood up in unison, bowed their heads, and clasped their hands in prayer. Melly and I looked around, slightly panicked. We were smack dab in the middle of this crowd, the only foreigners in the room, and we didn't know at all what was going on. Out of instinct, we joined in the motions of the crowd, clasping our hands and bowing. We wanted to see what would happen next.
The monk began chanting and drumming on his hollow wooden gourd. The people began a series of bows to the Buddha. To do this, you begin from a standing position, then drop to your knees on your gray square cushion, touch your forehead to the ground and lift your hands to your head, then stand back up without using your hands to push off the ground. We were suddenly in the middle of a crowd doing this is unison, remember, so we had to very quickly figure out what to do. The monk would say a line of Buddhist scripture, and everyone would bow, touch their foreheads to the ground, and stand back up. Over and over, he would say a line of scripture, we would bow and stand, a line of scripture, bow and stand, scripture, bow and stand, scripture, bow, stand.
My legs started burning a bit. It was church and a step class at the same time. In front of me, thin middle aged women were doing this at twice the pace I was, and not even breaking a sweat. You go, ajummas. Well done. A little old lady saw Melly panting and sweating, reached over and gave her a bottle of water. Yes, we were getting completely dominated by small, old Korean women.
Over and over, on and on it went. The monk chanted out dozens of lines, each unintelligible to me save for the last word: "mianhamnida." I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I bowed and bowed, asking the Buddha to forgive me for my restless mind, my inattentiveness, my indiscipline, my impatience. Who knows what the monk was actually saying, all I could understand was "mianhamnida." Forgive me. So that's what I asked.
After perhaps fifty or sixty bows of "mianhamnida," the monk began ending his scriptural lines with another word: "gomapseumnida." Thank you. Thank you. I am grateful. And I bowed again and again to the Buddha, thanking him for his accomplishments, for punching through and seeing the true nature of reality, for adding something beautiful and important to the world. I thanked God that I had legs at all, that I could actually do this strange ritual. I bowed and thanked Life for bringing me into this utterly bizarre circumstance. I almost laughed out loud as I bowed and stood, bowed and stood amidst a congregation of middle-aged Korean women. Gomapseumnida. Thank you for all of this, thank you for every detail of this experience.
I think we did 108 bows, the number of beads on a Buddhist mala, but I can't be sure. It seemed to go on forever, especially since I was constantly and anxiously glancing around, gauging my environment, unsure of how to act or what to do. Finally, the chanting stopped and everyone sat cross-legged on the cushion. The monk began chanting. His voice was deep and hypnotizing and beautiful, and immediately lulled me into a trance. Then everyone around us began chanting along. It was such a strange and wondrous new sound, rhythmic and meditative, as different as could be from the hymns of western Christianity. Many seemed to have the chants memorized; others read along from a book of Hangul characters. I was enjoying just listening to the congregation chant together, but the kindly woman next to me decided it would be nice to lean over to me and share her book.
Now, I can phonetically read Hangul, but only at a toddler level. A slow toddler, at that. But lucky me, the woman was very nice and pointed out in the book our place in the chant, insisting I join in. Her finger bounced along the Korean script at a very brisk pace, and I, wanting very badly to be gracious and try to participate, did my damnedest to try to keep up. Disastrous failure. My eyes strained, my brain driven far beyond its capacity, I mostly murmured and hummed as the chanting went on and on and on. Page after page of chanting, often repeating large sections three times before turning the page and continuing. I didn't know how to politely say "No thank you, I'll just listen," so I mumbled and hummed and strained. Undeterred by my obvious inability to read her little book, the woman kept showing me our place, quickly moving from character to character, moving on long before I had had a chance to match up symbol to sound.
The chanting wasn't exactly monotone, but it centralized itself on one droning note, and occasionally moved up or down for a moment before returning to the main drone, and maintained a perfectly steady rhythm the entire time. I suppose if you knew what you were doing, or if you could, say, read Hangul, this might lead you into a lovely trancy meditative state. But if you were me, this would be the most maddening, straining, and God-awfully long song with no melody you'd ever heard in your life, and you'd be expected to sing along. Just like the bows, the chant went on and on and on and on, perhaps for thirty or forty minutes, and all the while, my friendly neighbor pointed out our place in the book, politely encouraging me to chant along.
When the chanting finally and thankfully stopped, by brain was buzzing as if I had just finished taking the SAT. Then the monk started tapping the gourd again and launched into another chant, this one so fast that, thank God, I was not expected to join. I was amazed at how the monk chanted out the Korean words with such speed, fluidity, and purity of tone. Any hip hop artist would've been humbled by the speed and endurance of his Buddhist flow. He chanted on and on, perhaps for another twenty minutes. The sound was truly beautiful, and when I didn't have to strain and participate, the service was really enjoyable. But by then, time was so stretched and distorted from the effort I had already put in that even this pleasant music seemed to go on for far too long, forever, would it ever end??? Would we be here late into the night, listening to this unintelligible droning chant until our brains dribbled out our noses??? Oh wait! He's slowing down! Yes, he's wrapping it up, surely this is the end---NO! HE STARTED AGAIN! HE'S STILL CHANTING! THIRTY MORE MINUTES AND HE'S STILL CHANTING! OH GOD!!! Buddha what have I done to deserve this???
But I wasn't about to leave. Impatient or not, I really wanted to see how this ended.
The service lasted over two hours, which isn't really that long when you're not in a constant state of anxiously imitating your neighbor, when you don't feel like an intruder trying to blend in, when you're not completely clueless of what's happening and what's going to happen next. For us, two hours felt like five. It's funny and sad; Zen meditation focuses the mind on the now moment, teaches detachment from the future, and encourages rejoicing in the way things are. In the Jogyesa Temple, I failed at all these things.
When it was finally over and the monk finally stopped tapping on his damn clickety little gourd and stopped chanting and walked out of the room, Melly and I stood to put our cushions away and collect our things. My polite neighbor, the woman who had been pointing along in the book, gave me some books to return to a shelf on the wall, as well as another book.
She had given me her personal copy of a Buddhist scripture, hardbound and written in vertical lines of Hangul characters from back to front. She spoke a few Korean sentences to me, gesturing to the book, and returned to her cushion. I didn't know if it belonged to the temple or what. I looked around and asked Melly, "Did she just give this to me?" A young Korean woman in the corner said in clear English, "Yeah, I think she just gave that to you." Dazed, Melly and I walked back to the door, out onto the porch and slipped on our shoes.
Our minds were mush. As soon as we were out of sight of the temple, we laughed and blurted out to each other "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED TO US???" We had wanted to meditate for fifteen minutes, and instead we had been drawn into an entire religious service of the central temple of Korean Zen Buddhism. We were the only two non-Korean individuals there. We had experienced something apparently very few other foreigners get to experience, and we had done it completely by accident.
I looked at my new book. Unreadable. Mysterious. Something felt very special about it. How could I learn more about it? I didn't know.
The rest of the afternoon, we saw some old Hanok houses--Korean architecture from long ago. But we couldn't care. Our brains had been turned to pudding. For having gone to a peaceful, meditative service in a Zen temple, we sure were frazzled and exhausted. Nothing else was going to stick to our minds tonight.
We had dinner. We met our friend James and saw some cool Korean bands in a bar and drank beer. We returned to our hostel room at 2 am, only to find a raucous group of twenty college-aged Korean kids outside our bedroom door, laughing loudly and playing games. They said, "Sorry!" We assured them it was all right ("guenchunseumnida!"), closed our bedroom door, put in earplugs, and went to sleep. The group was riotously loud on the other side of our thin bedroom wall until 6 in the damn morning.
But what the hell, we were in Korea.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Wednesday, Feb 22nd
Scott and I successfully navigated our first subway transfer by ourselves after another late morning and breakfast adventure, wandering around our hostel until we found something we might be able to order with pictures. We had seen a small number of different subway stations by now. We were so impressed by each station's uniqueness--some had a new England brick style interior, while some had long rows of underground shops. Today's destination featured a pale, stone, more clean-lined, regal interior. And for good reason. The station steps exited directly onto the grounds of a striking and enormous royal palace.
Geongbukgung Palace is like nothing I've ever seen in the US. The flared rooftops and intricately painted colors absolutely scream out their Asian-ness, as if we had somehow forgotten how different Korea already felt. Scott was awesome and insisted on paying a little more for a digital audio tour. it was so much more meaningful to wander through the palace grounds hearing stories about Korean dynasties and royalty and becoming more familiar with the country's history. I think the pictures say it all- if you haven't already, check out our Facebook albums.
That evening we ventured up a small mountain to the North Seoul Tower. We had been doing a ridiculous amount of walking, so we took a cable car ride up to the base of the tower. Maybe next time we'll hike up the giant flight of stairs. At the top of the tower we watched as dusk fell and the giant city below started to twinkle with lights. Huge is not a big enough word. Yes, there were tall buildings, yes there were a ton of them, but what surprised us was that no matter what direction we faced the buildings kept stretching out towards the horizon and disappearing into the haze. The sheer enormity of Seoul finally made some tangible sense in our minds. It was breathtaking.
We ordered dinner, again by pointing at pictures, at some tiny hole in the wall place in an alley below the tower. Restaurants are everywhere in Seoul, one stacked on top of another. Yet each one has an intimate, mom and pop sort of feel. Except of course the millions of Outback steakhouses (we actually found two within 50 feet of each other), Fridays and Dunkin Donuts. We ordered soju- a sweet potato liquor like vodka- with dinner. The man's eyes bugged out and he said in English, "Soju? Really?!" Why this was so bizarre we still aren't sure, but laughed when he asked us what kind. He held out two bottles and says, "This one for man. This one for girls." So, challenged, I ask for the men's soju. Ick. The soju for girls I much prefer after all.
The next day we visited another palace, this one called Deoksogung Palace. Also incredible, and the buildings were painted exactly like the first palace. Its amazing how intricate and beautiful and yet how uniform the palace structures are. Afterwards, we went to an art museum with one artist featured. "This is my Home" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand was the focal point, showcasing photos of different places around the earth from above in a helicopter. Breathtakingly beautiful photography, but all the information was written in Korean. When we stopped to watch the film, it hit us with a devastating smack in the face. Despite their artistic beauty, these pictures showed us destroying our planet. We walked out feeling a little downtrodden, but determined to try and do our small part to be ecologically conscious. South Korea recycles almost everything…at least that's a start. The only thing that cheered me up was the collection of portraits of people with their farm animals. It was the most bizarre bunch of pictures…I can't even describe the hilarity. A cool exhibit, actually, when you really stopped to think about it, but I couldn't help giggling anyway.
Namdemeun market was our next stop. OMG. Street upon street filled with shops inside and tents outside selling everything under the sun. Blankets and traditional dresses, poofy coats and pots, cameras and handbags, seaweed and shoes….I could go on for hours. And it was a good thing I was exhausted or Scott would have been there forever- I was in shopping HEAVEN. Luckily we had way too much baggage to get back to our apartment, or I would have done some serious damage. As it was, we bought a giant asian pear and stopped for some street food when a middle aged woman, also known as an ajumma, grabbed my arm and ushered us into her eating area (which was a plastic tent). We are beginning to understand the stubborn, iron will of the ajumma. The meal was amazing, except for the bulgogi. Bones in every bite. Overall, pretty impressive street food. You just have to watch out for boney bulgogi :)
Geongbukgung Palace is like nothing I've ever seen in the US. The flared rooftops and intricately painted colors absolutely scream out their Asian-ness, as if we had somehow forgotten how different Korea already felt. Scott was awesome and insisted on paying a little more for a digital audio tour. it was so much more meaningful to wander through the palace grounds hearing stories about Korean dynasties and royalty and becoming more familiar with the country's history. I think the pictures say it all- if you haven't already, check out our Facebook albums.
That evening we ventured up a small mountain to the North Seoul Tower. We had been doing a ridiculous amount of walking, so we took a cable car ride up to the base of the tower. Maybe next time we'll hike up the giant flight of stairs. At the top of the tower we watched as dusk fell and the giant city below started to twinkle with lights. Huge is not a big enough word. Yes, there were tall buildings, yes there were a ton of them, but what surprised us was that no matter what direction we faced the buildings kept stretching out towards the horizon and disappearing into the haze. The sheer enormity of Seoul finally made some tangible sense in our minds. It was breathtaking.
We ordered dinner, again by pointing at pictures, at some tiny hole in the wall place in an alley below the tower. Restaurants are everywhere in Seoul, one stacked on top of another. Yet each one has an intimate, mom and pop sort of feel. Except of course the millions of Outback steakhouses (we actually found two within 50 feet of each other), Fridays and Dunkin Donuts. We ordered soju- a sweet potato liquor like vodka- with dinner. The man's eyes bugged out and he said in English, "Soju? Really?!" Why this was so bizarre we still aren't sure, but laughed when he asked us what kind. He held out two bottles and says, "This one for man. This one for girls." So, challenged, I ask for the men's soju. Ick. The soju for girls I much prefer after all.
The next day we visited another palace, this one called Deoksogung Palace. Also incredible, and the buildings were painted exactly like the first palace. Its amazing how intricate and beautiful and yet how uniform the palace structures are. Afterwards, we went to an art museum with one artist featured. "This is my Home" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand was the focal point, showcasing photos of different places around the earth from above in a helicopter. Breathtakingly beautiful photography, but all the information was written in Korean. When we stopped to watch the film, it hit us with a devastating smack in the face. Despite their artistic beauty, these pictures showed us destroying our planet. We walked out feeling a little downtrodden, but determined to try and do our small part to be ecologically conscious. South Korea recycles almost everything…at least that's a start. The only thing that cheered me up was the collection of portraits of people with their farm animals. It was the most bizarre bunch of pictures…I can't even describe the hilarity. A cool exhibit, actually, when you really stopped to think about it, but I couldn't help giggling anyway.
Namdemeun market was our next stop. OMG. Street upon street filled with shops inside and tents outside selling everything under the sun. Blankets and traditional dresses, poofy coats and pots, cameras and handbags, seaweed and shoes….I could go on for hours. And it was a good thing I was exhausted or Scott would have been there forever- I was in shopping HEAVEN. Luckily we had way too much baggage to get back to our apartment, or I would have done some serious damage. As it was, we bought a giant asian pear and stopped for some street food when a middle aged woman, also known as an ajumma, grabbed my arm and ushered us into her eating area (which was a plastic tent). We are beginning to understand the stubborn, iron will of the ajumma. The meal was amazing, except for the bulgogi. Bones in every bite. Overall, pretty impressive street food. You just have to watch out for boney bulgogi :)
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Our First Day
Tuesday, February 21st
Even finding a way to eat breakfast was an adventure.
Melly and I took our sweet time getting ready, shuffling our belongings in the tiny hostel room, getting dressed in layers to withstand the biting cold of the humid Seoul air. It felt good to be operating at our own pace. We walked out into our first glimpse of Korean sunlight and found ourselves in a gray wintery day in a gray urban megalopolis.
The buildings weren't as vertically staggering as I'd pictured--the city didn't even feel as intensely huge as New York City, even though the population was far larger. But the sheer DETAIL was overwhelming. Hangul signs cluttered the sides of every building, every floor and every doorway boasted a sandwich-board sign with unintelligible messages, pictures of food I've never even heard of before, coffee shops, restaurants, mobile phone dealers, mystery buildings everywhere. "KPop" (which sounds a hell of a lot like bland American pop sung in Korean, in my snobby opinion) and techno pumped out of shops onto the sidewalk while Korean women spoke quick Korean paragraphs into headset microphones, inviting every passerby to step inside their cosmetics shops and buy, buy, buy.
Lots of info to process.
So we wandered into a street packed densely with small shops and mom n' pop restaurants, stopping at every turn and taking careful note of the landmarks so we could find our way home. We wandered for a good thirty-five minutes, hoping to find a restaurant with some English next to the pictures (hell, we had to start somewhere). Finally, there it was, a noodle house with pictures of soup and dumplings outside with English translation! Thank God! Well, I still don't know what that is, but I can at least order it! Yeah, we got this! No problem!
As soon as we walked in and started towards the counter, the two Korean women behind the counter started yelling at us and waving us back towards the door. Oh God! What what what did we do??? Should we take our shoes off? Hang our coats up or something??? I don't understand I don't understand HELP!!!
And then we saw that they were gesturing us towards a machine in the corner, a machine the size of a small ATM with a large touch screen on its face with pictures of the menu items on it. Oh, I got it. Clumsily, we made our choices clear to the machine. Sometimes it would pop up a little menu with two options for a dish. Both options were in Hangul, so we just chose at random and damned be the consequences. We'll eat anything at this point.
That was one of the best meals of our lives. A delicious noodle/tofu/vegetable soup, a platter of stuffed mandu dumplings, a ball of seasoned rice with beef encrusted in seaweed. And a pot of complimentary kimchi, perfectly spiced, perfectly crisp! My God, I had no idea food could be this good. We secretly studied the local Korean people eating around us, trying to find out little subtleties in etiquette, how to slurp up the noodles without making a ridiculous scene, what to do with such and such dish of sauce or whatever. It was a very intense and vibrant experience.
On our way out, I consulted our guidebook and told the woman who had prepared our meal, "Mashi-iss-seo" which means "This is delicious." She was utterly delighted, and bowed to us and thanked us ("Gamsahamnida!") And sent us on our way. We left the restaurant feeling triumphant and proud.
We met up with James an hour or two later. He had the day off work and offered to show us around the city.
James is a flurry of vigor and passion, and has a way of rendering me speechless at least once every couple of minutes, either from the sheer random hilarity of his thoughts, or by his fearless way of cutting past the bullshit between people. He has a true gift for connecting with people, and always has a question to ask them, always is genuinely interested in learning more about the individuals he's with. He showed us how to use the subway (Seoul has a great public transit system, by the way), and amidst the frenzy of activity and flow of Korean people, he turned to Melly and me and asked, "I have a question for you guys. Have you ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma?"
We hadn't. He explained that the prisoner's dilemma happens between two parties who are locked in a cycle of bitter competition and forced cooperation. If you and I are enemies, but for the moment it is mutually advantageous for us to cooperate, then we will cooperate for now. But when will that trust be betrayed? When will the agreement to cooperate be broken? And who will break it? Is it better to break the agreement first, to act out of self-interest and survival while forsaking any notion of altruism or peace? Or is it better to bide your time, perhaps enjoy the benefits of the truce while always taking the risk that the enemy will strike first?
And is this, perhaps, what we all do all the time? Are all our alliances and agreements really born from selfishness? Do we only cooperate because we must to survive in our society? And, if so, what is our true nature?
Self-interest vs. altruism? Self vs. other? Connections between people, between nations, and the possibilities of peace? The looming threat of war? Where do I end and you begin? What is the Self???
The conversation was so involving that we missed our subway stop and had to catch the train in the opposite direction. As we walked out into a new section of Seoul, I contemplated my motivations in being here, I contemplated the ways I could relate to this new nation of people as a total outsider, I contemplated North Korea and the deep scars they've left on the heart of the world, I contemplated economics, politics, spirituality.
"Damn it, James," I said. "Don't you think I have enough to think about right now? We laughed and continued on into the street.
We met up with James's Korean friend Hayley, a native Seoul musician. And we went shopping. High-end posh boutiques pushing handbags for 250 bucks (250,000 won, that is), vintage used-clothes shops selling charming American jackets and shirts from the 70's, shoe shops, book shops, electronics shops, malls, street vendors. Korea is shopping PARADISE, I decided.
Hours later, we wound our way through densely packed alleys into a charming local restaurant. We sat cross-legged on the floor around a small table and feasted on spicy tofu soup, Korean blood sausage in broth (was actually quite tasty), rice-stuffed chicken in boiling broth, kimchi, pickled radishes, cabbages, pahjan, and more. The table was literally covered in perhaps two dozen dishes, each containing something strange and spicy and new. And DELICIOUS. Hayley and James helped us learn about the culture and language, and we laughed over shots of soju. Completely wonderful.
After dinner, we meandered to a lovely coffee shop on the second floor of some nearby building. I enjoyed a caramel affogiato--vanilla ice cream in a dish of espresso--and Melly sipped an iced peach tea.
We talked for a long time. We realized that we were all searching for something in our hearts, and we didn't know what it was and we didn't know how to find it. We realized that we were wanderers, gypsies who felt compelled to taste more than one dish from life's buffet. But we wanted to find our work. We wanted to focus and create something beautiful. We didn't know what we wanted our futures to be.
"The way I see it," James said to us, "is there are two kinds of people. There are those who keep the world running. Doctors, mechanics, construction workers--the people that actually make the system work, those who fix what's broken, and so on. And then there are those who evolve the world. And they may not fit into the system. They may be on the outside of it all, they may not even know what they're doing."
We realized that we all shared the same deep-seated confusion in the pit of our stomachs. The same fear. That same sense of searching. The feeling that everyone had a plan, a sense a purpose, except us.
But we laughed and smiled with each other that night, and we raised our glasses happily together. We were friends now. Life had brought us all here, to this little coffee shop in South Korea, and for one night at least we had found each other.
For now, that was enough.
Even finding a way to eat breakfast was an adventure.
Melly and I took our sweet time getting ready, shuffling our belongings in the tiny hostel room, getting dressed in layers to withstand the biting cold of the humid Seoul air. It felt good to be operating at our own pace. We walked out into our first glimpse of Korean sunlight and found ourselves in a gray wintery day in a gray urban megalopolis.
The buildings weren't as vertically staggering as I'd pictured--the city didn't even feel as intensely huge as New York City, even though the population was far larger. But the sheer DETAIL was overwhelming. Hangul signs cluttered the sides of every building, every floor and every doorway boasted a sandwich-board sign with unintelligible messages, pictures of food I've never even heard of before, coffee shops, restaurants, mobile phone dealers, mystery buildings everywhere. "KPop" (which sounds a hell of a lot like bland American pop sung in Korean, in my snobby opinion) and techno pumped out of shops onto the sidewalk while Korean women spoke quick Korean paragraphs into headset microphones, inviting every passerby to step inside their cosmetics shops and buy, buy, buy.
Lots of info to process.
So we wandered into a street packed densely with small shops and mom n' pop restaurants, stopping at every turn and taking careful note of the landmarks so we could find our way home. We wandered for a good thirty-five minutes, hoping to find a restaurant with some English next to the pictures (hell, we had to start somewhere). Finally, there it was, a noodle house with pictures of soup and dumplings outside with English translation! Thank God! Well, I still don't know what that is, but I can at least order it! Yeah, we got this! No problem!
As soon as we walked in and started towards the counter, the two Korean women behind the counter started yelling at us and waving us back towards the door. Oh God! What what what did we do??? Should we take our shoes off? Hang our coats up or something??? I don't understand I don't understand HELP!!!
And then we saw that they were gesturing us towards a machine in the corner, a machine the size of a small ATM with a large touch screen on its face with pictures of the menu items on it. Oh, I got it. Clumsily, we made our choices clear to the machine. Sometimes it would pop up a little menu with two options for a dish. Both options were in Hangul, so we just chose at random and damned be the consequences. We'll eat anything at this point.
That was one of the best meals of our lives. A delicious noodle/tofu/vegetable soup, a platter of stuffed mandu dumplings, a ball of seasoned rice with beef encrusted in seaweed. And a pot of complimentary kimchi, perfectly spiced, perfectly crisp! My God, I had no idea food could be this good. We secretly studied the local Korean people eating around us, trying to find out little subtleties in etiquette, how to slurp up the noodles without making a ridiculous scene, what to do with such and such dish of sauce or whatever. It was a very intense and vibrant experience.
On our way out, I consulted our guidebook and told the woman who had prepared our meal, "Mashi-iss-seo" which means "This is delicious." She was utterly delighted, and bowed to us and thanked us ("Gamsahamnida!") And sent us on our way. We left the restaurant feeling triumphant and proud.
We met up with James an hour or two later. He had the day off work and offered to show us around the city.
James is a flurry of vigor and passion, and has a way of rendering me speechless at least once every couple of minutes, either from the sheer random hilarity of his thoughts, or by his fearless way of cutting past the bullshit between people. He has a true gift for connecting with people, and always has a question to ask them, always is genuinely interested in learning more about the individuals he's with. He showed us how to use the subway (Seoul has a great public transit system, by the way), and amidst the frenzy of activity and flow of Korean people, he turned to Melly and me and asked, "I have a question for you guys. Have you ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma?"
We hadn't. He explained that the prisoner's dilemma happens between two parties who are locked in a cycle of bitter competition and forced cooperation. If you and I are enemies, but for the moment it is mutually advantageous for us to cooperate, then we will cooperate for now. But when will that trust be betrayed? When will the agreement to cooperate be broken? And who will break it? Is it better to break the agreement first, to act out of self-interest and survival while forsaking any notion of altruism or peace? Or is it better to bide your time, perhaps enjoy the benefits of the truce while always taking the risk that the enemy will strike first?
And is this, perhaps, what we all do all the time? Are all our alliances and agreements really born from selfishness? Do we only cooperate because we must to survive in our society? And, if so, what is our true nature?
Self-interest vs. altruism? Self vs. other? Connections between people, between nations, and the possibilities of peace? The looming threat of war? Where do I end and you begin? What is the Self???
The conversation was so involving that we missed our subway stop and had to catch the train in the opposite direction. As we walked out into a new section of Seoul, I contemplated my motivations in being here, I contemplated the ways I could relate to this new nation of people as a total outsider, I contemplated North Korea and the deep scars they've left on the heart of the world, I contemplated economics, politics, spirituality.
"Damn it, James," I said. "Don't you think I have enough to think about right now? We laughed and continued on into the street.
We met up with James's Korean friend Hayley, a native Seoul musician. And we went shopping. High-end posh boutiques pushing handbags for 250 bucks (250,000 won, that is), vintage used-clothes shops selling charming American jackets and shirts from the 70's, shoe shops, book shops, electronics shops, malls, street vendors. Korea is shopping PARADISE, I decided.
Hours later, we wound our way through densely packed alleys into a charming local restaurant. We sat cross-legged on the floor around a small table and feasted on spicy tofu soup, Korean blood sausage in broth (was actually quite tasty), rice-stuffed chicken in boiling broth, kimchi, pickled radishes, cabbages, pahjan, and more. The table was literally covered in perhaps two dozen dishes, each containing something strange and spicy and new. And DELICIOUS. Hayley and James helped us learn about the culture and language, and we laughed over shots of soju. Completely wonderful.
After dinner, we meandered to a lovely coffee shop on the second floor of some nearby building. I enjoyed a caramel affogiato--vanilla ice cream in a dish of espresso--and Melly sipped an iced peach tea.
We talked for a long time. We realized that we were all searching for something in our hearts, and we didn't know what it was and we didn't know how to find it. We realized that we were wanderers, gypsies who felt compelled to taste more than one dish from life's buffet. But we wanted to find our work. We wanted to focus and create something beautiful. We didn't know what we wanted our futures to be.
"The way I see it," James said to us, "is there are two kinds of people. There are those who keep the world running. Doctors, mechanics, construction workers--the people that actually make the system work, those who fix what's broken, and so on. And then there are those who evolve the world. And they may not fit into the system. They may be on the outside of it all, they may not even know what they're doing."
We realized that we all shared the same deep-seated confusion in the pit of our stomachs. The same fear. That same sense of searching. The feeling that everyone had a plan, a sense a purpose, except us.
But we laughed and smiled with each other that night, and we raised our glasses happily together. We were friends now. Life had brought us all here, to this little coffee shop in South Korea, and for one night at least we had found each other.
For now, that was enough.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
We Arrive
Sunday, February 19th to Monday, February 20th
We arrive:
When our alarm went off at a nauseating 3:30 AM in Salt Lake City, it actually took me a few seconds to remember what was going on. Then, something like a bowling ball dropping on my chest, the sleepy stupor shook itself off, and I remembered.
Oh God, it's actually happening. Melly and I are actually moving to South Korea.
Right. Now.
It was really a blessing that we had to be at the airport so God-awfully early. The terror and excitement that might've reduced me to a blubbering mess at any other time of the day was instead dulled to bleary-eyed resignation. My parents drove us on slushy snowy Utah freeways to the terminal. We didn't ride in complete silence, but it was close. After so many months and months of waiting and speculating, the moment of goodbye itself was surreal, almost anticlimactic. I couldn't emotionally access what was happening, so I just let it roll on by.
Man our luggage is heavy. We were ridiculously bogged down standing in the baggage check line, but thankfully we quickly dropped the bulk of it off and began a 24 hour process of waiting and flying. I was expecting the day to be pretty horrible, but actually, once we started walking around without giant horrible backpacks and luggage, finding our gates, going through security, making our transfers, sipping airport coffee and eating airport sandwiches was actually pretty fun. It felt good to be responsible for our own decisions, to not be able to defer to someone else's experience or expertise. And it felt good to be successful with that responsibility.
The flight across the Pacific (well, we actually flew over the continental coasts and across the Bering Strait--probably a better idea) was surprisingly pleasant. We flew with Asiana airlines, and the experience was GREAT. Delicious, high quality food, free wine, friendly staff. We had OCTOPUS on the plane, for crying out loud. And BIBIMBAP. And STEAK. And SALMON. And it was GOOD. I mean, seriously. Awesome. Fly with them if you can.
The relativity of time in that aircraft was interesting. I can't sleep well in planes, so I took a Benadryl to knock myself out. Maybe I got three hours of sleep, maybe I got six. In retrospect, I find it impossible to tell. Being on that plane was like being in a womb. Small, compact, comfortable. My needs were met before I had to think about them, and the world outside was just some vague suggestion on a screen in the seat-back in front of me. The birth that awaited us seemed impossibly distant, irrelevant. More wine, please.
The Seoul airport was a breeze. We didn't even have to stop walking to go through customs. Sweet.
Then we waited for about 2 hours for our buddy James to get off work and meet us. James was our saving grace (or saving Gracey, heh heh). He helped us with our luggage, walked us to the airport subway station that looked like some galactic space port, and helped us find the way to the hostel. We probably could've done it on our own with much effort and a lot of wasted time, but man oh man am I glad James Gracey lived in Seoul that night.
The walk to the hostel was not easy. For the first time since the airport that morning (24 hours earlier), we had to bear the full brunt of our luggage, navigate through crowded subway stations, walk up a staircase to the street that will forever live in infamy in my brain, and out into the strange and wonderful world of Seoul. A city block later, it was practically a miracle that we saw the small sign tucked down a side alley--"Mr. Kim's Friend's Guest House." Oh thank God, get these backpacks off of us.
We plopped the luggage down in our cramped little hostel room and headed back out into the streets. My jaw was completely dropped the next couple of hours as James led us down narrow streets clustered with small shops, restaurants, flashing lights, never-ending tunnels of blinking lights in Hangeul characters that may as well have been hieroglyphics or alien code, James pointing out little gems of clubs, bars, and restaurants stacked three, four, seven or eight on top of each other. We wound our way through a couple of corners, and I realized, not five minutes after we left the hostel, that if we suddenly got separated from James, I would have NO CLUE how to get back, that we would wander forever through the neon signs and stacks of restaurants until the sun rose, and maybe an English speaking somebody might take mercy on us, sleeping in a gutter somewhere, and also happen to know the way back to Mr. Kim's Friend's Guesthouse. Luckily, that didn't happen.
Instead, James took us to a charming little restaurant called "Jawsfood," with only 4 items on the menu, all of them completely unintelligible to me. James ordered for us, and soon we were laughing over a bowl of a delicious fish broth, a plate of perfectly fried tempura, and a bowl of little chewy rice cakes in a FANTASTICALLY spicy sauce. Our first Korean food, and it was amazing.
James led us through the streets for an hour and a half after that, pointing out Hongdae Park, shopping districts, bars and clubs, delicious hole-in-the-wall restaurants. We wound in and out of narrow alleys and wide city streets. I had no idea where we were, even relatively where the hostel might be, and my brain was operating basically as well as a bowl of bean noodles. It was too much. Just too much to take anything in.
So we made it back to the hostel. I would later realize that we never left a tiny little rectangle of streets in our immediate vicinity, even though it seemed we walked miles into a impenetrable labyrinth. It wasn't long before we collapsed into bed, completely overwhelmed and perfectly drained. We slept.
I woke up four hours later, at 5:30 AM Seoul time. My body was positive, it told me, that it was mid-afternoon and I'd better be getting up. I tried to explain the situation to it, but it wouldn't have it. My mind had joined the game and was trying to do the impossible--make sense of what was going on--so I was completely screwed.
I woke up and read a book until the sun came up.
We arrive:
When our alarm went off at a nauseating 3:30 AM in Salt Lake City, it actually took me a few seconds to remember what was going on. Then, something like a bowling ball dropping on my chest, the sleepy stupor shook itself off, and I remembered.
Oh God, it's actually happening. Melly and I are actually moving to South Korea.
Right. Now.
It was really a blessing that we had to be at the airport so God-awfully early. The terror and excitement that might've reduced me to a blubbering mess at any other time of the day was instead dulled to bleary-eyed resignation. My parents drove us on slushy snowy Utah freeways to the terminal. We didn't ride in complete silence, but it was close. After so many months and months of waiting and speculating, the moment of goodbye itself was surreal, almost anticlimactic. I couldn't emotionally access what was happening, so I just let it roll on by.
Man our luggage is heavy. We were ridiculously bogged down standing in the baggage check line, but thankfully we quickly dropped the bulk of it off and began a 24 hour process of waiting and flying. I was expecting the day to be pretty horrible, but actually, once we started walking around without giant horrible backpacks and luggage, finding our gates, going through security, making our transfers, sipping airport coffee and eating airport sandwiches was actually pretty fun. It felt good to be responsible for our own decisions, to not be able to defer to someone else's experience or expertise. And it felt good to be successful with that responsibility.
The flight across the Pacific (well, we actually flew over the continental coasts and across the Bering Strait--probably a better idea) was surprisingly pleasant. We flew with Asiana airlines, and the experience was GREAT. Delicious, high quality food, free wine, friendly staff. We had OCTOPUS on the plane, for crying out loud. And BIBIMBAP. And STEAK. And SALMON. And it was GOOD. I mean, seriously. Awesome. Fly with them if you can.
The relativity of time in that aircraft was interesting. I can't sleep well in planes, so I took a Benadryl to knock myself out. Maybe I got three hours of sleep, maybe I got six. In retrospect, I find it impossible to tell. Being on that plane was like being in a womb. Small, compact, comfortable. My needs were met before I had to think about them, and the world outside was just some vague suggestion on a screen in the seat-back in front of me. The birth that awaited us seemed impossibly distant, irrelevant. More wine, please.
The Seoul airport was a breeze. We didn't even have to stop walking to go through customs. Sweet.
Then we waited for about 2 hours for our buddy James to get off work and meet us. James was our saving grace (or saving Gracey, heh heh). He helped us with our luggage, walked us to the airport subway station that looked like some galactic space port, and helped us find the way to the hostel. We probably could've done it on our own with much effort and a lot of wasted time, but man oh man am I glad James Gracey lived in Seoul that night.
The walk to the hostel was not easy. For the first time since the airport that morning (24 hours earlier), we had to bear the full brunt of our luggage, navigate through crowded subway stations, walk up a staircase to the street that will forever live in infamy in my brain, and out into the strange and wonderful world of Seoul. A city block later, it was practically a miracle that we saw the small sign tucked down a side alley--"Mr. Kim's Friend's Guest House." Oh thank God, get these backpacks off of us.
We plopped the luggage down in our cramped little hostel room and headed back out into the streets. My jaw was completely dropped the next couple of hours as James led us down narrow streets clustered with small shops, restaurants, flashing lights, never-ending tunnels of blinking lights in Hangeul characters that may as well have been hieroglyphics or alien code, James pointing out little gems of clubs, bars, and restaurants stacked three, four, seven or eight on top of each other. We wound our way through a couple of corners, and I realized, not five minutes after we left the hostel, that if we suddenly got separated from James, I would have NO CLUE how to get back, that we would wander forever through the neon signs and stacks of restaurants until the sun rose, and maybe an English speaking somebody might take mercy on us, sleeping in a gutter somewhere, and also happen to know the way back to Mr. Kim's Friend's Guesthouse. Luckily, that didn't happen.
Instead, James took us to a charming little restaurant called "Jawsfood," with only 4 items on the menu, all of them completely unintelligible to me. James ordered for us, and soon we were laughing over a bowl of a delicious fish broth, a plate of perfectly fried tempura, and a bowl of little chewy rice cakes in a FANTASTICALLY spicy sauce. Our first Korean food, and it was amazing.
James led us through the streets for an hour and a half after that, pointing out Hongdae Park, shopping districts, bars and clubs, delicious hole-in-the-wall restaurants. We wound in and out of narrow alleys and wide city streets. I had no idea where we were, even relatively where the hostel might be, and my brain was operating basically as well as a bowl of bean noodles. It was too much. Just too much to take anything in.
So we made it back to the hostel. I would later realize that we never left a tiny little rectangle of streets in our immediate vicinity, even though it seemed we walked miles into a impenetrable labyrinth. It wasn't long before we collapsed into bed, completely overwhelmed and perfectly drained. We slept.
I woke up four hours later, at 5:30 AM Seoul time. My body was positive, it told me, that it was mid-afternoon and I'd better be getting up. I tried to explain the situation to it, but it wouldn't have it. My mind had joined the game and was trying to do the impossible--make sense of what was going on--so I was completely screwed.
I woke up and read a book until the sun came up.
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