jejudo - korean utopia

abundance of rocks, women, and wind

and no thieves, beggars, or gates...

(photo credit: stolen from jenny finitzer since i slept through the sunrise!)

i didn't think korea could be this pretty. it was great to get out of dingy, flashy seoul.

anyways, yonsei planned the weekend trip for a group of international students.

Here are some highlights of that weekend's good times:


took a plane to jejudo - less than an hour from seoul!

PARTY BUS equipped with flatscreen TV - watched a lot of KPOP MUSIC VIDEOS ON REPEAT: 2ne1, 2 pm, 4 minute, girls generation... etc. & KARAOKE - sang some dancing queen and let it beeee

korean traditional village: drank some omijacha (tea), learned about the history of jejudo, for example, how the women worked mostly because the men hid from the draft. the women even took their babies with them to work in the fields.

our tour guide: explained to us how the jeju natives used to use outdoor bathrooms that fed (literally) directly to the pigpens.

maze!

big rock.

ATV's / hanul looking mad-fly

international peace museum of jejudo

one of the manmade caves in the side of a cliff where Japanese hid their weapons during World War II (i think) - apparently the Japanese forced the Jeju people to dig these caves themselves, just another example of Japanese oppression (just sayin)

Green Tea Farm

DINNER: JEJU PORK!

Family time...and lots of it...

This is also kind of about Chuseok, but more about some personal experiences with my family, so if this already bores you, go ahead and skip this entry :)

So my mom just visited for about 2 weeks because she is from Seoul but hasn't really been back here in about 10 years or so. She came for Chuseok and we went to see her family, who live in Uijeongbu.

This might get a little wordy, but basically it was just such an amazing experience.

Pretty much none of my family can speak English, and I do not know much Korean at all, so most of the time I was sitting and smiling and trying desperately to follow the conversation. Bits of the conversation that I picked up on were things like "Bad mom" for not teaching me Korean and "Eat a lot." I'm obviously learning Korean at a voracious speed...

Regardless of the ease (or lack thereof) of our communication, it was still a great experience. I met 3 of my mom's brothers and 2 of her sisters, and realized that almost all of my cousins are married and have children, some of them my age. So basically I have several relatives ages 16-18 that have to call me 이모. It makes me feel so old! haha

My cousins are also learning English in school, and are supposedly pretty good at it, but whenever my aunt told them to speak to me, they got really shy and refused. My 7- and 8-year old cousins were the only ones who tried, but basically they just kept shouting "Hello!" and "Good morning!" at me (even though it was late at night) and then running away laughing and embarassed. Probably a highlight of my night.

But on the day of Chuseok we did all the traditional things-we set up a large table with tons of great food for my grandparents and all did the traditional bows and drink pouring. There was also a smaller set up for my eldest uncle, who also passed away several years ago. This is going to sound really cheesy, but being there with my family and participating in this sacred tradition was just really emotionally taxing.

I was just standing there, thinking about this entire part of my life that I've missed for 19 years. Before I came to Dartmouth, I was so, SO removed from my Korean heritage. I didn't even think about ever learning the language and I would have NEVER thought to visit and meet my family here. But my Korean relatives were SO nice to me and want me to keep visiting while I'm here. And I love them but it just makes me so frustrated that we can't communicate well. And then I thought about my sisters and brother who still don't know about this part of our life. And then when we sat down to eat, my mother gave me my grandmother's rice bowl, and yeah...it was just too much.

I used to think that since we lived in America, we were supposed to be "white" and speak English and do American things. And I am half white and I grew up in a primarily white area and went to white schools so it was very easy to forget about the other half of my heritage. But it has become so important to me to have this Korean part of my life and continue to pass it on. Korean people are just so proud of their country and their culture and it makes me really sad that I ignored it for so long. And makes me wonder what it will be like when I go back home, and try to explain and share this with my other 3 siblings, who are still very removed from the culture.

It also made me respect and admire my mom a lot more. I realized how hard it must be for her to have lived in the U.S. for all these years, never really visiting her family or friends in the place she grew up in, never being able to speak her native language with her own children, knowing a very different set of values and traditions, and putting all of these things aside so that her children can grow up fully "Americanized."

Whether or not it was a good thing that she didn't push her culture upon us, it's definitely a part of me that I don't want to ignore anymore.

SORRY for the long post, but I just had to get this out. It's probably only interesting to other white-washed halfies...or maybe not even them...hm awkward...

ALSO
Last weekend all 5 of us Dartmouth kids went on a Jeju-do trip with a bunch of other international students. Epic post/pictures to be updated soon...

추석 [choosuk: korean thanksgiving]

So for choosuk I first went to my mom's side of the family.. It was slightly awkward because I haven't seen them in forever and my cousins were slightly scared of me.. its fine.. haha but my grandmother grows lots of plants on the roof of her house..

Spinach!

Radish!

Sesame Seeds!

she also had these cool old urns that she used to use to store kimchi and other cooking things (soy sauce, red chili pepper paste..)

Then the next day I went to the mountains to visit my great grandparents' grave with my dad's side of the family. We had to hike a bit and we were

carrying a lot of food so it was a little tough... But as soon as we got there the first task was to clean around the grave

and putting (fake) flowers around the grave...

and food!! This is basically a setup so my great grandparents can have a meal. note the two rice bowls and two sets of utensils set up for them

so the spoon is set in the rice bowl and the chopsticks are placed on various dishes so the spirits can eat.. then we do the traditional korean bow.

at the very end we all kneel and pray for various things we're wishing for...

then we eat and drink!!

and an awesome picture of my twin cousins demonstrating typical asian poses (but for real)

i had an awesome weekend

almost forgot

to mention i witnessed someone actually using a pickup line. delivery was amazing enough to make up for the absolute lack of content and relevancy.

korean 아가씨 1: my name is 이 신혜.
me: oh hey. im 하늘, 만나서 반가워요.
bro 1: oh ahh, 신혜. sounds like 식혜.
korean 아가씨 1 who thinks that bro 1 has misheard: ah no, it's 신혜.
bro 1: oh i know. but it should be 식혜. 식혜 is sweet. sweet like you.

an extremely awkward two seconds pass before she laughs and blushes. amazing.

did i forget to mention this was during a small group meeting consisting of 7 people who didnt know each other at all? well played sir. he did get her phone number.

but so did everyone else with everyone else.

-hanul

oh right. i have a blog.

time to play catchup. but ill just give yall the cliffnotes for now.



-the video above was taken at the yon-ko games. so im guessing this is the equivalent to dousing your coach in water/gatorade after a game. but this post-game celebration takes that to another level. watch as the yonsei basketball coach gets man-handled by his players. suicides soon to follow.

anyway, i was very surprised about the overall atmosphere at the yon-ko games. witnessing a sea of red and blue moving in unison with their respective cheerleading squads, i was shocked to see the crowds so enthusiastic about their school spirit. even more shocking, the korean natives were completely sober. the people in the stands watched and followed the co-ed cheerleading squad while totally disregarding the score of the games.

the yon-ko games eventually ended in a tie: two wins, two losses, and a tie for both schools. remember how i said that i didn't see any koreans drinking during the games? i should have known better, but no event in korea can be a completely sober one. supposedly, all the people at the games packed sinchon saturday night after the last game was played. they proceeded to march into all the restaurants, hofs, and bars in town and demanded that they supply the students with soju and beer. after extorting all the free alcohol they could get, the students lined up in trains and drank the night away on yonsei campus. the post-games' festivities are also part of this yearly tradition.

where was i at the time? i was at a bar for the debuts of various techno and new-age groups. an above average experience i would say. but too much standing around for my tastes.

classes are alright. but, what ive come to realize is that i cannot drink and go out like i used to. my time here in korea has been far more lax and low-key than two summers ago. this has been a fairly long post, so ill end it here. hopefully, ill blog more frequently from now on.

-hanul

재사 [jae sa]

So this weekend I went home to my grandparents' place for jae sa. Jae sa is basically a ceremony to honor a deceased elder. It's held on the day they passed away, and this one was for my great grandparents. I hadn't participated in this in a while since I'm only in Korea during the summers so I had forgotten what it was all about. Recently I learned in one of my classes that traditional korean culture reinforces the belief of spiritual existence after death, and this was very apparent in this ceremony.

I wish I had brought my camera home this weekend, but my grandmother and aunts spent the last couple days preparing aka cooking a LOT of food. For the ceremony, a large table is set up with the pictures of my great grandparents and all the food that was prepared. Every jae sa needs to have certain food (such as fish, rice cakes, fruit, meet, stew, rice etc) and there's a specific arrangement in which all the dishes must be placed relative to where the ancestors would sit. Before the ceremony the front door is open so the spirits could enter, the lights in the house are turned off, and candles are lit. We welcome the ancestors by doing the traditional korean bow twice. Incense are lit and a small glass of alcohol is poured then is rotated around the incense three times counter clockwise. I don't really know why they do this, but I got to do it because I was the oldest in my generation to be there. There was lots more bowing and bowing and at the end, we each did individual prayers where we asked the ancestors for good health and luck. It was fun participating in the ceremony.

Then we got to eat all the food and i am stufffed. and I brought a lot of the food back with me to the dorms so i have plenty of food to snack on while i write an essay for tomorroww woooooo

Janggo-do

So this weekend Amy and I went on a trip with other international students to Janggo Island. It was an amazing experience. We went to a fishing village and learned to fish with dragnets, pan for sea salt, and dig for clams. We even got to eat the different kinds of fish, squid, and crabs that we caught!

It was really nice to get away from the city and do something more "authentically" Korean.

We saw ajummas making homemade 멸치 (dried anchovies) and waded in water up to our waists while using a huge dragnet to bring in a variety of fish and shellfish. The island itself was also very beautiful and the locals were extremely friendly and welcoming. In fact, one of the ajashis kept repeating over and over how glad they were that we were visiting. I guess they don't get many visitors and life on the island gets pretty monotonous.

Makes you really appreciate what you have. Life in Hanover gets pretty dull sometimes, but I can't imagine living on a little island like Janggo-do and doing the same things each day with the same people. That being said, I would definitely visit again. It was nice to get out of my comfort zone and experience some of the more base pleasures in life.

Pictures below!

700 year old restaurant!

pit stop at the west beach

cute girls on the ferry!

bus buddies with one of the locals :)

our lavish accomodations

salt field

sunset at Janggo-do!

We caught all of this in our dragnet:

...and then celebrated with the locals!