Three Baskets

My school decided I probably didn’t want to go on the their fieldtrip and gave me the three days off instead. I decided to head down South to a town called Daegu and a temple famed for the oldest extant Chinese version of the Buddhist canon.

Place of Interest: Sock Street. I kid you not.

Daegu is the 3^rd largest city in South Korea, but you can tell it’s running short of attractions when the tourist map lists Auto Parts Street as a ‘place of interest.’ In fact, the map listed many speciality streets as worth a look, so I strung a little walking tour together covering said Auto Parts, Printing Street, Sock Street and Sewing Machine Street. Auto Parts street reminded me of down town Kuilsriver, with two differences; Daegu had more stores specializing in multi-coloured LED systems and New Age Tunings (whatever that means) and the cars being tuned were not VW Golfs or Honda’s, but Hyundai’s and Daewoo’s. Sock Street lived up to its name and I did need a few pairs. But the main attractions in an otherwise dreary city are Seomun Market, Yangnyeongsi Market, and the Yasigolmok shopping district. Dating back to 1669, Seomun is one of Korea’s oldest markets and like Dongdaemun has been housed in several different buildings that hardly resemble a market from the outside, but has all the claustrophobic hustle and bustle inside to compete with the best. My favorite knockoff find: The Noble Face hiking gear with Nedtex technology.  Yasigolmok felt bigger than Myeongdong and I managed to get myself lost after dark. Unless you’re a serial shopper or bargain hunter extraordinaire, neither of the aforementioned is worth a four hour trip on the mugunghwa  – there’s nothing here you can’t find in Seoul.

The Noble Face - Hiking with character since 1963

The herbal medicine market is slightly more authentic with its own museum dedicated to ginseng (all in Korean). I strolled past a few shops, but didn’t feel free to take photos inside given how serious the practitioners took their trade: each store looked a bit like a psychologist-come-witchdoctor’s consultation room. There was a desk behind which the shopkeeper obviously consulted customers on their ailments and a coach for the infirm, then a plethora of remedies ranging from tied twigs to antelope horns. I asked a shopkeeper what exactly the horns were good for and how I’d ingest them. He presented me with a bag of thinly sliced horn(s) for 26 000W, told me to make a soup with it and that it was good for my bones. From bones to bones; makes sense.

I opted for a jjimjilbang for the night. After an extended sauna, hot-cold-jet-bath session I watched Korean reality TV with the old men and then found a random spot on the open floor for the night. The big communal area was just the right sleeping-without-blankets temperature and I was quite chuffed that my experiment with communal living was unfolding so well. At 01:00 however I was woken by an ignoramus slurping his ramen and watching TV at full volume. I moved to another room. At 04:00 I was woken again by violent snoring from some of my new neighbours. There would be no more sleeping. I surfed the internet until 05:00, dozed until 07:00, and had another morning washing session before making an early start.

Monk Spotting at Haeinsa

I headed out on the bus bound for Haeinsa, an hour from Daegu. Haeinsa, translated as ‘Temple of Reflection on a Smooth Sea,’ is similar in design to the other temples I’ve seen in Korea with understated styling and a turquoise and maroon colour scheme. What makes it exceptional is its seclusion and its role as repository for one of Buddhism’s greatest treasures; the Tripitaka Koreana. Thought to be the oldest Buddhist writings in Chinese characters, the Tripitaka is the entire Buddhist canon painstakingly carved on 81 258 double sided wooden blocks. The blocks were used as master copies from which the canon was printed onto hanji (traditional Korean paper) for dissemination throughout the Korean peninsula. Every block was treated for several years through a variety of methods to limit decay and warping before carving commenced. Since the mid 15^th century it’s been stored in the Janggyeong Panjeon, a set of four remarkable wooden buildings that protect it from deterioration through some pretty sophisticated techniques and a thorough understanding of the local geography and climate. The most distinguishing feature of the buildings are the differently sized wooden slats on all the walls which maintain the right levels of humidity, given the seasonal winds and the directions the walls face. For obvious reasons no tourists are allowed into the buildings but the slats are wide enough to get a good view. Unfortunately no photographs are allowed, but the old man that kept a watchful eye on where I pointed my camera also spoke some Afrikaans. “Goeie dag,” “Hoe gaan dit?” and “Dis lekker,” are probably the least expected sounds coming from an octogenarian Korean ajjusi at a secluded temple in the mountains.

The Tripitaka Koreana housed at Haeinsa -
Photo by malpuella (www.flickr.com)

What I enjoyed most about seeing the Tripitaka Koreana and the buildings it’s housed in is the simplicity of the design and the lack of stylistic affectations. There are no ornate gold linings or figurines lining the walls or blocks, no altars or incense, no intricate mosaic tiling, just row upon row of wooden blocks; an ancient wooden library carved one character a time. It’s functional without being austere. It's a physical manifestation of the contradictions that Buddhism is famous for: It’s both robust and ephemeral all at once. The rows of roughly hewn wooden shelves with their heavy load stood effortlessly and strong for centuries, unmoved by the elements or human interests, and yet the scene was so unimposing that the morning sun and the slightest stirring of the cool air moved between the shelves unimpeded. The more you stared at it through the slats the more it lulled you into a meditative state.

After the temple I headed to the little village up the road and was grabbed by an ajjuma who insisted I eat at her restaurant. Cooking from her own kitchen she made me the best yachae jeon I’ve had in Korea. I decided to head straight back to Seoul.

A fruit by any other name

What would get the world’s laziest blogger to post his second entry in 9 months? Nothing short of treason against the Republic of Good Taste.

‘Culture shock’ is a term bandied about too easily over the years. It's lost a lot of its kick-in-mouth appeal. It's lost its shock. Brief tremors maybe, but shock, no. There are the pet complaints I've heard from many foreign teachers: the shoving on trains, the tyranny of the aged, spitting in doors, and a definite if unspoken sense amongst the natives that they are in fact superior (because why? “because Korea No 1.”) And yet, for the most part, we've gone about our jobs and recreational activities unperturbed by the kind of things that would send the culturally sheltered running. I think this is largely because Seoul is 16 subway lines shy of a one horse town and so has the capacity to accommodate many parallel universes within its sprawling reach.

In general, it hasn’t been the experience of things completely absent from 'Western culture' that have seen my toes curling in my boots. For one, consider the widespread affectionate tendencies of otherwise perfectly straight and staunchly homophobic adolescent boys to stroke each other’s inner thighs, perform affectionate little shoulder rubs and nostalgically play with each other’s hair for extended periods of time on trains and in classes. These behaviors are so far off my normal-radar I find myself resigned to a shrug and a lack of opinion. But then, every now and then (and by ‘now and then’ I mean ‘once a week on Fridays’), there are a number of small things (and by ‘a number of small things’ I mean ‘one thing in particular’) that really delineate the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ in my narrative; a difference so intractable it makes a clash of civilizations seem inevitable: The composition of a Korean fruit salad.

Four days of the week my school lunch routine resembles that of any devout Buddhist monk. Like them I have found solace in the simple things; a bowl of steaming rice, a few crunchy sprouts and a selection of green weeds of which I don’t know the names. It’s more than fine. I bless the kitchen staff and their unborn grandchildren for the odd serving of soft tofu charitably bestowed. I am never disappointed. I am never offended. But Fridays I drag my feet to the cafeteria, shoulders slumped low, bracing myself for the inevitable disappointment, anticipating the charade that will follow and the lie that I’ll be forced to perpetuate. As we round the corner to the staff buffet my dear co-teacher spots the weekly fruit salad and turns to me with an excited “See! You can have!” It takes that much extra to feign an excited “Yes!” I feel like a ball of gustatory sense data recoiling from the bad-taste equivalent of kryptonite. I take my stainless steel dish, my chopsticks and spoon. I dish the rice. I dish the miso soup. I dish the kimchi. And then I reach the dreaded trough. As I drive the ladle into the motley mess I feel the muscles in my fingers inextricably intertwined to nerves that ultimately terminate in an itch just inside my left nostril. This triggers the set of muscles in my face whose sole purpose is to pull the ‘Not this. Not again.’ face. But what can be more appetizing to a vegetarian in Asia-land than a simple, fresh, fruit salad. Yes: a lovely medley of apples, bananas, strawberries, oranges… and tomatoes. All smothered in a few liters of something approaching mayonnaise.

Next to nuclear proliferation I concede there are more important things to worry about on this peninsula in the orient, and yet my life has come to this: This is the pet hate I’ve come to fear most. Nobody's faulting the Koreans on their reasoning; the logic is flawless. But adding tomatoes to fruit salads is a lot like adding 가위바위보 (rock-paper-scissors) to the Olympic Games because, hell, if it aint a game, what is it? (No guesses as to who would carry off the gold in this event). Putting aside my political correctness for once (OK maybe not for once); ignoring that in many practices a certain cultural relativism obtains that can’t be questioned; absconding from my allegiance to A.J. Ayer in that there really is no disputing matters of taste; I’ll say the following to Koreans: The composition of your fruit salads offend me deeply. If there was an international Good-Taste Police they would have you locked up. How many fine strawberries have been forgotten under dollops of bad mayonnaise? How many have been horribly paired with a plump tomato in the mouth of an unsuspecting waygookin? Who arranged this marriage? Well, you’re dead wrong. Your sense of taste is all muddled… and wrong. 

Seven months after the fact

One of the last things I did before I left Cape Town, just before I sold my computer and put the multi-plug in the last open box marked ‘MISC’, was to claim a corner of cyberspace for my Korean blog. I didn’t know a lot about this country I decided to spend a year of my life in, but I had heard of Kimchee, tasted South African renditions of it, and thought Kimchee Times was a nice banner under which to present my ‘findings.’ After all, what with all the strange adventures I was bound to have necessitating timeous reporting, I anticipated frequent informative entrees for the folk back home on everything from Korean politics to the noxious gasses on my street corner. It would be perceptive, poetic, insightful, entertaining, and inspiring. It would be some of the finest travel prose written since the book of Exodus. It would never happen.

Now, four days shy of seven months, my space at thekimcheetimes.blogspot.com is still only an empty shelf. It would have gathered dust and a cobweb had it been a real shelf, but nothing is real when everything’s in flux. And when you do eventually take a step up onto the sidewalk and out of the bustling streets of this little peninsula in the orient, everything feels rather ephemeral. But you would be mistaken. And I frequently am. It does exist, it’s very real, and it wants to know everything you know. Never has a place been both so wireless and so wired. Never has so many gorgeous women been surrounded by so many average men in such a confined space. Never has a national drink been so nauseating.

Having to cover so much lost-time and head-space in a single blog requires painting with a broad brush. No, rather throwing multiple 5l tins at a canvas. But none of that will happen here. From now on, somewhere between watching nerd-warriors battle it out on the GSL and teaching middle schoolers modals and imperatives, I might have the will power to add the odd anecdotal splatter. Hopefully, five months from now, these will all conjugate (like a bunch of Korean verb endings) into a chaotically coherent whole; a picture of some people living in a town, by a river, with some crazy neighbours, and the plethora of distractions that fill their waking lives.