Lunar new year

설날 (Seolnal or Chinese/Lunar New year) is a big deal in Korea. Most people take this occasion to return to their hometowns and worship their ancestors. People gather with relatives whom they haven’t seen for a while, make a pilgrimage to their ancestor’s grave, followed by a big dinner and lotsa calories. Food is very important on Seolnal.

Children love this holiday because they bow to their grandparents and, in return, get some money. The traditional food served for Seolnal is called “Dokguk” – some sort of rice cake soup.

While January 1st is the one and only New Year in Occident, it is barely celebrated over here. Even Christmas doesn’t really matter – we only got a day off for both holidays.

But Lunar New Year on the other hand is heavenly, as it lasts for 3 days. This year, it took place right before the weekend so we were blessed with 5 marvelous days of freedom!

It started on Tuesday night with Bill's birthday dinner at VIPS. Koreans don't usually eat a big fat steak with mashed potatoes... the meat is usually either cooked in a stew, or on a grill and wrapped in salad leaves (cute, I know). But VIPS offers big fat steaks and 12 of us tried it out - it was undercooked, incredibly expensive, but alright.

As most foreigners, I enjoyed a lot of partying in good company – we went out quite a lot, had dinners and of course we did some dancing! We hung out at Led Zepplin and Blue Agave, went out for some Macally, and even played darts at Bull’s. Saturday night was brutal since we all went home at 6am, right after a big egg muffin and endless blabbering at McDicks. That' Alicia and Jun.

But I did I discover some pretty good drinks, “White Russian” and “Don’t go home alone”. I also pretended to punch Brett, Kat was eating my shoe and Misha, the Russian kangaroo boxer (no kidding!) was showing off.

I’ve always said that the bar scene isn’t my thing, yet somehow when I find myself out there with a drink, the entertainment (and entertaining!) starts and it’s a lot of fun until the morning comes. But the next day… oh the next day! Still, when I’m old I’ll look back on those years and think I really had a freakin’ blast! Like that picture I took, where they all look like my gynecologists haha

I also slept like a baby – thanks to my neighbors who suddenly decided to move out (out of the blue eh!) – and I did quite a lot of hiking. Jeju is a volcanic island; Hallasan is the big volcano in the middle, and there are hundreds of “orums” (small mountains) over the island.

In desperate need for some alone time in nature, I bought crampons and hiked hallasan! It was wonderful, with tons of snow and the fresh smell of winter. I didn’t get to be quite alone though, as most Koreans do everything together.

I must have seen over 100 military guys doing their workout hike I guess, and countless families as well as couples. Each one of them would stare at me as I walked by, saying “hiiiii” with a big smile.

It was also a slow walk down because kids and adults were using plastic bags to slide downhill. I even saw a grandmother, soooo excited that she would always try to slide down every chance she got. Her husband was giving her a push with his stick and the daughter was running behind, so completely worried. Funny scene.

I hiked a few times this nice little orum about 15 minutes from our apartment building Doug once took me to. I like going there because it’s so perfect – it has two peaks, a great cliff by the ocean, and at night we can see the stars, the boat lights from the port, and the airplanes flying in and out of the island. It’s very peaceful.

Jeju is quite convenient – the main cities do not really have any snow, but drive 20 minutes towards the countryside and there it is!

I think I must have hibernated, just like a bear, and now I’m waking up and life is pretty nice. I can’t wait to see my students. And I can’t wait to go to Bali next week-end for 2 weeks!

Tall grandfather or giant penis?

A student back in Seoul gave me a key chain from Jeju Island – with Jeju’s symbol, Dol hareubang (돌 하르방). I thought this little man looked cute, and kinda like a mushroom.

But when I visited Jeju for the first time, I was stunned by the sight of those giant stone Dol Hareubang; yes, they look like big phallic shaped rocks!

Literally translated, Dol Hareubang means “stone grandfather”. There are many (oh so many!) theories as to how it became Jeju’s main icon, but the most credible one is that it was spread with shamanic mushroom culture.

They are believed to provide people with both protection and fertility. In the past, the statues were placed outside of gates for protection against demons traveling between realities. They are made of the volcanic stone coming from Halla mountain (the big inactive volcano in the center of the island).

Dol Hareubangs are all over the island, and replicas of various sizes and shapes can be bought everywhere - even on top of Halla mountain! The small ones are sometimes given to women with fertility problems.

Whatever its meaning is, Korean culture keeps surprising me. You’ve seen nothing until you see Jeju’s big stone penes, with their grinning expressions and bulging eyes without pupils, a long, broad nose, and slight smile and their hands rest on their “bellies”…

Good morning heartache

A few years ago, I learned about Hobbes and instantly related to his quote that life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". My teacher translated this as man being a wolf for man.

My understanding was that human nature is basically bad and that we must fight natural urges in order to co-exist peacefully in society. We also need things to numb our mind – with things such as ridiculous TV shows, drugs or beer. I had heated existentialist debates over the subject and still thought I was right. Everyone is capable of hurting someone else - be it physical or emotional.

Looking at the world, this idea seemed to make a lot of sense – with corruption, war, ethnic cleansing, poverty, and child soldiers. Who in their right mind would witness this all and let it happen?

I was young and radical. To me, everything was either black or white. My Godfather told me nothing is either black or white; there’s a gray segment one must learn to find and accept. There’s good and bad in this world, and both co-exist in each one of us.

I know I’ve done bad things in the past. I’ve hurt people’s feelings while trying to spare mine, and I’ve said and done things that I regret. As it turns out, I hurt someone’s feelings last weekend, someone I really cared about. As the song goes, “blame it on my youth”…

It’s just daunting to keep seeing that not only am I capable of hurting others, but that I actually do it. It means there’s a dark side to me and no matter how hard I try, I obviously can’t control it all the time.

Why can’t I be one of these people who are always doing the right thing, always being nice and authentic, and never having a bad thought or even a mood swing?

This world is so beautiful. On Sunday we went to the beach, yongyeon lake and checked out a university. Then I hung out in the countryside by myself and had tea at a temple. It felt so great, away from the city… the serenity of knowing that I couldn’t do harm there.

Pictures: Me, me! Field passed Jeju National University, Iho beach, countryside, yongyeon and Halla mountain

Chunks of life

Halloween was last week and I had totally forgotten about it. Fortunately Mr. Lee gave me a bag full of crap, I put up a powerpoint with witches and ghosts, and it turned out to be quite fun!







Koreans don't celebrate Halloween like we do, but it's growing on them. And they know that this holiday means "candy! candy! candy!" So I gave them oranges :)

The next week-end I went to Dongmun market - a huge place where they sell everything, from cheap clothes to weird fish and pig heads.







The weather here is still warm (around 20 celcius) and, as you may know, it's now the oranges season in Jeju. They are all over the place... tasty and cheap.



On Sunday we went to Samsunghyeol- a freakish place near my place. It's like an outdoor museum with three giant holes in the ground. Koreans believe that three Gods emerged from those holes many many years ago, and they built Jeju. Each year a ceremony takes place at Samsunghyeol to give thanks to those Gods.



We also visited one of Jeju island's number one spot: Yongduam! It's a big rock shaped like a dragon's head and... you really have to want to see it because it's not that obvious! According to the legend, a dragon envoy of the Dragon King was sent to Mt. Halla to pick a herb which would give eternal youth. But a mountain god shut into the sea, and only the head protruded above the sea. And it became Yongduam.



As you can see, smart Korean women took over the area around the rock in order to do business. They mainly sell sashimi (raw fish).





On an unrelated topic, I'm finally moving out of my moldy apartment! Will post pictures soon, especially for those of you thinking about visiting. Looking forward to this week-end cauz i'll be hiking halla mountain and teaching my dentist some French (he asked me!)

I'm also about to book my flight for Bali en February!! Bali baby! :)

Oh and here's the building where I work out: can you see the door?!?! Looks suicidal...

More of my pics: http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/261498

One

Well I have been sick for over two weeks now, and I’ve been feeling quite down lately. As it turns out, mold has been growing in my apartment and it’s getting pretty gross. And I’m afraid this might be one of the reasons why I’m still sick. I googled mold-related health problems and it’s not pretty!

So anyway, last week-end I decided not to go out and I even missed the Halloween party at the Blue Agave. Instead, I cruised around the island and spotted amazingly cool and beautiful places.





It felt incredibly good to get out of the city and gaze at cows and horses chilling out in the countryside. I can’t tell you how great I felt as I wandered in some forest (just like back when I was living in France!) and looked at the sun shine on fields, grass and everything that’s beautiful down here on earth.



And then I made it right. Then turned left. And straight up a hill. That’s when I saw this gigantic cemetery – some sort of ancestral memorial park filled with countless graves. It was both impressive and scary. The silence was heavy yet refreshing, and the vastness made me feel dizzy but also incredibly free.





I wandered in the graveyard for a while, captivated by its atmosphere and grandeur. Meanwhile a friend texted me, inviting me to a Korean body-building competition, and I thought that was an amusing coincidence – people investing so much effort and energy on the body that’s merely a way of carrying their soul, when in the end, this body… this “temple”, will end up decomposing somewhere in a cemetery, with worms feeding off it.

That’s when it hit me: the perfect unity of everything that exists! The cycle of water, the cycle of life. How we become mere compost and bug food once we’re dead – which in turn nourishes the earth that grows the food that we eat. We are all connected and that’s beautiful.



Everything else just seemed so irrelevant at the moment; glitziness, materialism and cupidity… I just wanted to be surrounded by nothing but nature for as long as I would remember. Ironically, the view from the mountain was on Jeju city and the light brown skyscrapers never looked so hideous.

I thought about pesticides, GMO, computers, TVs, alcoholics and drug addicts. I thought about plastic bottles, trash and the lead in plastic toys “made in China”. I thought about candy, greed and the horrible smells coming from the exhaust of the cars in front of me when I’m driving my scooter in traffic. I felt nauseous. I felt sick of myself. I felt like we’ve lost sight of what’s important, of what’s GOOD. Long time ago.

I went back home to my mold and couldn’t sleep that night. I spent an hour meditating at a Buddhist temple but it didn’t help. I feel so little. So helpless. So corrupted and so sick of whining in vain.



The next day Doug gave me this book about Greenpeace and I got even more depressed – it related the history of nuclear energy/weapons, including the “gadget” Einstein warned Franklin against, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and too many other nuclear “tests”.

Well you know what? History can be pretty sad but in the end, I really do feel like we are all connected –hurting one of us (humans, animals, plants) is like hurting us all. The illusion of invulnerability is a dangerous one that has corrupted very ambitious men and women who blindly act without thinking about the impact/consequences of their actions. We’re like robots living in a crazy world and when I stop and think about it, it scares me.

Enough with the pain and suffering. What is wrong with us? And enough with the mold in my apartment dammit!



More of my pics: http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/255329

More korean beauty

First of all, I’d like to introduce my ABC students because they are so cute! The little one down right is Bob (and he chose that name!!)


So, last week-end was great. Friday night we had dinner and wine up until 5am, so Saturday I was basically lethargic. Nonetheless, I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day on Sunday and decided to go to Udo. I missed the pumpkin festival but apparently it wasn’t worth it anyway.

As you know, I live in Jejudo – an island south of Korea. Udo is another island, just West of Jeju. It’s quite small, but gorgeous! Moreover, a lot of women divers live and work there, and some of Korea’s most beautiful beaches are on that island.

It was an hour scooter ride, and then a 20 minute boat ride to finally get there. I just walked around, hiked a nice hill on a cliff, sat on the beach and cruised. Many women divers were working (on a Sunday?) and, even though the weather was really nice, the air was cold and so was the water.










I met on of them on the street – she was sorting out her picks of the day and she barely looked at me. I noticed she had something in her ears so I spoke louder, offering her a banana. She was thrilled and gave me some of what she had in her bucket… I still don’t know what it is, but it was viscous and slowly moving in my hand. I took a bite, it was alright. I offered her water but she repeated a thousand times “choua! Choua!” (“cold!”) so I thanked her and left.






Here is some more Korean beauty.

































More of my pictures (yes, you see the world through my eyes ;) at http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/250795