Concerning Chuseok

Last Wednesday was the last day of school before our little Chuseok holiday. Chuseok is apparently the Korean answer to Thanksgiving, inasmuch as it is a very family oriented day that involves a lot o' food. Traditionally, the entire extended clan goes to the house of the eldest son of the eldest couple in the family-- usually the grandparents. They play lots of games and bow a lot (the kids to the elders, usually repaid by money) and then they go to the cemetary where their ancestors are buried and in a very Confucian gesture, bow to them as well for good measure. After, the family (or the kids as the case may be) makes a wish on the full moon.

In school, the kids came all dressed up in their hambok finest and looked adorable enough to eat. I settled with devouring them with my camera. As you can see in the pictures, the girls where a very short little vest with long sleeves and a long skirt/dress that starts a little bit underneath their throat. The boys wear long tunics over poofy pants that are gathered at the ankles. Most were gorgeous and very bright fabrics-- pink being a favored choice for both girls and boys-- and they made the school look like a menagerie of little exotic birds. My activity with NYU, my 6 year old kids who have been studying English for 3 years already, was to make son peun. We basically shaped rice dough into balls, pressed them out into bowls, scooped a sesame seed-brown sugar mixture inside, and pinched them into crescents like mandu (fine, pot stickers for all you Americans...haha). We had fun with that and then running around the class taking pictures afterward. Then, I made jeghee with my 5 year olds that have been studying for about 7 months now. They're essentially yoyo hackey saks made out of brightly colored crepe paper that they could kick around so clearly, they loved them. I also got some fantastic pictures there, I have really freaking adorable kids if I do say so myself.

So, for real Chuseok, Asteria and I went to Seoul yet again but finally started to see what was in the city. We found our very cheerful hostel right away wednesday night and started thursday morning with a trip to Namdaemun Market. It's the biggest traditional Korean market in the country which basically means any stall you can think of-- lots of shoes, headbands, fake designer accessories, and clothes. It was a mess of people. Then, we went in search of Dongdaemun which is this huge wholesale jewelry market but only found lots of bolts of fabric and buttons. On our way to a yummy lunch at Taj (Indian place as subtlely referenced in the name), we discovered an oasis of western commercialism topped off with (and this made our jaws drop in joy)...a Forever 21. Yay. So we know at least, somewhere out there, western sizes theoretically exist for us. After getting a dress and some earrings, we schlepped back to the hostel to lie down before our evening. An hour later saw us dressed in our theater finest on our very confusing way to an Italian restaurant for dinner. I made the mistake of ordering Neopolitan pizza...which came with whole mini squid on it and what I suspect to be shark. That was not a pleasant surprise. Food wise, I feel like I am still easing into Korean food and still relying on my western places for comfort. I think that especially in Seoul, where we had so many international options, we did end up taking more advantage of them than the local places but it is my goal to be more adventurous and eventually come around to more Korean cuisine. What has been frustrating, however, is that very often you simply can't get away from it, ready or not. My Italian pizza still came with kimchi on the side, an entire ocean full of weird crustaceans on it and our garlic bread still had grains of sugar. I know that the US does Americanize a lot of foreign food as well but I still didn't anticipate how much the Korean taste palate permeates everything here, even when it is very very incompatible with what it is mixed with.

Diatribe aside, after our disappointing dinner, we went to see this really cool traditional Korean performance called Miso. It sort of resembled opera with Korean dance thrown in, telling the story of a couple who falls in love, is separated, reconciled, and then married, through the four seasons. They all wore really pretty hamboks and the singing and traditional instruments were really cool to see. We were in the front row as well, and the stage came about to our rib cage, so in the winter snow flake dance, fog literally poured off into our laps. They also had some really great drumming and I appreciated the subtlety of the dance- it consisted of a lot of spinning and hand work; the fingers especially were really expressive. So, that was a nice glimpse of Korean culture and helps me put the hectic day to day side that I see into a little bit of perspective as far as the historical and artistic sides of this people.

Next morning, Asteria and I checked out Gyeongbokgong Palace. We spent the whole morning wondering through the series of courtyards. Similarly to the temples we went to, the rooves and eaves of the buildings were may favorite part. I am beginning to see this as a sadly neglected area of western architecture, haha. It has been renovated fairly recently, so all of the paint was very bright and the details very ornate. I also liked the little train of mystical animals that was put onto every gable on top of the buildings. While walking around, we saw a reenactment of a cabinet meeting where the nobility all filed out, proceeded by the king and his attendants. It was pretty coordinated as the attendants had to put everyone's shoes on for them. I am still learning the significance of shoes here- for instance, we even had to remove ours to enter some of the palace buildings. After walking around for a while and seeing a lot of courtyards that blurred together (except the two storied pavilion in the pond where the king entertained dignitaries...that was quite pretty), we briefly walked through two museums. What struck me about them was how interesting a country can be about its history. In a timeline flanking the foyer of the first museum, it talked at length of the glory days (the Joseon Dynasty where Korea still owned part of China) and then had only one entry between 1700 and 1920. And also, apparently one of the most popular kings of this dynasty invented the sundial around 1300. So silly of me to think that it was the Romans two thousand years before that....huh. The museum also had some hamboks from the more recent royalty on display, very pretty. The last thing of interest was a really traditional painting of five mountains, the sun, and the moon. This caught my attention as it was the backdrop for Miso. Apparently, it is historically pretty big here. It symbolized the perfect universe, and the king's throne was exactly in front of the middle, so the symmetry of this perfectly ordered universe hinged upon him. Very interesting.

After that, we had a great lunch at Buddha's Belly, a Thai place in the foreigner district of Seoul. Dad- it's pad thai approached yours, it was that good. After, we lingered in a bookstore and then happened upon a random cricket game. It was a bunch of Muslim men just hanging around but it was fascinating to see. For how many European, American, African and Korean people there were in the district, to be watching what was presumably an Indian group of friends kind of boggled my mind. I don't agree with Jack Sparrow that there is less and less in the world to see, on the contrary, there seems more and more, but the world does feel smaller in its accessibility. It was a reflective moment. After, we got dinner and had a drink with some people from the hostel in a nearby bar. We met and lost in pool to a very fun group of New Zealanders and hopped home the next day. Now, I have one more day of blissful nothing (of course meaning hours and hours of uninterrupted bad TV from the internet...ah what joy is mine) before back to work, though only a 4 day workweek.

I forgot to mention that I have already been here almost a month and a half. As I get more comfortable with the routine of the school, the days are flying by and with our little getaways on the weekends, I can never quite place where all of the time seems to go. I think that is a good thing, it gives me hope that this year won't drag but will still be the fun experience that it is promising to grow into. Just now, I am enjoying beginning to be a proper tourist and really see what Korea is about but to be honest, I am also dreading the holidays a bit. I am (affectionately) known as the Christmas Nazi at home for very good reason, I deify tradition big and small and have never had a single Thanksgiving or Christmas without my family. I do have some fun things planned, we're having a big foreigner potluck on Thanksgiving with Costco pies and specially imported Stovetop stuffing (thanks mom!) so I am determined to make the best of it, but it is not something I am really looking forward to. Oh well. Still plugging along and despite my bouts of whining, doing pretty darn well. Next up: back to work and then, this weekend, the Busan International Film Festival and feeling all superior and cultured. Haha.

Love from me!