So it happened again last night. Around one in the morning, after being lulled into a blissful slumber by falling rain outside my window, I was once again awoken by sex noise. I wasted no time in turning on my music to drown it out, because I’m incompetent enough to have neglected to get earphones since the last go-round with these sounds. The music, however, didn’t stop the neighbors from waking me up again, an hour later, with raucous laughter. So raucous, in fact, that it sounded like they were inside my room and I started freaking out in my half-awake state that there were laughing people watching me sleep, which I didn’t know was one of my biggest fears until this morning around two. Anyways, this post isn’t about sex noise, or my phobias. It’s about last weekend’s increasingly random adventures and the pretty pictures I took to remember them by.
Saturday is the day that I normally have my Korean lesson with other English teachers, led by Ah Young. This Saturday, seonsaengnim (can’t remember what that is? Do your damn homework.) decided she’d rather take us hiking. Our lesson, therefore, was to figure out how to find the mountain we were to climb by asking bus drivers or passersby which buses went where. The difficulty was mitigated somewhat by a list of buses which would be surefire hits, but as it turns out this list was a pack of lies (somewhat expectedly, maybe, given Ah Young’s propensity for mischief). So I managed to find the mountain and be on time, but only by finally breaking through my embarrassment at my crappy Korean skills and asking the driver of the 616 why he wasn’t going where I wanted him to. After removing myself from this mystery bus I was able to easily navigate the rest of the way, partially (okay, completely) because I saw Ah Young sitting on the bus that would take me the rest of the way.
So we climbed the mountain, which was easy enough, at least for me, because I decided to wear shoes. Ah Young and another student, Trevor, decided to show Melissa and I how badass they were and hiked the last two-thirds of the way up barefoot. Why was I not badass enough to climb the mountain barefoot? Let’s just say that if you present me with a choice between A) Blisters, and B) No blisters, I will choose B every time.
The climb up the mountain was extremely rewarding, by the way. This particular mountain is home to part of a reconstruction of the ancient Daejeon Fortress Wall, which used to protect the town on all sides from various invaders. Korea used to be invaded roughly five times a week from all sides, so I’m assuming this wall was pretty useful.
Nope, no invaders here. Thanks, wall!
Anyways, after the mountain adventure, we went to check out the Buddha’s Birthday Parade by City Hall (even though the actual holiday isn’t until Friday). Unfortunately, we were all super-hungry and decided to stop off at an awesome buffet and stuff our faces for an hour and a half before searching out the parade. Naturally, the parade was over before we found it. But we did get some balloons and free gimbap from friendly monks (it’s like sushi, but it has eggs, pickle, and ham inside instead of fish)!
Anyways, on to the main event: Sunday. Ah Young informed me that she would be driving past my neighborhood on the way to pick some stuff up in a tiny village out in the country, and since hardly anyone ever comes near my neighborhood if they can help it (I am very far from most things in Daejeon) I asked her if she was going to come visit me. So she picked me up Sunday afternoon and we went to this village, where I learned that driving down back country roads in Korea is roughly one million times more awesome and dangerous than driving down back country roads in America. See, in Korea all the land that isn’t a mountain is either a building or farmland, so when the time came to build roads, they had to weave them amongst the farmers’ plots. The result is a confounding labyrinth of impossibly narrow raised roads winding through rice paddies. If another car is coming towards you, one of you better throw it in reverse and back up nice and slow or there’s gonna be problems. After this village excursion (which also included a market featuring delicious fruit and some absurdly frightening-looking farming implements) and a few further stops (Ah Young’s home, a sold-out baseball game we’d hoped to get into, dinner) we settled on a memorial/protest concert on the bank of a river in Daejeon.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on Korean politics or anything, and I’m not quite sure I’m even qualified to have an opinion, but the guy for whom this memorial was held seems like pretty much of a hero. He was President Roh, Moo-Hyun. He worked his way up the social ladder, putting himself through law school, and eventually became president for the maximum tenure of five years. Despite repeated efforts from the Conservative Party to defame and even impeach him, he held strong until the time came to step down, at which point he moved back to his hometown (a very unusual move for a Korean politician, I guess; they normally stay in Seoul) and lived a farmer’s lifestyle. The most popular image of Roh today is him smiling beatifically and looking off into the distance, his head ringed by a farmer’s hat. President Roh killed himself almost exactly a year ago, after current President Lee repeatedly and publicly admonished and defamed him, as far as Ah Young explained it to me. Suddenly the Korean social value of “keeping face” seems a much more serious issue. So this concert was in memory of President Roh, and it’s moving throughout Korea, having started in Seoul. On Sunday it rolled through Daejeon, we went, and I may have been the only foreigner there.
When first entering the area, there was a lineup of pictures of Roh: memorabilia detailing his early life, rise to power, retirement, and eventual death. Even with just a small sketch of the full story in my mind, it was all very powerful stuff, especially knowing that I live in a country where the Conservative Party controls almost all media, and has banned speakers and artists from television who had spoken out in support of Roh. Ah Young told me that a couple of the artists who performed on Sunday had once been television regulars, but since publicly supporting Roh and criticizing Lee, they’re lucky to get an interview on cable.
Oof. This was some intense stuff.
Again, I’m not sure how entitled I am to even have an opinion of a government that I know so little about, but seeing as how I’m living in this country now, I feel that I should educate myself as much as I can about the Korean system of democracy. And the way it is now, with government-controlled media blocking out the voices of the opposition, it’s tough to say that it’s not more than a little scary. Of course, this is coming from the guy who wishes Obama would tell Fox News to put a sock in it or else, so take all this with a grain of salt.
Anyways, that’s all I have time for today. Next time on EMA, it’s a trip to Busan! Beaches! Beer! And my old arch-nemesis, frisbee! I have a history of getting hit in the face with the disc, so if I return to Daejeon with my nose intact I’ll consider the long weekend of the Buddha’s Birthday a smashing success. ‘Til next time!
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