Preparing to Say Farewell

As Saturday -the day of our departure from Korea- gets inevitably closer, Katie and I find ourselves experiencing a mixture of happiness and sadness about returning home. The dominant emotion is, of course, happiness, as we can't wait to see our family and friends. But seeing loved ones at home means leaving loved ones here in Korea. And, truth be known, leaving Korea itself is a bit heart-wrenching after having made it our home for awhile. By Saturday afternoon we will be high above the Pacific Ocean, rushing back toward the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Korea, with all its quirkiness and insular innocence, will be fading away into the distance. It's truly hard to believe just how soon we'll find ourselves back on the other side of the "looking glass"...

By the way, the kid in the picture is Joe, one of my lowest-level students. I gave them all American flag stickers and they went crazy, immediately affixing them to pencil cases (and pencils), bags, backpacks, electronic dictionaries, and cell phones.

A Last Visit to Seoul

Katie and I were anxious to see Seoul again once more before we leave Korea. Happily, Henry and Nancy were able to go with us last weekend. We took the KTX (bullet train) early Saturday morning and sped to Seoul at 180 miles per hour. The entire journey took a mere two hours. Our first order of business was to see Gyeongbokgung Palace, the governmental seat of old Korea. It turned out that Henry had never seen the palace before, either.


This is the front gate of the palace. The palace was burned by the Japanese in 1592, and gradually rebuilt until the subsequent Japanese invasion and occupation in 1910.


Soldiers in traditional Korean clothes guard the front gate.



We were surprised to find that the palace complex was a sprawling labyrinth of walls and buildings. It was by far the largest structure of this type that we have seen in Korea.






In the middle of the complex stood the throne room, where the king himself once held court. Up until the 1910 Japanese occupation, men still came to this courtyard, dawning traditional Korean clothing, to take the civil service exam en masse amidst an elaborate ceremony.


This is the inside of the throne room. In the center is the throne itself, from which kings ruled Korea until 1910.








A Korean history museum was housed in a building attached to this pagoda-like structure.


Inside there were a lot of relics from old Korea, such as these extra long tobacco pipes. Henry surprised everyone (including his own wife) when he mentioned that he can remember his grandmother smoking one of these.


Henry excitedly pointed out the "Blue House", which was nearby the palace. This is Korea's equivalent of the White House, and is the current residence of president Lee Myung Bak. Ironically, you can't get nearly as close to it as you can the White House, but Katie and I had to get a photo of us in front of it just the same.


Throughout the palace the fall colors were wonderfully vibrant. This is a leaf from a Korean maple tree. The leaf is one of the unofficial national symbols of Korea and, as you can see, they have turned bright red.


The next morning we got up and walked to the Korea War Memorial, which we knew nothing about beforehand. We found it to be one of the best, not to mention one of the most extensive, museums we've seen in Korea. Upon entering we were greeted by a hallway featuring enormous plaques bearing the names of every U.N. soldier who died during the Korean War. Of course, 33,000 of them were American. The Americans were categorized by state.




The museum housed yet another scale replica of a turtle ship; we've seen a number of these since coming to Korea.




As a point of interest, this is a World War II era T-6. My first experience ever flying in an airplane was in a T-6 just like this one, after a member of the "Confederate Air Force" volunteered to take my Boy Scout troop up one weekend.


Interestingly, the museum is also home to a Russian Mig. I had never seen one in person. I was able to climb a ladder and look into the cockpit.


I thought this was a bit macabre. Relatively recently, the remains of fallen soldiers from the Korean War have been recovered from the DMZ. As you can see, the bodies had been undisturbed for nearly 60 years.



This was pretty interesting as well. It is one of the latest incarnations of the Daewoo K-2 rifle, the standard-issue rifle of the Republic of Korea military. Just as the other K-2 rifles, it fires standard .223 calibre ammunition. However, it also fires a 20 mm incendiary round (you can see the second, larger magazine behind the pistol grip). Using a laser beam, a computer in the rifle calculates the distance to the target. When the 20 mm round is fired, it explodes mid-air before it reaches the target, showering the area with shrapnel. I saw a video of the rifle being demonstrated, and it was pretty crazy.


In typical Korean fashion, there was a bizarre twist to the Korea War Memorial. You can get married there. In fact, there was a full-on, traditional Korean wedding taking place the day we went. We couldn't get very close, but it was evident that no expense had been spared.

Korean Kids on History and Politics

Poor Christopher Columbus. He just can't catch a break. If you thought the Native American community and historical revisionists had not done enough to slander old Chris and the claim that he discovered the New World, you should know that the Koreans have thrown in their "two cents" as well.


Over the summer I had the elementary kids in one of my classes each draw a picture of a famous explorer. Some drew Marco Polo and others drew Indiana Jones, but Danny chose Columbus. Danny is super sharp and about nine years old. In case you have trouble reading his hand writing, here's a transcription of the narrative at the bottom of his picture:

"The first people to discover America are pre-historic Southeast Asians. When Southeast Asians discover America, pre-historic Northeast Asians discover America. They were more older than common people. Later, Columbus discover America, but people don't know Southeast Asians and Northeast Asians, so people think Columbus is the first person to discover America."

Long story short: Koreans discovered America.

A recent essay assignment I gave to some of my middle school kids, in light of the recent U.S. election, was to answer the question "Should Korea ever elect a Black president?" I knew I'd get some interesting responses. Here are several excerpts:

"This year, the USA president Obama was voted. Most countries say that prejudice was gone in USA. He is half black and half American. I agree that the president of Korea should be a person who is half black and half Korean." - Ruby

"...the skin color doesn't affect any problems. For instance, when I went to Canada, there were many students who are black and they had no difference from white students. Some of them were greater than white. And like this, president can be black. They can be red, blue or purple either. Who cares?" - Sophia

"...blacks can have ability that are in whites or the Asiatics. There can be other ability that only blacks have like running ability or muscular strength. If someone has a mind that blacks can't do anything, and they don't have any ability, it's a wrong mind. He or she have to change a mind." - Annabelle

"Nowadays, global society is become reality and the big intestinal wall of race is start to broken down... there'll be much benefit for our country. For example, there'll be more support of other countries that contain many blacks. It's really benefit for our country because that countries has lots of oil and fruits. And risk of terror is decrease also, because people who lead terror like Osama Bin Laden and Tale ban is all black and why they try to terror is, try to get blacks' proper rights." - Issac

"...Korea is not known by other country's people. So if we have a black president, other country should think we are in Africa or we are black... I claim we should not have a black president, because Korea could recognize by others indifferently, also it is a shame..." - Ben

"Four days ago, Barack Hussein Obama -black- was elected president of the United States... if a black have excellent ability and love of our country, what's the matter? That black will improve our country. Now you should take off the unwarranted prejudice about black." - Erica

"We should trash the bad think of Black People." - Alan

"...black race people are clever and brave... Skin color is the difference between the amount of melanic pigment." - David

This last one was by Grace, and as I was at a loss for words (for a variety of reasons), I thought it best to simply post a photo of it, in its entirety:

Itaewon

While in Seoul, Katie and I visited the famous Itaewon area. Apparently in the past Itaewon had a reputation for being seedy part of town. Today it is popular with tourists because of its numerous clothing and souvenir shops.




Katie drives a hard bargain. She made sure we got a deal on everything we bought.


Where no one knows your name.



For lunch we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was, without a doubt, the best western-style food we've eaten in Korea. Katie had the french dip sandwich and I had the barbecued pork.


The Hard Rock Cafe was also the only place in Korea we saw that was decorated for Halloween. This jack-o-lantern was carved from a Korean pumpkin. They are generally very pale-colored and flat.


We found that when we strayed from the main thoroughfare the scenery quickly changed to the much more gritty Korea that we know and love.


After exploring the side streets, we started to get hungry again... however, after being presented with the traditional offerings, we opted to look for something more suited to our western palates back on the main street.

Hiking and a Party

Last weekend the Hanbit English service was held in the "Korean Alps", a scenic mountain range about two hours drive from Changwon.


Koreans are very serious about hiking, and for many of them Sunday is the only free day they have during the week. As the result, the narrow and often steep mountain roads were swollen with traffic. Kudos to Henry for masterfully operating his standard transmission vehicle under the circumstances. His left leg was pretty tired when we finally got out.




Not long after we began hiking, our group stopped for lunch in the forest. It was a perfect autumn day and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch, which we brought from home.


After lunch Arianne gave a quick Scripture lesson before we continued on our way.








After hiking, several of us went back to Henry and Nancy's apartment. To my surprise, they had (very thoughtfully) bought me a birthday cake.


In Korea, birthday cakes come complete with candles and several party poppers. I felt like a mini ticker tape parade had been thrown in my honor.