Mokdong Archery Experience

Traditionally, Korean archery is a meditation sport and so when there was a posting through Yeoksam Global Village Center for archery participants, I was eager to give the reflective Korean archery a try. Was slightly disappointed when I got to the Mokdong Archery Experience area and discovered it was western archery we would be giving a try. Well, new experience there too but I knew we wouldn't be taught any kind of self-reflection or skills on "the movement of tranquillity" in shooting but rather would just be focused on hitting the target and having a good time while doing so.

Directly beside our practice shooting range was a Korean archery range, and another beyond it. During our two hours of basic target practice, three other groups walked in to exercise their minds while shooting. They followed some of the principles of Korean archery like not shooting alone, not congratulating each other or themselves on good shots or making comments on poor shots, but I think their shooting was not very peaceful or reflective. Our group of Westerners was loud and silly and having a great time. If we were practicing Korean archery, we would have had to be silent, reflective and be more attentive of others while shooting. The other groups kept looking over at us and I feel we disturbed their reflection; however, they seemed rather to be entertained. But then to shoot at this particularly range in a downtown area beside a busy riverside, they could only expect noise, so I would think that this range is more of a stress outlet than a spiritual journey for them.

Our archery instructor had the patience of a saint as he tried to organize us untamed and untrained westerners into some kind of order. Unlike the traditional Korean method of training archers, training western archers must be like trying to herd cats.

Our brave instructor walking in front of young untrained archers with arrows in their bows. We were pretty good, however, about obeying his command to stop shooting and retrieve arrows and then his command for us to collective string our bows again.

The range wasn't even 10 meters away, but the point of this exercise was to give us experience in shooting and to learn how to control our bow and aim. The traditional Korean bows don't have an aiming devise on the bow but are aimed through mind control and feelings centered in the mind/heart.

After several tries, most of us were hitting within the target and some were pretty consistently hitting near the bull's eye.

Our group of young archers. From the languages and comments I heard, we represented a wide variety of Western backgrounds. From my end of the shooting range, there were two Americans, a Canadian, a couple of Germans, several Russians, and a Philippina ... a fairly good ethnic representation of foreigner workers and students in Korea.

Buddhist Temple Food Festival, Bongnyeongsa

My eyes and stomach deeply appreciated the Temple Food Festival at Bongnyeongsa, Suwon. The temple is known for its Buddhist nuns who have transformed the simplicity of temple food (strict vegetarianism while also not eating the Five Pungent Spices - onions, garlic, scallion...) to a palatial and visionary paradise.

Temple food has been increasingly popular in and outside Korea by health conscious people, and as a well-being and healing food regardless of religious backgrounds. Yet, while there is much to talk concerning the 1700-year-old Korean temple food (사찰음식), a person should understand the five criteria which concern the recipe and its preparation (source):

Korean temple food excludes all animal products. Milk is allowed, so temple food as a whole is not vegan while most of individual dishes are. Temple cooking is primarily based on seasonal plant-based ingredients, which are either organically grown in temple grounds or harvested from nearby fields and mountains. 

There are 5 forbidden vegetables, called 오신채. They are garlic, scallion, onion, 부추 – garlic chives, and 달래 – wild rocambole/small wild onion. These vegetables are considered stimulants which hinder spiritual meditation. Traditionally, Buddhists have believed that a person who eats these foods will suffer the following ill effects (source):

• His blood and flesh will be rejected by the gods, and the heavens will distance themselves far from him. 

• His breath is always foul; therefore, all gods and saints will reject him.

• If eaten cooked, these foods will arouse lust and cause explosive temper. 

• If eaten raw, they will increase one's anger and cause bad body odor that will not please the gods but will stimulate interested "hungry ghosts" who will hover around and kiss one's lips. Being near ghosts is believed to hinder one's enlightenment. 

• Today, however, many vegetarians around the world, including some Buddhists, may eat the Five Pungent Spices without reservation. For Buddhists, this depends on such factors as the person's degree of adherence to their faith, whether they are practicing Buddhism along with other faiths, and their geographic location. 

Temple dishes are lightly seasoned only with natural seasonings, so they generally have a mild, clean taste. Temple cooking uses a wide variety of natural flavor enhancers such as mushroom powder, lotus root powder, perilla seeds, etc. as well as temple-made Korean traditional fermented condiments such as soy sauce (aka jib ganjang/soup soy sauce), doenjang (soybean paste) and gochujang (red chili pepper paste). 

Because they have to work with limited ingredients, temple cooks are experts on identifying edible wild plants, creating many different dishes with limited ingredients, and preserving/pickling vegetables when they are in season for later use.

In Buddhist temples, cooking and eating is considered spiritual meditation. The food is made with care to nourish the body, mind, and soul of those who eat it. Food is considered medicine.

The vegetarianism comes from the Buddhist belief in "ahimsa," or non-violence. A few of the elegant dishes on display at the temple:

In an article in the Korean Herald related to the 2009 Temple Food Festival at Bongnyeongsa Temple, a striking comment showcased the nearly vegan Buddhist monks attitude toward eating meat and animal products (obviously honey is not deemed as an animal product to avoid) (source): 

Ven. Sun-jae said the act of growing, harvesting and milling the rice involves many lives. Hence, under the precepts of “balwoo-gongyang,” the act of eating rice, for example, requires an awareness of the value of life. 

“A honey bee does not hurt a flower when it gets honey,” she said. “It helps it.”

Since humans do not possess the honey bee’s ability to organically help what they eat, humans should express gratitude for food through “balwoo-gongyang,” Ven. Sun-jae said.

Bongnyeongsa Temple is viewed as a jewel temple in temple food cuisine. Long established and lead by Buddhist nun/bhukunis and initiated by the nun Myoeum decades ago, temple food is now being popularized with the public. Bongyeongsa has also augmented their role in developing temple food by authoring a cookbook, and while my friends and I wandered around Bongyeongsa, we noticed a table upon entering the temple grounds as full of books, and as we left a few hours later, a nun was busily and cheerfully signing the book on temple food that she had written. Wish I had paid more attention to the title but I got side-tracked by a book on the Dongguibogam, and bought it. Love the topic of natural medical practices and the Dongguibogam is a vital source. It completely knocked all thoughts of cooking and ingredients out of my mind and replaced it with healing seasonal foods and restorative methods. Yup, I bought the book and now have to wade through the Korean. What fun.

Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival

The Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival has erupted into a huge tourist attraction. "Jinjuseong Fortress, the place of loyalty and patriotism", has been rebuilt and for this festival decorated with elaborate lanterns in the shape of soldiers fighting off the Japanese invasion of the Imjin War (1592-1598). Huge life-sized lanterns in the shape of soldiers -- both the defending Koreans along the wall and the Japanese attacking -- are depicted in battle garb. Throughout the inside of the fortress huge lanterns shaped to tell stories are arranged: lanterns of people in their traditional roles, characters from fairy tale, mythical creatures like heavenly dragons or popular historical icons. Lanterns everywhere! During the day the large lanterns are colorful and decorate the fortress grounds, depicting scenes of the past. By night, they glow and add a surreal presence to the massive fortress.

Everything at the festival focuses on lanterns -- the shaped lanterns to transmit stories already mentioned, experiential classes to make lanterns, food stalls arranged with lanterns and places to sit lighted by lanterns, temporary lantern covered bridges to host lantern festivities on both sides of the Namgang River, and massive shaped lanterns in the river to feast the eyes. Then fireworks at the end of the festival because, why not? they are related to lanterns, aren't they? And of course floating your own personal lantern while making a wish, which stems from an old custom. 

The origin of the floating-your-own lantern event on the Namgang in Jinju stems from the Jinsjuseong Fortress combats during the Imjin War. On October 1592, 3,800 troops under General Kim Si-min defeated more than 20,000 Japanese who invaded the fortress. This battle is one of the three great victories during the Imjin Japanese invasion of Korea. At the time, General Kim Si-min hung lanterns high and floated lanterns down the river to signal the Righteous Army reinforcements outside of the fortress. The floating lanterns not only deterred the Japanese from crossing because of high visibility while doing so, but also conveyed messages to family members. 

In 1593, the following year, 100,000 Japanese troops invaded and occupied the fortress. In defending the fortress, more than 70,000 Korean troops lost their lives. Since, to commemorate this sad moment in history, people have floated lanterns down the river to console the souls of the military who "died in the defense of justice". 

A special lantern is floated for a special person who died also in sacrifice of herself to better the Korean kingdom: Nongae, a kisaeng aka courtesan, to the Japanese generals. Whether by choice or force, she was serving the Japanese, and when she had a chance on June 29, 1593, she embraced one of the generals firmly and pushed, and together they fell from Uiam Rock, both dying in the fall. Nongae is remembered too when the lanterns are floated down the river. She gets her own special lantern just beneath the rock that overlooks the river. The rock was named or perhaps renamed after Nongae swept the Japanese general and herself off it, giving a great boon to her country. Uiam means "righteous".

Uiam "righteous" Rock, Jinju

The Peace Corp in S. Korea (1966-1981)

The Museum of Contemporary History is currently holding a special exhibit on the activities of the Peace Corps in South Korea. The temporary exhibition is in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps entrance and beginning of contribution here. Suzanne Crowder Han, former Peace Corps volunteer 1977-1981, led the tour and gave wonderful commentary on the history and contribution of the Peace Corps and how, after the Corps withdrew in 1981 from the finally prospering country, she stayed on. Years later many former Peace Corps workers who volunteered in South Korea returned and eventually Friends of Korea was established by the returnees in 2002. At first the Friends were just former Peace Corps workers, but now others who wish to contribute and who love this land can join, especially as Suzanne says, the former volunteers can't be guaranteed to live forever. Suzanne is the Vice President of Friends of Korea as well as being Vice President of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch; she is very well-informed, highly knowledgeable and has the authority of presence in this country lasting 39 years!

The roots of this special exhibition can be traced back to the five homecomings offered by the Korean government for bringing the former Peace Corps volunteers back to the country where they served. After the second homecoming, and a very successful one, people started talking and eventually expressed interest in gathering relics and memorabilia of the former members (the only Peace Corps collection of its kind so far), to share with the public what Korea was like back then and to share their contribution in the social, medical and historical development of the country. Finally, this museum organized the collection of memorabilia and organization of interviews of volunteers, workers, translators, etc for this special 50th commemoration exhibit. Some of the memorabilia will be returned to the former volunteer contributors and others will be kept in the museum archives for future exhibitions. The museum is even open to further contributions by others wishing to expand on the knowledge already packaged in this exhibition.

The exhibition is basically divided into three parts:

I. Situation South Korea was in when the Peace Corps came in 1966

II. Peace Corps volunteers work and life

III. Peace Corps contributions and lives after departing South Korea

Between September 16, 1966 and the last leaving in 1981, a span of 15 years, 51 Peace Corps groups came to South Korea. When the Peace Corps first came to Korea, Korea was the second poorest country in the world, next in poorness only to Ethiopia.

President Kennedy was the president credited with the founding of the Peace Corps; however, others had spoken of starting such an organization but none had actually gone through with the plan. On September 14 in his campaign speech at the University of Michigan, Senator J.F. Kennedy initiated support for establishing the Peace Corps.  The following year on March 1, as president Kennedy signed Executive Order #10924, officially establishing the Peace Corps. In June of the same year, trainings for volunteers were conducted across the US.

And approximately 15,000 volunteers, the highest number, began serving in the Peace Corps. In September the first group (K1) to volunteer in South Korea arrived at Kimpo Airport with Kevin O'Donnell as the director, two days after the signing of the Korea-US agreement of September, 1966. Korea was the fifth country in Asia to host Peace Corps volunteers ... following the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and India. The volunteers received three months of pre-departure training, and after arriving in Korea, went through three days of orientation before being assigned to public secondary schools in various parts of the country. Service was approximately two years.

Two principle groups of volunteers were English teachers to improve education and health care volunteers to treat the many in poverty and poor health. After the first few groups came, the English teaching assignments became organized and teachers would have one year of service in a middle school to get exposure to the language and teaching methods and then the second year would be spent in a college somewhere where they would educate future Korean educators on pronunciation skills and how to teach the English language. Health care workers jobs were more varied. Clinics and hospitals were set up around the country and workers could be divided into specializing clinics like those for eye and ear health, Hansen's disease (leprosy), TB, maternal and child care, malnutrition, to name the larger groups. Cholera and other epidemics had to similarly be dealt with.

Suzanne worked in a health care clinic. During her first few weeks, she mainly stayed in the lab looking at specimen slides and evaluating them to reach a suitable diagnosis. This was because at the end of orientation she broke her leg. After recovering and spending a lot of time in the lab, she convinced the lab she could be useful doing home visitations in outlying villages. Bus rides, walking, and of course Korean language were essential skills. Often she would have to go to several villages in one day to do follow-up of patients who had previously been treated.

One of the stories she noted about this was especially the difficulty in finding the older women patients who had been treated. The older women were illiterate, had been signed into the clinic or hospital by perhaps a son or daughter who had used their name, but unfortunately the name the women were signed in by were not the names the women used. Literally, they had forgotten their names as once they had children, they were called "mother of 'the child'" and then "grandmother of 'a child'" and so their given names simply ceased to be used. Suzanne (group K??) and Jake (K50, the second to last Peace Corps group in South Korea), another health care worker also contributing to the tour, said that they started taking notes about the names of the women's children and grandchildren so that when they went to the village, they could ask for the "grandmother of 'a child'" instead of the women's names. Villagers didn't know the women's names but they recognized the child's names ... and so follow-up could be made on the women.

Peace Corps volunteers after their term of service was up ...

What Peace Corps volunteers did after they left. Well, surprising or maybe not surprising, many of these former Peace Corps volunteers recognized that little was printed or known about Korea and so they started filling the knowledge gap. Having already gained linguistic ability, many former volunteers became recognized as authorities on Korea, and indeed, it was principally the former Peace Corps workers who established the field of Korean studies with their continued scholarship on the country.

For some volunteers, the two years that they spent in Korea became the opportunity for them to become Korea experts. Kathleen Stephens (Korean name Shim Eun-kyung) became a diplomat and returned to Korea as the US Ambassador to Korea. Some developed their interest in Korea into an academic commitment to Korean Studies. Fascinated by Korean Culture, other volunteers have gone on to translate Korean literature, paint Buddhist images, contribute to the globalization of Korean samulnori (Korean traditional percussion performance), and stand up for the preservation of Korean architecture. There have also been those who delved into the democratization scene of Korea, participating in Korea's democratization movement.

Contributors to Korean Studies:

Michael Robinson
Carter Eckert
Laural Kendall
Donald Baker
Daniel Holt
Bruce Cumings
David McCann
Edward Schultz

And writers on Korean Culture:

Bruce Fulton
Suzanna Samstag Oh
Gary Rector
Suzanne Crowder Han

Brian Barry didn't write books but became an expert on Buddhist paintings, a training that took years and years of patience and painstaking painting the same picture over and over and over until the minutiae of it was memorized and the strokes natural as breathing. An example follows — a very LARGE painting!

Tom Coyner, former Vice President of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, also participated in the Q&A session at the end of the museum walk. He served as an English teacher in group K35, from 1975-1977. At that time, like everyone else in the country he was paid a flat $45/month, and this sum was to pay for all expenses including housing rental, food, etc. Those serving in Seoul had a small increase in their pay as Seoul was a more expensive place to live.

Some interesting facts Tom introduced to the discussion were:

• South Korea had the highest termination rate among Peace Corps workers. He said one of the biggest reasons for volunteers to withdraw early was that "it wasn't Africa". Tom was sent to 음성 village via a wide four-lane highway. En route he really questioned about being sent to a third-world country but when the bus turned off the highway and he was able to get transportation to 음성, he realized that yes, in fact he had arrived at a third-world location.  

• South Korea also had the highest rate of extensions for Peace Corps volunteers. 

• South Korea also had one of the highest marriage rates between Peace Corps workers and locals. All three former volunteers for this museum visit married Koreans.

The Comfort Women of WWII

Maija Rhee Devine, presented at the Royal Asiatic Society on "The Comfort Women of WWII". The write-up of her presentation follows:

"Who were they? Sex slaves, prostitutes, or kidnapped girls forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers? Since their stories jumped into the spotlight in the early 1990s—after over forty years of silence—controversies have embroiled the issue. Conflicting conjectures continue. How many comfort women were there? What were their lives like before, during, and after their time as comfort women? How should we teach future generations about this chapter of WWII history? 

Presenting the issues from multiple viewpoints, this lecture will provide images and testimonies of the women themselves as well as the historical, political, and societal context in which women and girls in Korea and other Asian countries became comfort women. What role did a Confucian patriarchal way of life and the political and socio-economic distress resulting from poverty, war, and Japanese colonial rule play in tens of thousands of women and girls being led away and coerced into providing sex to Japanese soldiers? 

What happened to the Korean, Chinese, Filippina and other Comfort Women after WWII ended? Their struggles to return home, the conflicted, less than warm reception of them by their families and societies, and efforts to strike out on their own will be evoked. Discussion of the controversies surrounding the Japanese apology and compensation issues will complete the lecture."

A Korean-born author, Maija Rhee Devine earned a B.A. from Sogang University in Seoul and received a Fulbright award to complete an M.A. at St. Louis University in Missouri. She taught English as a Second Language at numerous universities in the U.S.A. as well as Asian culture courses at University of Kansas. Her book, The Voices of Heaven, won four book awards in 2014, and her short stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and literary journals including Michigan Quarterly, The North American Review, and The Kenyon Review. Her current projects include authoring a novel and a non-fiction historical narrative about Korean Comfort Women of WWII. She teaches a course on Comfort Women through the Osher Institute at University of Kansas.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Notes from the lecture:

When Maija introduced her book, The Voices of Heaven, she referred to it as "절작",  which roughly translates as "piece of crap", 절 being "of low quality". To boast or speak pridefully of one's work or self is to bring bad luck, traditional Korean thinking, and so her popular written work is 절작. 

Not much good can be said of the Japanese institution of comfort stations, so in trying to find something that would break up the somber tone, Maija looked for humor. The only humor she found on the topic is, according to her long research, she found that in the 15th century the Japanese were very concerned about procreating or disease transmission or maybe both that they were the first to make condoms. They made them out of tortoise shell and deer horn. Ingenious but sounds painful, so she is thankful that the comfort women of WWII didn't have to use, wash out, and re-use those kinds of condoms.

• Japan had comfort stations in 12 countries and territories controlled by them. Okinawa alone had 134 comfort stations.

• Chastity knives were carried by women of the Joseon Dynasty, and often the knife was concealed as their hair pin. Women were expected to use these knives to prevent being defiled. "Women lived with the utmost responsibility to keep themselves chaste for men."

• The number of Korean women who served as comfort women? The highest number is 200,000 and has been proposed by Japanese Professor Yoshimi Yoshiyaki. The lowest number is 20,000 proposed by Korean researchers. Ironic that Korean researchers in researching the insults of Japan to their country would so under-propose a figure to that of Japanese researchers who represent the offending country.

• Not until August 1991 did the first comfort woman, 김학순, come out! Since that time a mere 238 former Korean comfort women have registered. Where are all these women? Why has only a tiny fraction of the tiny fraction who survived the war come out? So many reasons ...

• In 1994, The House of Sharing for the former comfort women was first built in 1994, in the Daehakro area. It was not built by the Korean government.

• Actually, 김학순 was not the first comfort woman to come out. 16 years earlier a Korean came out in Japan. The story was carried in Japanese newspapers, but Korea never picked up on the story.

• In some Japanese records, the comfort stations were referred to as "Public Hygienic Bathrooms".

• The YouTube clip, "Ridiculous to Deny", is of a former Japanese medic who became a reclusive priest (Buddhist? Shinto?) after the war. He came out after Professor Yoshiyaki found documents of the Japanese comfort women system.

Biking Jeju Island with Seoul Hiking Group

Attempting to bike around Jeju Island during the Chuseok holidays was awesome. Yeah, I attempted the 3-day grueling trip with 26 people, but along with 7 others I dropped out. I didn't mind the rain from the approaching typhoon Malakas, but I did mind not getting food that I could eat. The other bikers ate at Dunkin Donuts, GS25 and other convenient stores along the way, ramen and candy bars, and when we stopped for camping our group made pork steaks and a few veggies. Well, my body wants a lot of veggies and preferably no meat. Only a ramen shop was open. Not good.

Eggs, bananas and sugary peanut butter and passed on the muffin. And I still had a food reaction, so biking was exhausting. My gears stripped out on this day, so needed even more energy to pump the pedals. Just plain ran out of energy and only pumped along for 45 exhausting kilometers. No energy and lunch was at a noodle shop, so no way could I eat to get back energy, so that was it. I just plain ran out of energy (ugh on food reactions) and couldn't keep up the necessarily grueling pace to get around the island in 3 days. Ah, but I'll try again ... but next time at my own pace, maybe only 3-4 hours of biking a day and of course with plenty of time for sightseeing and dipping into the ocean and of course finding decent food to eat along the way.

Here's the itinerary Warren Kim with Seoul Hiking Group gave, horrendously grueling and I promise whoever reads this that there was absolutely no time to slow down and enjoy the sights, dip a foot in the ocean, eat a decent meal, or enjoy the promise of free time that this schedule suggests. Still, I have no regrets. It was an adventure, and I love adventures!

♣  from Wando (mainland) to Jeju City, passing through the Dadohae Marine National Park

With Hurricane Malakas heading directly towards us, we biked half of Day 1 in the rain ...
but at the end of the day at Hyeopjae Beach the sky turned fabulous!

♣ BIKING ITINERARY

There are 2 types of paths:

• 1132 express road (around Jeju the shortest way)

• seashore road : the old road that connects with 1132, crosses town and goes to the seashore—not all but most of seashore road commands great view of ocean and beach

♣ 1st day, North èè West]

distance: 50 km / 4~5 hours, along the seacoast, up and down hills

• Yongdu-am (the volcanic Dragon-head rock) and seacoast
• Tewu I-ho beach, twin giant troy horses!
• Scenic Monument, natural endless cactus field! Are you sure in Korea?
• Gwakji Gwamul beach, outdoor refreshing spring waterfall from rocks!
• Hanrim beach (one of the most beautiful beaches with coral blue beach and Chagwido island)
• camping at Hyeopjae beach
• Free time : 1 hour distance to chocolate museum, botanical garden, horse theme park

♣ 2nd day, West èè South]

distance: 120 km / 10~11 hours or shortcut 90 km / 7~8 hours, some steep hills

• Suwol-peak for a commanding view of a small east island and the seacoast
• Songak-san (the sea-cliff which has the best view of the Jeju natural beauties of Sanbang-san)
• Yongmeori-cliff (see the Hamel boat)
• CheonJeyeon (waterfall)
• Jusangjeolri (mysterious octagon and hexagon sea cliff of volcano rock)
• Oedolgae - seacoast single rock
• camping at Pyosun beach
• Free time : 1 hour distance to art museum, horse riding, folk village, trickart museum, teddy bear museum, sex museum 

♣ 3rd day, South èè East èè North]

distance : 78 km / 5~6 hours, best view of coral sandy beaches and view of Sunrise Peak

(additional 25 km to Jeju City and ultimate finale)

• Seongsan ilchul-bong (Sunrise Peak), black-sand beach
• Woljeongri beach, best white powder-like beach
• Gimyeong beach, best white powder-like beach
• Hamdeok beach, white powder-like fine sand and coral-colored beach (Manjang Cave 0.5 km away by bike)