A Day at Hongbeopsa (5/21)

C O N T E N T S:

I N T R O D U C T I O N .    Y I ' S    M O R N I N G   L E C T U R E .   L A N T E R N S  .   C O M P U T E R S .  K I D S .  W A N D E R I N G S .  V I D E O .

This is Mr. Jung. He is legend, but more on that later. In this picture, we're riding in the Golden Jung Express (aka the elevator to the rooftop Buddha)-- hooray!

INTRODUCTION.

THE 21ST of May was our first slowish day in Korea, by which I mean we didn't stray far from the temple. I was very excited about the prospects of finishing off the last of my jetlag with some much-needed R&R--jetlag surprisingly hadn't been too much of a problem, but I was still excited to sleep.

Our main events for the day included spending some time with the Baby Monks and then later meeting with a group of middle school kids who stay at the temple as part of an afterschool program. This meant that we had most of the day to do what we pleased--another departure from the previous days of scheduled chaos.

Although our schedule was slow, the Temple's was not-- the grounds were SWARMING with people, mostly women, who had come to pay respects to the dead (see below).

The Main Dharma hall was packed to capacity!

My day got off to a great start with an enlightening breakfast with Dr. Yi. One of the most valuable parts of my study abroad experience was the unparalleled amount of exposure to the professors, and you better believe I did my best to take advantage of every free second. I would sit with Dr. Yi every chance I got, most often in the dining hall for breakfast, and would ask and talk and listen as much as possible. As one of 775 students in my major, you can imagine it's hard to get access to the ~12 or so professors during the semester. And, because breakfast with professors is regularly quite unfortunately out of the question, I thoroughly enjoyed each and every golden opportunity like the one I had this day.

Dr. Yi spoke briefly of her youth in Korea and her path through life to where she is now. She talked about her memories of the Vietnam era and Korea's involvement in the war, which resonated with me due to the war's effects on my family, especially my father. She also spoke of life in uniform under General Park Chung-hee's militaristic rule and the subsequent economic and cultural revision and expansion, and the sorts of drastic change that entailed. At that moment I was struck by how drastically different our backgrounds were-- America's contemporary history has absolutely no analogues to Korea's rapid and tumultuous rise. I felt so lucky to be hearing first-hand of these events I had theretofore only read about from afar-- Dr. Yi lived those things, which I find incredible.

YI'S MORNING LECTURE.

AT OUR morning discussion, we continued to talk about Korea's modern history and its involvement with its neighbors and the world. Specifically, we discussed two key salient issues that would arise throughout the trip: the Korean/American Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the effects of oil, Iran, and the United States on Korea.

Warning: Politics.

Sorry Knifeguy, gonna defy you (source:  http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2030/2454139966_8d3290517a.jpg)

FIRST, THE FTA. You may have heard about this FTA in the news-- it's come up now and then for the past few years and, as the largest US trade deal since NAFTA in the early 90s, it's a pretty big deal. Dr. Yi revealed a lot of Korean concern towards the environmental impacts of the agreement that I had previously not heard about.

Korea is shockingly environmentally conscious, by which I mean the average individual actually seems to care about the environment (something I unfortunately do not see in the States). For one, living in a mountainous country smaller than the state of Georgia makes the quality and availability of land a much more important issue, especially when that land is surrounded by ocean on three sides. Climate change/ "Global Warming" isn't a conspiracy, debate, or question in Korea-- it's a fact of life. Dr. Yi explained that Korea's historical rainy period has lengthened and intensified, becoming far more like the wet seasons of the more tropical South East Asian states-- a vivid illustration of the changes that are occurring.

This is one source of contention between Koreans and the FTA. Dr. Yi talked about the environmental pollution from US military bases in the region and the immense costs to the Koreans for cleaning up our messes. Koreans criticize the FTA for being weak on environmental regulations, among other standards, such as the quality of US beef-- another huge source of contention which I would hear about often. Due to land restrictions, "factory farming" isn't as prevalent as in the US; the beef industry is much more natural, small-time, and therefore of higher cost and quality. The imports of US beef therefore raise Korean eyebrows, especially in light of several cases of Mad Cow disease in US cattle.

The KORUS FTA, as you can tell, is quite a complex bag of tricks (but aren't all FTAs...?). I knew nothing of these concerns and contentions and likely would not have discovered them without my trip to Korea or my conversations with Dr. Yi and other nationals.

International Affairs-- too confusing for babies (source:  http://fineartamerica.com/products/its-a-confusing-world-james-w-johnson-greeting-card.html)

NEXT, IRAN. Besides hearing about Iran in the news and in articles with increasing frequency and intensity, I hadn't thought much about the effects of the Iranian/US political climate on my life, let alone the lives of those who live in Korea. As you can imagine, hearing first-hand about the effects of this seemingly far-removed International Affairs dispute opened my eyes to a lot of previously invisible connections.

The brief synopsis of Korea and Iran's interconnection is that Korea gets a vast majority of its oil from Iran above and beyond other countries, and Iran is a huge export market for Korean goods (Koreans sell a ton of things to Iranians). They're buddies, in other words. Again, the contrasts between what I take for granted in American and what occurs in the rest of the world (i.e. Korea, for example), was profound.

Korea doesn't have the sort of diversified oil imports, colossal oil reserves, domestic oil production, or alternative energy infrastructure that the United States does, nor does it dabble as heavily in foreign markets. Thus, when the United States ratchets up the pressure on Iran and twists the arms of the members of the international community to "sanction"/"embargo" Iran's oil exports, some (like Korea) have less options to fall back on and therefore feel the squeeze too, more strongly than we in the States do. For example, gas prices have broken records in Korea this year, and Dr. Yi explained that a lot of the energy-saving initiatives we saw at the temple and throughout our stay in Korea were results of government policies to conserve in the face of the international political climate. This climate chokes Korea's oil imports while also stifling its exports to Iran, thus doing double-damage to a variety of sectors of the Korean economy.

*Gasp!*  Ours is a complex world, and getting out of one's bubble certainly enforces that.

End politics.

LANTERNS.

THE INTERNATIONAL aspects of the day were in fact a small speck in the grand scheme of lively local interactions we engaged in. In other words, we did a lot things in real life with real people, we didn't just talk about complex, distant abstractions.

One such viscerally contrasting activity was our return to lantern-making! Today we switched to the second stage of the process, wherein paper is folded to the shape of the lantern-frame, cut (with extra margins for gluing), and adhered into place. The process is quite time-consuming, but results in the surface which eventually dons the watermelon paint job (see below).

Papering: the step after bending, tying, and gluing the lantern's frame.

THE KOREAN lantern techniques we were exposed to were actually quite fascinating-- someone (probably me) should do more research on the subject! It was incredible to observe this process, which I'm sure is quite common and therefore blasé to your average Korean, as a complete outsider. I saw much more than a simple process that leads to a product-- I saw a vivid illustration of that vague amalgamation called "culture" acted out before my eyes.

The process, for example, seemed FAR too time-consuming, tedious, and "inefficient" to be American. Each lantern took a considerable amount of wire, string, glue, and time and energy; the kicker was that they were nothing by themselves-- the point was to have as many as possible! This emphasis on mass-production, ESPECIALLY when the production part is costly rather than cheap and easy, seemed completely unlike the arts and crafts/folk-art processes I've experienced in the States. American culture seems to favor large, singular, and monolithic symbols and decorations (consider American religious holiday decorations-- ONE Christmas tree, ONE menorah, etc.), and rarely are any of those things hand-made. The tedious, time-consuming attention to detail on each individual lantern added much to the significance of the symbol. This contrast between "Eastern" scale (in terms of numbers like the Korean lantern tradition or the Japanese "Thousand Origami Cranes" [Senbazuru, 千羽鶴]) and "Western" scale (in terms of size) really fascinates me!All of this made me wonder what aspects of American arts and crafts culture are unique to us that I completely take for granted! What are our cultural analogues of this lantern-making process? Interesting to ponder!

Check our progress!!

IT WAS nice to spin off into this intellectually esoteric vortex in my mind while staying physically and productively grounded in the real world, where I was making steady progress on the lantern-making project (see above). Below is an example of some of the more intricate lanterns the ladies at Hongbeopsa were producing. Take everything I said about the difficult and time-consuming watermelon-making process and apply it to THESE guys (see below), and you'll get a good idea of why I find this whole tradition so fascinating. Each of these lanterns are awesome stand-alone wire sculptures! Each of these ladies are awesome wire artists! Yet they're "just" lay-people at this temple, pitching in to help pretty things up for the festival!What an incredible support for the arts, what an incredible tradition, and what a priceless experience! 

A sneak peak at some of the other lanterns.

COMPUTERS. IN KOREA. 

SO I swore off computers, cell phones, the internet, Facebook, and the like for my trip to Asia but was not completely successful in my technological celibacy. As a graded assignment for her class, Dr. Yi required us to submit reflections on our experiences abroad. I tried to convince her to accept hand-written reflections from me, but I understood when she declined. This meant I had to put some time into the digital world despite my wishes, and my lack of a laptop or other internet device made me a frequenter of Hongbeopsa's computer lab (pictured below).

Bryan and I in the computer lab. Note the kneely-desks.

I'M NOT sure if you've heard the stereotypes, but Korea is supposed to have a pretty interesting digital side. Between the popularity of Starcraft, the availability of really good internet, and the proliferation of smartphones, there is credibility in this trope. Separating fact from fiction was quite intriguing.

The first thing I saw: Starcraft!

Yes, that's right--STARCRAFT!

THE SECOND thing I saw was a ton of spyware, adware, and other not-so-nice stuff. It turned out that Hongbeopsa's computer lab wasn't in the best of conditions. I did what I could to fend off the digital attacks, but the computers were pretty badly gone to seed. Every time I logged into something on the internet, I was pretty sure that I was sending my login credentials to some Korean hacker. My identity hasn't been stolen yet, so hopefully that was just paranoia.

As you can see from the picture above, there's a good bit of Korean on Korean computers. This posed some interesting challenges, such as preventing me from reading the list of languages in the "change language" option because they were written in Korean. This was actually only a minor inconvenience; I'm good enough with computers and familiar enough with Windows that I could get around the system just fine by familiarity and icons alone, without having to read a single word.

A computer in Korea is just another computer-- they're built from the same things by the same people, they run the same programs, they do the same things. This is all intuitive. The internet, however, is a different story. Believe it or not, the internet is actually different in Korea. This is due largely to the prevalence of Korean search engines like Daum, Nate, and Naver, but also due to the language barrier.

Of course search engines aren't the extent of the internet, but their proficiency at finding and organizing search results in Korean and in English is a fascinating thing to think about. I've been on the internet for years, but 100% of my exploration has been done in English. Occasionally I'll come across an article that is easily transliterated or translated into English, but often I stay in the "Western"/English "hemisphere" of search results, videos, blogs, news, etc. How much do I miss out on? About half a world's worth, I'd imagine. Web-based translation between Korean and English is nowhere near as effective as it is between Western/romance languages, meaning content is largely inaccessible even if it can be tracked down. Yet tracking down these articles and websites is a hassle in and of itself, as they simply aren't linked to by "Western" sites.

What I'm trying to describe here is a colossal chasm on the internet that seems to lie along linguistic lines. These barriers break the "world wide web" into a system of regional spheres that are essentially closed to people who don't know the language. Whereas before I had extreme trust in and affinity for web-based translators, I now see their profound shortcomings. It unsettles me to think that I miss out on MOST of what happens on the internet due to my language.

More on search engines, the internet, language, and the divide later.

KIDS.

WE GOT to hang out with not one but TWO groups of kids today! The first was our close friends, the Baby Monks. The second was a new group of friends-- the afterschoolers!

Yoonhee and Effie explain Snake Tag to the Baby Monks as the third monk to their right prepares to hurl a pillow

TODAY WAS an especially exciting day with the Baby Monks-- we pretty much just ran around the entire time. Although that is not entirely true-- there was a good bit of English teaching in there-- the best part was certainly the running, and that's what stands out.

It was a hot day in Korea, so we stayed indoors, in the really nice activities room beside the dining hall. First, we taught the kids Snake Tag, which devolved into normal tag, which devolved further into running around, yelling and laughing, and sliding around on the floor. It was a great day to be a kid... or a kid at heart.

Then, it was time for English. We practiced greetings-- the Monks in English, us in Korean-- and then sang a song to work on counting to 10. And when I say "sang a song," I mean SANG A SONG-- we sang that song for a good 45 minutes! You better believe I was hearing that song in my sleep that night.

You may note a lack of pictorial and verbal description in this section, but that's because I took a good bit of video of the events and compiled something for your viewing pleasure! You will find the video at the bottom of the page. Make sure to check it out!


OUR SECOND group of kids was fun in a different way. These kids arrived at the Temple in the late afternoon, fresh off the bus from their middle school. I never got the full idea of just what the program is all about, but every snippet I did glean was very positive and inspiring.

Swingin' on the Basketball goal while the others shoot around.

Several people spoke at several different times in a round-about way about the family background of the kids-- although they wouldn't come right out and say anything like "kids in need", they did mention that the children came from "poor-er" families or perhaps single-parent situations, both factors being REALLY BIG DEALS in Korean culture (from what I ascertained). As I have mentioned before, education, especially in English, is HUGE in Korea-- it IS power, it IS wealth, it IS status, insurance, etc. This was a main aspect of our stay in Korea-- sharing our English skills with different communities and groups of people. I think that exposure was especially important for these kids, because whatever the reason may be, the fact was that they came to the Temple after school rather than going to a cram school or other extra educational activity. This was a service provided by the temple to these kids, who were perhaps otherwise underprivileged. In a place like Korea, being underprivileged is almost lethal.

At the temple, the kids were provided a (REALLY REALLY TASTY) meal and spent time hanging out with each other and with several staff members who helped them with homework and whatever else they may need. The group of kids differed from day to day depending on involvement in other activities and whatnot, so although there were some familiar faces, there was also a good degree of variety. The Temple had also sponsored a trip for the kids to Taiwan at the beginning of the year (a phenomenal experience for ANYONE, but especially for these kids, as several people implied), and promised a return trip at the end of the year if the kids did their homework and did well in school.

This program was an incredible thing to behold and to be a part of. It is yet another testament to how incredible Hongbeopsa is, and what an integral part it is of its community.

HANGING OUT with the second group of kids was good, clean fun. To get to know them, we spent our time hanging out and having fun rather than trying to force more English or education down their throats after a long day of school. We went out to a basketball/playground area and just goofed off for a while, until it was time for the kids to go. Language was a huge barrier between us, and because these kids were older than the Monks, they were a bit more reserved/self-conscious/hesitant to come out of their shells. Eventually we were able to transcend our differences and run around as human beings, but it didn't come quite as intuitively as it did with the monks. Fascinating how socialization, age, and self-awareness can complicate communication, eh?

After hanging out with the second group, we were done for the day! Dinner was rushed, so a group of us set out to explore the Temple's more urban surroundings in search of something to eat.

WANDERINGS.

It turns out there's a lot more around the temple than we originally thought!

After crossing the small bridge at the temple's rear, we came across a small shopping area full of local restaurants and small businesses. I was a bit confused about the nomenclature and layout of the place-- was it a city? A town? A borough? I have absolutely no idea, and the language barrier didn't help. Hongbeopsa is "in Busan" or "on the outskirts of Busan", depending on who you ask... but Busan seems to be a very large place, more like an American state than a city. The way that these businesses and restaurants seemed to ooze out from the largely residential area around it was also quite confusing, further reminding me that Korea is laid out far differently than the United States. Experiences like these really made me question what a "city" is, in the most abstract of senses.

Below are some pictures from our wanderings, and included at the end of the video is a clip from our walk. Be sure to check them out!

Near the temple. That bus was probably going a billion miles an hour.

My SECOND Korean beer--Cafri! Not as good as Hite!

The temple and the river from afar!

The temple is gorgeous, even at night.

UPON RETURNING to the temple, we met up with the illustrious Mr. Jung. At this point in the trip, he had already made known to my companions his brilliance, but I for some reason remained ignorant. Mr. Jung claimed to be a liaison for the Indian Embassy, but I saw right through his thin disguise to the true secret agent/international man of mystery who is Mr. Jung. Always wearing a suit, always charming and kind, always handlin' bi'ness-- Mr. Jung is a big deal. But he doesn't act like it! He's funny, he's nice, he's-- the bee's knees! And this isn't some sort of man-crush; the others agreed-- Mr. Jung's appeal is universal!

Alas, I do not have any good pictures of him to share at the moment. What I DO have are some pictures from the top secret tour of the Temple he took us on!

As I said, we ran into Mr. J after our tour of town. He lead us to the Secret Golden Jung Express (pictured below), which took us to the roof of the temple!

THERE, WE spent some time with the Colossal Buddha (made out of bronze!!), we looked around the rooftop sanctuary, and then explored the temple inside the Buddha! It was all surreally and impressively beautiful.   

A closer view of the Colossal Buddha on Hongbeopsa's roof

The shrine inside the Colossal Buddha! (Note the red cushion-- that's where Buddha's  Śarīra (사리 ) are displayed on special occasions)

Me inside the Colossal Buddha! The candles behind me pay homage to the dead.

HEADING TO the top of the temple was a humbling experience. Everything felt so dignified, so significant, so hallowed... I felt lucky to be there and thankful for the experience! And meeting Mr. Jung was a privilege as well.

WHAT I THOUGHT would be a slow and easy day turned out to be far more full of experience and intrigue than I possibly could have imagined. I've compiled a video below that I hope will show the diversity of experiences offered by Hongbeopsa that day.

I had no idea what six weeks of this much awesomeness would do to me. I was about to find out!

VIDEO.

Above is a video from the day, which you can also watch here.

Here is my reflection for Dr. Yi's class from today!