Reading Korean Literature

One of the great ways to get into the mind of a foreign culture is by picking up literature from that country. I loved reading Ghanaian literature and watching Ghanaian movies because I could peek into the imagination of Ghanaians, and the fictionalized stories helped me to understand what was really happening in the world around me.

Anyway I absolutely tore through two short stories yesterday written by GongJiYoung (공지영), "Dreams" and "Human Decency". Both were really disjointed and confusing, but it still helped me to grasp at a certain mood, and it also reinforced my opinion that this place is scarred. She puts a lack of 'time line' into her stories. Her characters are always drifting back into the past in their heads, and you kind of forget what generation you're in. But there's definitely this sense of deep brokenness, guilt, and betrayal. The characters are living through the fact that their activism of the 1980s, while they have a civilian government now, seems to only add up to a more materialistic world. Her main character in Human Decency, a woman who gave up her life as an activist to work at a magazine, asks the question who are we "When we speak not of what is right and wrong, but of what we like and dislike?"

They were oddly powerful stories, although nothing really seemed to happen in them. It just seemed like these characters were grasping at that scar that seems to be here, that wound under a bandaid, that I can see but can't touch. And it's much bigger than Japanese Occupation and the Korean War, it's the dictatorship after it and the rapid development, too.

In Human Decency, Gong gives the impression that those who suffered from those times are forgotten, while the travelers who escaped the country during that time are the ones that are now in the country's imagination. The main character interviews "YiMinja", an enlightened woman who went to Africa and India and studied yoga and meditation, and drinks funny smelling tea. (And the main character says, after meeting her and her remarkable presence, "I now regretted disapproving of her because she had lived abroad.") The other character is Gwon, a man who spent most of his life rotting in prison because of a life sentence. He received it for passing out anti government literature. His two comrades died in prison. Now he seems to rot alone in his home with his brother, forgotten by his country because his struggle no longer seems to matter. They've all jumped past it.

But the main character herself seems to want to jump past it. The story takes us back into her life, into the people she lost. She doesn't want to go back to interview Gwon because of his connection to the life of activism that she ran away from--finally just tired of being constantly on the run. There's this continual inner struggle on her desire to honor her past and deal with her guilt, and this desire to turn away from it and accept the enlightened woman who traveled all over and learned of the world's wisdom. The character's inner struggles are fascinating when you look at it from a cultural perspective.

Anyway I totally recommend reading Korean literature for anyone who wants to get a deeper understanding of this place.

New Year's Weekend Entry 1: Traditional New Year's Party!

Since I didn't make any resolutions for Solar New Year (epic fail), I figured I might as well make some for Lunar New Year, or Seolnal, which was this weekend. One of those resolutions is to be better about blogging, so here we go. We had Monday off, and Stephanie came down to visit Daejeon. Since there isn't really much to do in Daejeon itself, we took some interesting day trips, and hung out with friends here. Some friends of mine put on a Traditional Lunar New Years Party on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we went to Songnisan National Park, and on Monday we visited Buyeo. I figured that I would split it up into three entries since there's just soo much

Seolnal is a big deal in many Korean families, and there are special, traditional things that must be done. My friends at J and J Recruiting put together a big party to introduce us foreigners to some of the customs on the holiday. Certain foods must be made, special Korean pancakes, special fish, and some sweets, and then they are set up in a certain order on a table. Ours looked like this:

There is a formal ritual where food is offered to the ancestors, which we all preformed. Food for the meal is prepared, then we have to bow, pray, and offer our ancestors their 'favorite'. (I picked the apples, because I figured that my ancestors wouldn't really know what to do with all that Korean food.) The ritual is called Sae-be. First, you are given some wine, which you offer to the ancestors. (You use the same glass as the person previous to you, and dump the contents into a communal bowl. I don't know if that was just for convenience or if it is part of the ritual, haha.) Then you hit your chopsticks three times on the table, spin them around the incense three times, and then choose your ancestor's favorite food. Then you bow twice--full, head-to-the-floor bow. Women and men bow just a little bit differently--men with right hands on top and women with left hands on top. I'm assuming that's for the sake of symmetry, since couples bow together. But we all did it by ourselves.

Then everyone bows together, which--to me--looked like sallat prayer at Mosque. I missed that part, since I was chatting with some of the Korean ladies in the back when they were doing it. Even though I didn't participate, though, it looked pretty cool. It feels good to be included in cultural activities, since I feel like that doesn't happen so often here.

After eating, we played some traditional games like the "Four Stick Game", which basically requires that you throw four enormous sticks into the air, and hope that they land face up so that you can move your little pieces on a board. They have five different animals--a dog, a pig, a sheep, and a horse, and a cow. The word for dog in Korean is 개, pronounced "gay". (Or Kay, the sounds run together), so basically we spent about 40 minutes yelling "GAY!" every time somebody rolled a 2. Anyway I super lost and my friends super won, but it was a good time. Then we played Korean hackie sack with funny feathery things, and I was terrible at it. :D

Overall we had a great time and I'm glad my friends did this party. The food was great and we had a lot of fun, even though there weren't a ton of us. I really enjoy their company, so it was a great time.