Yangdong

On one of our last days with the Lamsons (spelling? - they were the older couple who tagged along with us the first two week of the trip), we went to the village of Yangdong (양동). It was a miserably rainy day so we didn't get out of the van and look around much. But we did make two stops while in the village.

The first was to the home of the village chongson (총손) or the leader of Confucian ceremonies. He's the grandson of the choson Dr. Peterson met on his first ever visit to the village. The grandfather loved being the choson and took great pride in his role in the community. His son inherited the title from him but found the mantle of choson to be more of a burden than anything. The village is in agreement that the stress of being choson killed him. Now his son, the grandson, is in his forties and is planning on expanding the role of the choson. Like his grandfather, he takes pride in what he does, but he's currently building on the traditional responsibilities by teaching the Confucian classics to locals who want to learn. When we arrived to his home he was just finishing up a lesson. We sat and talked for him a little while - his wife made us some meshyu (매슈), a kind of plum juice, which was served hot and like a tea. It had a strange taste to it - it smelled kind of like sweet and sour sauce but with the emphasis on the sour. Our stay was brief because the choson had to go teach a class at the local university.

Our second stop was to an elderly couple who lived on the other side of the village. The harabeoji (할아버지 = grandfather) was the one who allowed Dr. Peterson's 1999 study abroad to stay in an abandoned house in the village. The study abroad after that planned to use the same house to live in, but a recent trend of moving out of cities to stay in the countryside meant that there were no more empty homes in the village. So the harabeoji invited the group to stay in his home, with his wife making breakfasts and dinners (when they were home). Since we were in Korea of course we had to visit the old man. We all squished into his little bedroom/living room, each of us sitting in a cramped cross-legged position for about an hour. He talked about a lot of things with Dr. Peterson acting as translator when he could get a word in edgewise. The thing about the visit that impressed me the most was when he explained the thank you letter he was writing on behalf of his grand-nephew. As yangban (Korean aristocracy), they still practiced the traditional Confucian wedding protocol. The grandfather had already composed a letter of proposal for his grand-nephew which was given to a suitable young woman's family. The family then agreed to the match and sent a letter back conveying as much - so now the grandfather is composing a thank you letter for the bride's family. He pulled out the paper he was working on - it was a big sheet of old-fashioned paper folded accordion style so as to create columns in which to write in hanja top-down and right-left. Because the younger generation is losing interest in learning hanja, the grandfather was the only one in the family who could compose the necessary wedding documents. The old man STILL has his own proposal letter that he wrote himself to his now wife. It was super cute to see how far his proposal had taken him: on the walls were photos of him and his wife when they were younger and a photo of their only grandson when he was a baby, and in the corner was his wrinkled little ol' wife sitting in the corner listening faithfully to her husband. I found this little tidbit of Korean wedding tradition to be so interesting that I decided to read more about it in my book on Confucianism. This reading has blossomed into the topic for my paper/project which is Confucianism's influence on gender (specifically women) roles in early Korea.

Speaking of yangban, here's a fun fact I learned this morning during a phone call home: my bon-gwan (본관) or the "tribal origin" of my particular branch of the Lee family is in Jeonju. Jeonju is located in SW Korea in the area of the former Baekjae (백채) kingdom. According to wikipedia, Jeonju is one of the two biggest bon-gwans for Lee's. Basically... I AM A YANGBAN! WOOT! It feels good to know that if someone asks me what my bon-gwan is, I can say "제 본관은 전주 이씨입니다!" (I am a Jeonju Lee!).

The first photo is from the covered outdoor room where we ate lunch in the village.

Cheonmachong

We visited Kyoungjoo a second time to see the tombs of various royals. This particular tomb photographed above is called the "Flying Horse Tomb" or Cheonmachong (천마청). The Hanja (한자) or Chinese-based characters above the tomb spell this out from right to left.

The entirety of the area that includes the Cheonmachong is called Hwangnamri Gobun-gun (황남리 고분군). Two of the six gold crowns found in all of Korea are located in this park of tombs. The Cheonmachong tomb includes one of these two crowns. The name "Flying Horse Tomb" is evidence of pre-Buddhist shamanism in the Shilla kingdom. Exhibited in the artifacts excavated from the Cheonmachong are the three imperial symbols of Japan, which are the sword, the mirror and the stone. The sword was buried with the king, the mirrors and stones are used to decorate his gold crown. This gold crown that I speak of is not a very practical accessory. Because of it's fragility and size, it is thought to be a funerary accessory only. The mirrors are in the form of small, flat gold discs hanging off all over; the stones are jade cut and smoothed out to look kind of like cashews. There are many different ways to interpret the meaning behind the shape of the jade: many people believe that they are to symbolize fetuses thus showing the importance of fertility. Others think that the jade looks more like claws - bear/tiger claws fit with the shamanism prevalent in Shilla at the time, as Japanese and Korean shamanism originates from Manchuria/Siberia and includes bear/tiger worship.

On our way into the tomb, we were passed by a HUGE group of obviously American college-aged students. We were all blown away by reverse culture shock but Dr. Peterson was smart enough to chat up some of the students and find out where they're from and what they were doing in Korea. Upon entering the tomb, he began to give a brief but interesting lecture on some of the artifacts on display and the history behind the tomb. At the end, he said "I've sung my song - now it's time for you to sing me a song". Apparently these students were a choir from Concordia, MN performing in Korea. After a little bit of hesitation, the soloist began the choir's a'capella rendition of Arirang (아리랑), a Korean song with a beautiful, haunting melody and filled with Korean patriotism. It was the most amazing performance I've ever witnessed. The acoustics in the tomb were fantastic, and as the choir sang I couldn't help but feel my emotions stirring. All of us were clapping and cheering at the end - I felt blessed to be in the right place, at the right time and with Dr. Peterson who has managed to turn this whole trip into a cultural adventure.

Update

Sorry it's been a while since my last post - we've been busy lately and I'm several posts behind. I want to make sure that if I post something, it's something meaningful and well presented!

To tie you over until my next REAL post, here are some pictures that didn't make it on to previous posts.

Hae-insa

On Tuesday the 10th we went to Hae-insa (해인사) - it's one of the 3 treasure temples in Korea along with Tongdo-sa (통도사) and Seongyo-sa (성교사). The beauty of this place was almost destroyed during the Korean War. Major Kim Youngwan (김영환) was given the order to bomb Hae-insa but upon approaching the drop zone he decided to call off the attack because of his memories of coming to Hae-insa with his mother when he was a little boy. Instead he dropped the bombs elsewhere (probably in some rice fields) and returned only to be court marshaled for disobedience. He was imprisoned for the duration of the war - but luckily someone remembered him and decided he should be recognized for his patriotism in preserving Korean history. He was court marshaled again but was found innocent the second time and made a general.

Within the temple there is a "maze" - originally there were just the words to a Buddhist poem written in such a way that the only way to follow the path was to be able to correctly read the verses. To make the path more accessible to the masses, the monks created a physical path that does not include the words of the poem, but they can be found on a plaque nearby in Chinese and Korean. Being able to walk through the maze is a form of meditation and many of the people visiting Hae-insa participated in it - as did we! 

The temple at Hae-insa keeps the dharma (the law) on wooden blocks - this is part of the 3 baskets/treasures known as the Tripitaka. The other 2 treasures are the life of Buddha and how to live in the monastic order. The life of the Buddha is depicted through paintings all around the outside of one of the shrines, as well as in a mural-type painting inside. The man usually referred to as the living Buddha is Siddhartha Gautama, a Nepalese prince. The life of Buddha begins with his mother conception dream which involved a white elephant. When the Buddha was born, his mother gave birth standing up and holding on to a tree for support; rather than coming from the womb, the baby came from underneath her arm and was more like a miniature man than a baby. He stood upright and possibly declared something (Dr. P can't remember). As a young prince he went out about the city and saw 4 disturbing things: poverty, age, death and disease. This made him want to be more liberal in helping people overcome these things. His father wanted him to be conservative and concerned more with matters of state than social welfare. To escape the smothering influence of his father and seek out enlightenment, the Buddha and his servant climbed upon a white horse that flew over the palace walls. At first the Buddha tried aestheticism which involves extreme fasting, but it didn't work for him. Before obtaining enlightenment he was tempted by 3 beautiful women but because of his enlightened-ness he was able to see them as the ugly demons they were.

Kyoung-joo: Seokkudam & Bulguksa

Okay, so it's getting to the point where I'm starting to be way behind on my blog posts and I don't have the time to tell you EVERYTHING that I'm learning. Which is unfortunate because it's all so fascinating. So I'll be brief with some of these posts, but I will be sure to include a few notable things.

After we visited the Wongsung tomb we had lunch (which was soft tofu stew - 순두부 찌게) and ice cream before getting in the car for some more driving up to the Buddhist temple called Seokkudam (석굳암). It was completed in 751 A.D. and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Every Buddha has 33 unique symbols that identify the figure as a Buddha, including the knobby hair, long ear lobes and androgynous features. The temple at Seokkudam has been found to match the Golden Ratio, and the halo behind the Buddha appears as a perfect circle to viewers but because of the curve of the dome on which it lies it is actually an ellipsoid; architecturally it features a circle motif. We also learned that in Buddhism there are Bodhisattva's (보살) who are people who reach nirvana only to remain in mortality to help others achieve nirvana.

We had to wait in line a long time to get up to the temple and see the Buddha - but as soon as we got out everyone was gone! We managed to get up to the temple at the same time as a massive wave of visitors. Luckily our next stop, which was further down the hill, was not nearly so congested. This temple is called Bulguksa (불국사). Within the temple are many different elements: one that we saw at various temples is the four drums symbolizing water, air, land and spirits/the dead (technically this last one is a bell). By ringing/beating all of the drums the monks call all sentient beings to meditation.

The two pagodas pictured above are the the tabotap (타보탑) and sokatap (소카탑) respectively. The tabotap means many treasure pagoda and although it is made of stone it is cut as if it were wood. The sokatap is Buddha's pagoda and inside was found the oldest printed paper in the world. Further into the temple are various shrines to different major Buddhas including Avalokitesvana and Vairocana (there was a third one but I can't remember who it is). Each Buddha can be identified by his mudra or hand symbol (ex: one hand clasping other's first two fingers/one hand clasped over the other; thumb and middle finger forming circles in a kind of yin-yang formation apart/same formation only the circles are interlocked). Also included in Buddhist temples throughout Korea are evidences of shamanism which permeate Buddhism because of its popularity with the masses. While shamanism believes in many different kinds of spirits, the biggest one is the sanshin (산신). Monks do not like the sanshin at all, and often times sanshin shrines that used to be featured in temples have now been either eliminated or drastically demoted in prominence. For example at Bulguksa the sanshin shrine that used to be there has now been turned into a "disciples hall" and the sanshin shrine is just a painting in a corner of one of the other Buddha shrines. Because everyone still wants to worship the sanshin, you will find areas where there are TONS of little stone towers made by stacking flat-ish stones on top of each other from bigger to smaller. Our group had fun stopping to make our own sanshin stones.

Kyoung-joo: tomb of King Wonsung

After recuperating on Sunday and going to the LDS branch here in Gimhae, on Monday we piled into a 12-seater van and headed off to Kyoung-joo which is in the SE in the area of where the Shilla (실라) kingdom used to be.

These photos are from the "supposed" tomb of King Wonsung (원성). As was typical of Korean kings during the late Shilla period, the tomb is guarded by statues depicting military and civil officials (in this case there were 2 military guys and 1 civilian). What was interesting about the warrior guardian was that he doesn't look Korea/Asian. His facial features, head dress, and the money pouch on his belt indicate that this statue was modeled after a Sogdian. Sogdians were Persian expatriates living in central Asia who were known for being big time traders (hence the money pouch). The fact that Sogdians are depicted at this tomb indicates the great trading power of Kyoungjoo in Korea. Dr. Peterson went on to tell us of a Sogdian in Korea who was so powerful, he is said to have been leader of a "thessalocracy" or "sea government" - when there was a power vacuum in Korea over who would be the next king of Kyoungjoo, he went all in to back one of the two major candidates for the throne. After helping to secure the throne for the new king, the Sogdian Jeongbogo (정보고) asked for an alliance with him through marriage to his daughter. Jeongbogo's lack of a suitable bloodline meant that he'd overstepped his bounds with such a request.

Anyways - what I found much more interesting than all of that was the zodiac depicted all around the actual tomb. There are 12 evenly spaced carvings, each one showing a warrior figure sporting the head of one of the 12 animals of the zodiac. In ancient times, Korea had 12 hours in a day and each animal corresponded to one of those hours. The horse - which is my year, or "dee" (띠) - matches the middle of the day/noon. Koreans have two different ways to name the years - you can either say the name of the animal, or use a kind of abbreviation:

Rat = jee (지)
Ox = chuk (축)
Tiger = een (인)
Rabbit = myo (묘)
Dragon = jin (진)
Snake = sah (사)
Horse = oh (오)
Sheep = mi (미)
Monkey = shin (신)
Rooster = yoo (유)
Dog = sul (술)
Pig = hae (해)

Goodbye Seoul - Hello Gimhae

By Saturday the 7^th of May we were on the road to Gimhae, stopping at a few historical sites along the way. We all piled into a rented charter bus without any idea how long and exhausting this trip would turn out to be. Initially we played a game called Samyukgu (삼육구) which literally means “3, 6, 9”. The goal is to count in Korean using sino-Korean numbers, each person in the group saying the next number at their turn. However, whenever a number comes up that includes a 3, 6, or 9 the person taking the turn must clap rather than say the number out loud. Numbers including more than one of these numbers must clap for every time the number appears in the digit (Ex: 36, 69 and 99 all require 2 claps). So as the game begins, it sounds like this: 

“Eel “ (1 =일)

“Ee”  (2 = 이)

*Clap* (3 = 삼)

“Sah” (4 = 사)

“Oh” (5 = 오)

*Clap* (6 = 육)

“Chil” (7 = 칠)

“Pal” (8 = 팔)

*Clap* (9 = 구)

“Ship” (10 = 십)

I think the highest we ended up getting to was around 60. It’s a great way to practice numbers but it’s easy to slip up and get out. Before too long we figured out that the best way to pass the time was napping – this we did a lot of since the ride ended up taking all day with our two stops.

The first stop was at the Independence Hall which includes 7 different museums and a huge monument at the front. It’s meant to symbolize the future unity of the two Koreas – now they are divided (at the tips of the prongs) but eventually they move closer together until they are joined. I’m not sure which side is supposed to be which Korea, but for the sake of South Korean pride, I’m going to venture a guess that the worn out side North Korea and the crisp structured side is South Korea. The museums depict Korea’s early history and independence from various invading/oppressive influences. Compared to museums in the states, Korean museums are very graphic! There were very disturbing displays regarding assassinations, comfort women, prisoners, riots, etc. It was all technically PG-13 but I was glad that our time constraints forced us to merely pass through these various museums. 

Afterwards the bus driver showed us an awesome place to eat nearby, and we feasted on kalbi – sangchusam (상추삼) style (aka using lettuce to make wraps filled with meat, rice and veggies).

Another couple hours of driving landed us at destination number 2 which was the print museum in Kyoung-ju (경주). We learned all about Korea’s being credited with the world’s earliest book published using metal moveable type in 1377 – much earlier than Gutenberg’s printing press. The book is called the Jikji (직지) and is a kind of digest of Buddhist concepts. The Jikji is actually a volume 2 and the other volume(s) are missing. In addition to creating the world’s oldest known metal moveable-type book, Korea also is credited with creating the world’s oldest printed document EVER, dated to before 751 A.D. The museum seemed to be more focused on showing off the Jikji, but I agree with Dr. Peterson that the museum should play up this second (and I think greater) accomplishment a lot more. There is only a brief timeline that addresses this significant and amazing fact. At the gift shop I purchased paper with which I was able to obtain a printing of part of a book written by King Sejong (from a replica of the original wooden block of course). I got to rub the ink on the paper myself and everything! It was pretty neat.

It was late by the time we got to the Gimhae hanokchon (김헤 한옥촌) but since we hadn’t had dinner yet we went to a nearby restaurant to have Gomtang (곰탕) which is kind of like ox tail soup.