A foreigner’s insight into Korea

Needles

Health and medical care in Korea appears to be a mixture of Western styles and old traditions. There are hospitals with physicians and surgeons trained in medicine where the terminology and textbooks are in english, which I had experienced early on in my stay after breaking my finger. There are also Doctors trained in medical concepts and techniques originating from ancient china. Although both Oriental Medical Doctors and conventional Doctors exist in the USA, in Korea both are recognized as true Doctors covered by medical insurance.

Acupuncture is a form of health treatment that has been tested over time, not scientifically, hence why the FDA of the US does not recognize the treatment as formal medical care. In Korea, many people use both Western physicians and Oriental Medicine Doctors depending on their condition. Oriental Medicine appears to be used for relief of pain, skeletal healing and the control of hormonal imbalances.

I have been waiting for a reason to visit an acupuncturist to experience tradational asian medicine. Finally, with a minor muscle strain from Taekkyun training I set up an appointment with my friend to visit her father, an Oriental Medicine doctor.

After a brief prod and poke to diagnose and confirm my ailment I was escorted to a cozy and comfortable ward with several beds and gentle classical music playing. Next my shirt was off and I had needles gently flicked into my back and arm. While relaxing for the twenty minutes with a heat lamp radiating over my needles I tried to imagine how excited the energy must have been to be finally free to travel along its normal routes along my body. In acupuncture, it is believed that pain and health problems arrive from the blockage of energy pathways in our bodies. The needles are inserted along specific pressure points to release the blockage.

Next I a patch of anti-inflammatories was stuck to my back (not unlike a smokers’ patch) and I was free to explore the office. I was fortunate enough to be shown around the back room where traditional herbs and plants were stored before creating perscriptions produced on site. Depending on the ailment, several types of plants and herbs are steamed under high pressure to produce a liquid concoction - voila - oriental medicine!

Did the acupuncture work? I haven’t had any pain or aches from that specific injury since!

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Natural Environment and Korea

Environmentalism in Korea?

Did you know Korea had one of the most significant feeding spots for migratory birds in the world, Saemangeum wetlands, which has now been reclaimed?  Did you know there are currently 20 nuclear power plants in Korea producing around 40% of Korea’s electricity, one of the highest rates in the world, and 13 more plants are being planned by the current government administration?  Closer to home, maybe you have heard about the Green-Way project in Gwangju?

I was fortunate enough to speak with Mr. Nak Pyong Lim of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement in Gwangju (KFEM) recently to learn about environmental issues and controversy surrounding Gwangju and some of Korea.  Coming from an environmental background, I have been curious about Korean’s viewpoint on conservation and sustainability.  Luckily I was put in contact with the largest environmental non-governmental organization in Gwangju by the GIC to answer some of my questions.

Mr. Lim, the Executive-Director/President, has been working toward environmental sustainability for about 20 years in Gwangju.  In fact, he is one of the co-founders of the Gwangju KFEM which was established in 1993.  It consists of 10 fulltime employees and has a city-wide membership of about 1,600 residents.  KFEM is a branch of Friends of the Earth, a well-known international organization.

The mission of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement is to promote environmental sustainability and preservation to limit society’s disturbance of the environment.  Their time is spent opposing government and private industries that are responsible for such issues.

 They are not against development, but against blind development.  They act by suggesting alternative plans that are less destructive to the environment.  For example, if a new cable car was planned for a mountain in the area they would question the long term damage it would cause to the mountain habitat that the cable car is bringing people to enjoy in the first place.  In addition, they may try to prevent the construction or at the very least suggest a location that would least disturb the local environment. 

Currently there are many projects the KFEM focuses on day-to-day:

First, they are constantly pushing for alternative sources of energy to coal and nuclear such as solar and wind.  Currently, they are assisting in the fight against the 13 additional nuclear power plants being planned by the Korean government.   

Another focus is the preservation of the national parks and a fight against development that will change or damage the local environment.

Also, they are involved in the protests against the construction of three canals connecting Seoul to Busan in the Great Korea Canal project.  President Lee Myung-Bak is hoping to complete it within his 5-year term to develop Korea’s economy.  However, it puts numerous rivers and wetlands at risk as well as numerous endangered wildlife habitats and drinking water sources. 

According to Mr. Lim, the current administration has created policies that have “lowered the bar” in the development of green spaces.  KFEM is against such government acts and they are initiating a movement for the installation of a Green Belt policy.  A concept with origins in the UK, the Green Belt concept is responsible for limiting urban sprawl.  It limits the growth of cities as they encroach on to agricultural, recreational, and other open spaces.

Another significant project is the fight against the development of Saemangeum wetland, or “the jewel of the yellow sea.”  It is arguably one of the top five most ecologically significant mud flats in the world because of the 400,000 migrating birds that arrive every year to re-fuel for their 24,000-kilometer roundtrip flight between Asia and Alaska and Russia.  However, it is in the process of being reclaimed after a five year fight against the government from 2001-2006 ended in failure.  80% of Koreans voiced opinions against the project.

Located in Jeollabuk-do, a 33 km dyke is being built to control the natural tides.  It is estimated that over 25,000 fishermen and 27 species of birds are suffering from the disturbance.  After the reclamation is complete there are plans to develop the “Dubai of Korea,” a massive tourism hub, also in an attempt to spur the Korean economy. 

Closer to home the KFEM is widely known for the Greenway project.  This project is reclaiming an 8km stretch of railway between Gwangju Station and Hyochun station to benefit public recreation.  Since 2001, thousands of trees, numerous benches and gardens have been donated by the public and private industry.  KFEM and local NGOs were able to raise around 300 million Won to re-vegetate and beautify the Greenway.  It will be completed in spring of 2009.

The Greenway is easily accessible at Chosun University and Namgwangju market if you are interested in seeing it for yourself.  In addition, if you are interested in supporting the Greenway through donations or taking part in the annual planting ceremony in November please contact the GIC for more information.  The KFEM also organizes regular field trips throughout the year to explore the natural sights of Korea.  You can contact the KFEM at 062-514-2470 for more information.

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Martial Arts

It is not surpising South Korea won 4 of 7 golds in Taekwondo in the Beijing Olympics. Sure, it is a martial art invented in Korea, but indiginous sports do not always guarantee a gold in the Olympics - look at baseball for example. Taekwondo is a patriotic sport. It is the national sport of Korea which many children anywhere from age 7 and up study the sport after school.

Taekwondo certainly sits in the limelight in Korea in regards to martial arts. However, there are so many other fight sports too: Hapkido, a recent sport since the 1950s focusing on joint locks, kicking and rolling; Kumdo, an ancient sword fighting art with origins in Japan (Kendo) and many others.

I had studied Hapkido with some westerners for a few months, but have switched to a more traditional Korean fighting art little known outside Korea.  Three months in I am mastering the kicking, tripping and defense techniques of Taekkyeon.  Nowadays, most students of Taekkyeon study the modern dancing form which is compared to Capoeira of Brazil.  (take a look on youtube).

However, I am a student of a different form of Taekkyeon.  There is a small branch that focuses on fighting skills and less dance.   It has challenged my coordination and greatly improved my flexibility in ways I never thought possible.  Also, it has given me another view into Korean culture where I am finally the student instead of the teacher.

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Olympics in Korea

With 6 Golds, 7 Silvers and 3 Bronze medals Korea has fared very strong in the Olympics as of day 6.  It is impressive that they are behind China and USA in the rankings so far.  Just before the start of the Olympics, President Lee Myan Bak made a public announcement that Korea will likely reach similar accomplishments to Athens 2004 where they finished 10th overall.  These are the results for a country the size of the state of Indiana with a population of about 49 million people (census 2007).

Here, the headlines have been archery, judo, weightlifting, shooting, fencing and baseball.  Swimming has received the biggest news by far due to the popular Park Tae Hwon.  For a week up to the olympics there was been a documentary playing about the life and training of the charismatic 24 year old hoping to be a major threat to Michael Phelps.  Personally, the biggest news has been baseball after losing friendly bets to my students.

As a big fan of the olympics, I have been glued to the tv watching the intense competitions, even if it is badminton, ping pong or archery on tv.  Perhaps, different sports are focused on than what you are watching, but there is definately excitement in any final of the Olympics.  If you can get access to the team finals of the mens and womans archery (both won by Korea) definately watch the nail-biting action.

My question is where do these athletes come from?  I can’t imagine how the athletes began in their sports since there are no sports programs in schools or universities.  The only athletic clubs outside of school offered to children around me are martial arts programs.

Regardless of where the athletes come from or their personal history, they come from a culture of hardworking and deligent people.  They strive to be the best in everything they do only aiming for Gold (koem in Korean). Though, naming the Bronze medal after fecal matter (doeng in Korean) I too would strive to win anything above Bronze.

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Taiwan

Taiwan is a really neat place to travel. It features great outdoor recreation including hiking, surfing, snorkeling, windsurfing, kitesurfing and mountain biking. Strangely, it is unknown to most people as a vacation place especially the western world. Most of us think of Taiwan as industry and technology, which are really just tucked in between rugged mountains.

Unfortunately, I only ad 6 days to see as much as I could. It ended up being very little due to the amount of time needed to travel around on the island. I spent half my time at a surfing beach, Chunan, catching the remnants of the typhoon that had just hit and Taipei.

Though Taiwan is technically apart of China It is a very confusing drama between the two territories. Wei, standing in the picture, traveled from Hong Kong but still needed a visa for Taiwan (whereas US nationals do not). However, Taiwan has been allowed to keep different rules and regulations, similar to Hong Kong and Macau. Thus, there is complete religious freedom. Temples are very common in Taiwan, this one being in honor of Buddha’s wife (or mom?).

Scooters. Wow. Family’s dont need SUVs or sedans for that matter. Scooters are used to carry families of up to 4 people around cities and towns. The scooter looks full already, but there is space for one more kid on the platform in the very front. I felt like an kid inexperienced in life crossing the street. I caught myself on occasion looking around for someone’s hand to hold scared of the 50cc engines pissing by.

The roads in Taiwan are well adjusted to the scooter lifestyle. Fortunately bicycles can be used in the same scooter lanes making Taiwan an incredibly great place to bike around.

Yangmingshan National Park in the Taipei municipilaty (about 1,200m). I was fortunate to be invited by a local to hike the extinct volcano. The plant life is limited to one type of grass, silver grass, which has adapted to the highly acidic soil. The smoke you see is actually sulfur gases and steam.

Ahhh food. The highlight of my trip was to eat and eat. Taiwan food is very similar to chinese food, though it has many traditional dishes on its own. Above is stinky tofu, in its english name. It smells very much like a sewage waste plant, but tastes ok. The unfortunate smell lies in many of the streets of Taiwan, which is great because I know where to find food but my appetite does slip away somewhat.

Most foods are not so strange. Common snacks are deep fried octopus balls (balls of dough and octopus meat), a beef soup and some flat noodle dishes. I learned the art of eating chinese soups here where they are actually like a 3-course meal. The broth has its own taste compared to the noodles and the meat.

One more example of different food: I was walking through a night market which I didnt realize was famous for snake restaurants. I walked past a gathering of people and naturally stopped to see what the spectacle was. It was a demonstration of snake anatomy and how to access the healthful parts. Blood was bled into a shot glass, bile was drained from the gall bladder into a shot glass and people sat at a table to drink and eat. I kept walking.

Unfotunately not everyone makes it to the bench on the subway.

The luxury of 24 hrs Mcdonalds for late night hunger. Mcdonalds is actually luxury in Taiwan. The price of a meal is 4x the price of regular Taiwanese food ($4 versus $1)! They end up being very classy establishments where people read and study. I felt a bit out of place, I’m not going to lie.

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Bushy Out!

The headlines on the Korean news are loaded with stories about President Bush’s visit to Seoul en route to Beijing for the opening ceremonies.  In the next few days tens of thousands of protesters will hit the streets holding signs calling for “Bushy Out!  Lee Myun-Bak Out!” (Direct translation of Bush from Korean is Bushy)  Awkwardly, thousands of other Korean people will be participating in pro-Bush protests after his current push to further friendly talks between North and South Korea. 

The press has reported that the full 24,000 police force will be on high alert during the Mad Cow beef rallies.   The public have extrovertly announced their views on the Korean president’s decision to start importing American beef after a four year moratorium on American beef after a Mad Cow scare.  In fact, every night there has been protests since the agreement made earlier this year.  Even Gwangju, the 5th largest city, has had nightly protests against American beef and President Lee Myun-bak.

This news is not anything new.  It has remained in the news for several months.  Fortunately the aggression has remained to be focused on the Korean President and the beef that is allowed entry into Korea.  There have been no known distasteful acts on Americans living in Korea. 

If you look up the facts of Mad Cow disease, or BSE, (wikipedia is a good source) it seems amazing that there could be such a major issue in a small country like Korea.  Only 3 cows in US history have been detected to carry the disease causing 3 deaths in the US.  Though, it is a very complicated disease that is not completely understood.  For example, it is suggested that the symptoms may only show up 15 to 30 years after acquiring the disease.  I have tried to inform some of my advanced students of some of the information that is not publicized in Korea, but it is difficult to carry out thoughtful discussions when it has become such a cultural issue.  Now it seems most of the focus is to oust the newly elected president.    

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Summer is here!

Though everyone in Korea has been sweating puddles for almost a month already,  summer has officially started this week.  The beaches are packed, the schools are closed (somewhat)  and every minbak (guesthouse) in the country and on the beach is booked till the end of August.

What that means for me is that I get a few days off from work to visit Taiwan for the next 6 days, fotunately just missing the Typhoon.  I have found a windsurfing backpackers called The Spot to hang out at for a few days.  Perhaps even a wonder down to Kenting, which lies on the tropic of Cancer meaning good snorkeling and diving.  Though I may be distracted by the massive mountains and gorges in central Taiwan.

I am fortunate to have this time off.  Many Koreans only get two or three days off from work to enjoy the summer.  My school, for example closes on Thursday and Friday only.   Young Koreans dont have to go to public school (though some do) during the summer, which means the private academies pick up the slack and have intensive study programs for the month.  Two hours of Chinese writing, two hours of Math, and maybe 2 or 3 hours of English studying will make up the vacation days of many elementary and middle school students.  The few students I know going overseas to travel, such as the Phillipines for a week, go so that the parents can play golf and the kids can go to English camp.

I will admit I feel a little guilty enjoying myself for a few days while all my co-workers are catching up on sleep.  But in the Western world we do take a break from work and life to come back fully charged, right?

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Mud Festival Pictures

Our first picture shortly after delicately brushing mud onto ourselves.  Purely for beautifying reasons.

On our way, looking for the wrestling ring!

We found our challengers..

We must have been on about round 5 by now.

A child taking care of his mom while Dad is figuring out how to dissappear and play with the rest of us.

What else is there to do while waiting in long lines to ride the slide…

Our Hite girls, in the latest commercial.

If you take another look at the pictures check out the photographers in the backround.  Hundreds of people dressed nicely and clean with big lenses stuck to their eyes swarmed the foreigners over the course of the festival.  Few of them approached us and spent several minutes making us pose for them to get their perfect shots.  We never knew which photographer was with the Associated Press, the newspaper, or the hobbyist so we modeled for them all.

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mud fest

Mud Festival, Dacheon beach, Boryeong, Korea was huge. I didn’t realize every foreign english teacher, all US military personal, many diplomats, and many more Koreans and their families would be at the same beach side town town as me. I should have known when changing trains in Iksan (a random farm town in central Korea) at 8am I saw four or five groups of english speakers waiting for the same train as me. Outside of Seoul I have never really bumped into more than two other groups of westerners. Or, when arriving at Dacheon beach we were greeted by hoards of festival workers asking us where we needed help getting to… The mud festival ofcourse!The magnitude of the event within Korea can only be explained by quickly searching online for mud festival news articles. There was press provided to the Miami Herald, the Pittsburgh Times, British news agencies, Australian news agencies, and South African news agencies, just to name a few. Here is a few links, including one for Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1205425,00.html

http://galleries.thelondonpaper.com/mud-festival-south-korea/1

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080713/481/304b98256fe04af2a733c24fc2f7b3b9/#photoViewer=/080713/photos_us_rank_afp/4cb5d752375aacae3c0630a11b0d03a7

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/travel/weekly_features/story/531424.html

Onwards to the mud

After being thrown on the shuttle from the train station and arriving at the traffic ridden streets with crowds walking in all directions, it took a short walk to the street corner to find a festival employee to give us information as to where our guesthouse was. There were festival employees at every corner, at every entrance to the beach and then everywhere on the beach.

(pictures to be uploaded shortly after developing the disposable camera)

The closer and closer you walk to the beach the more and more mud covered people there were to be seen. It was like being in the filming of a zombie film with expressionless people walking around discolored without any obvious purpose or direction. I, however, jumped into the first pile of mud I could with a huge grin on my face. That remained plastered…

The mud used in the festival is the same commericially sold for mud packs and other beauty products. It is mined nearby the beach and is trucked in for the festival each year. There seems to be an endless supply of mud spraying from hoses into crowds, laying in buckets to delicately brush on your body, thrown into air castles and air pits used for wrestling and sliding.

Hopefully, the mud is as endless as I thought as I return this weekend to beautify my bruised body and to watch the best fireworks show I have ever seen.

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Mud!

From the first few months I was here until now I have heard a lot of people talk about the Mud Festival in Korea.  It is a highlight to many foreigners temporarily living in Korea.  The one time, perhaps, foreigners from all over Korea converge at one location to do nothing more than play in the mud with people from all over the world.

This weekend is the mud festival in Boryeong.  I will be leaving in six hours from now from the train station for a three hour ride north west towards Seoul.  I have spent much of the week figuring out the easiest, fastest way to get to this remote region since there are few buses that go to Boryeong.

If you are interested as to what a mud festival actually is check out the link:  http://www.mudfestival.or.kr/lang/en/index.jsp  Otherwise I will report back with some more news and hopefully some pictures next week.  I wisely went to get a disposable camera today so I am not tempted to break out my digital camera in the mud.

Have a good weekend!  You can think of me sliding and wrestling and playing soccer in the mud.

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