Lost in Translation: Across the Sea in Korea

When I think of Korea, all I can think of are spicy food and gruff looking people, and my, how I want to go back. We packed so many adventures there into one week, it almost defies the imagination. Well, actually, I seem to recall spending the last 2 days in my comfy hotel room, watching very interesting and enthusiastically frenetic Korean television (with free, nonstop porn on channel 100...check it out). So that means that the adventures must have been squeezed into only 5 days. Not bad, eh?

We happened to run into one of those impromptu cultural dance/drumming/harp/plate balancing/head twirling shindigs that one finds from time to time in the cities of the world, and Hong couldn't resist dressing up in the free royal attire provided for aspiring monarchettes like ourselves. Now, I am a civilized person, and so I adamantly refused to don this ridiculous garb, but said I'd take her picture. After seeing some guy and his wife put the stuff on, though, I knew there was no choice. We were photographed by, oh I don't know, about 25 or 50 people. I certainly hope we brightened up their vacation photos. "Hey, look at these weirdo white people [editor's note: only I am white]. Wtf, mate!"

All said, Korea was a fascinating place. Reading up on the country before we left, I went through a sort of mental confirmation everytime I would read some little cultural tidbit in the Lonely (Lying) Planet guidebook: "Yep, got that. Same as Japan." In everything from drinking to education to technology to fashion to just ridiiiiculous uses of the English language, the countries seemed like clones. I was really expecting to find a sort of shinier, newer cousin of Japan over there across the sea. I was a bit wrong.

If I could describe Korea most efficiently, it would be to say it's as if Vietnam and Japan had a child. Stepping off the bus into the heart of Seoul, the streets had the street markets and unkempt, wild nature of Asia, but present also were the restrained politeness and orderliness of which Japan is so proud.

The stories of Korea and Japan are a bit similar, in that both countries have 5 letters in their names and that most people can't tell their citizens apart. Their histories have actually been intertwined for millenia, much like Canada and the USA. A lot of the ancestors of today's Japanese migrated from the Korean peninsula (don't tell them!), and it was also a source of a lot of cultural exchange and influence during the formative years of Japan's civilization. Both countries fall firmly in what experts (for our purposes, me) like to call the "East Asian Cultural Sphere," and as such share many common cultural links with each other and with their friend China, such as the use of Chinese characters (although in daily use it has been replaced in Korea by a phonetic one...you know, all those circles?), a strong Confucian and Buddhist influence in society, black hair, and a tendency to eat at McDonalds. All of these things together ground them in a common culture, from where they can build bigger, better bridges to the future. Mostly electronics, though.

The important thing to remember about Korea, therefore, is that it's OLD! I feel like China and Japan really get the lion's share of attention in the whole Asian tourism thing (exclusing SE Asia, or 'The Marijuana Belt' as I call it), but man, Korea has got the stuff! We saw sublime palaces from the Joseon dynasty, stunning, lush gardens, ancient ruins that would knock your socks off. Coming from Japan, my only thought was, how did I not know about this? These photos are from assorted palaces in Seoul. There are 3 main ones, and they are all just fantastic. The locations of the palaces were chosen according to the advice of geomancers, who made sure that the buildings were in tune with the forces of the world and facing the right direction and that they were in an auspicious location. The guys did a nice job. They were just lovely, backed up against the hills in Seoul.

The restored palace of Gyeongbok-gung (my employers destroyed the first one):