I really hope no one in our village was outside at that time and saw his naked dance.
Category: Korean Countryside (Page 7 of 10)
Some thoughts about differences between Australia and Korea:
Our friends didn’t spent very long looking for the ideal picnic place. Wherever seems to be fine most of the time. Our picnic was technically on a man made weir… so on concrete rather than up on the rocks, and right near the road. There were nice places further up but going any further didn’t seem to be an option. Australians are really spoilt for space and I think that affects our desire for finding the best picnic places. Koreans don’t seem to mind as much. Plenty of times I’ve seen Koreans just plonk down wherever to have a picnic, side of roads, gravel packing lots – places Australians would never have a picnic. The scenery doesn’t seem to be the most important thing. Many Australians have probably had the experience of going for a picnic in a national park somewhere and trying to find the ideal place, “If we just hike for 20 minutes, scale this cliff face, wade through this river, there is the PERFECT picnic place I swear!”
Koreans won’t go swimming usually! I mentioned in the video that it would be inappropriate to wear a swimming costume (cossie in Australian slang) anywhere other than the beach or a pool. For Australians, and I think most westerners, people are likely to strip down to swimming costumes pretty quickly once they reach the ideal spot (some people even going skinny dipping). The only other person who went swimming besides from my husband and I was that one older guy, and he didn’t get in for long. The biggest reason Koreans often have for not swimming is that it’s too cold. I noticed this in Korea and with the Koreans who board with my parents in Australia. As an Australian, I’m not really that worried about cold water and I know within 5 minutes I won’t feel the cold much. Koreans just don’t have the same swimming culture and experience to know that. I’m sure those in colder European countries who swim a lot know how refreshing cold water can be! I think a big part of the Australian experience is going swimming, working up an appetite and then eating.
Koreans do food really well! I know lots of Australians do food well, but we can be pretty happy with just a bunch of sandwiches. For this picnic there was a bunch of different meat and vegetables and eating is constant grazing the whole time. When one type of meat is done, another goes on, there was rice and kimchi and side dishes then it moved on to ramen, then fruit. So much is centred amount just eating food. I don’t know how much of that is because of this particular group or people or region.
No one went properly exploring. People wandered around a bit but I was the only one who went quite far up the river. I know if I was with a bunch of Aussies they would be likely to trek up the river to see what was up there. I have lots of memories of camping and picnics when I was younger and someone going off exploring and coming back saying, “There is a waterfall up there!” or “Come check out this rock pool” and then everyone goes to have a look. Koreans love the outdoors and hiking, but it’s a much more structured activity. They get all dressed in the brand hiking clothes with the equipment and everything.
It was a really nice day and I’m really glad I got to swim a bit. I wonder what the Korean side of this would be. “The Aussie girl was really weird and went swimming twice and didn’t care about eating all the food and then just disappeared completely at one point.”
Quick video we filmed while riding our bikes around. This time of the year is really nice. Everything is so green and nice and it’s not too hot yet.
(Quick comic again, busy with book stuff).
Mosquitoes don’t like me very much! They love my husband though and he will get a lot of bites. I’ve watched mosquitoes come near me before and they’ll hover above my skin for a few seconds and then often they’ll just fly away and move onto someone better tasting.
On the weekend I noticed a lot of farm work was being done. There were a lot more people in the fields and I soon discovered that in order for the onion crops to be harvested family, friends and other workers are called in to help. We rode our bikes around and filmed some of the onion harvesting and some other farm work being done. We didn’t want to shove the camera in people’s faces so we mostly filmed at a distance.
Things that have also changed since our last countryside video: the concrete channels besides the fields have been cleaned out and now flow with water, wheat has been harvested and rice is now being planted in those fields, strawberry plants are left to die, potatoes are in season and being harvested, chilli plants are being grown, and kiwifruits are getting bigger but not full size yet.
I think I’ve mentioned mulgwishin before, which are water ghosts, but gwishin (귀신) in general tend to usually be female ghosts wearing the white funeral clothes with long dark hair. When you become more emerged in Korean culture you start to hear the word a lot more and realise how scary they are for people. I was just saying the word “fishing” but my husband thought I had said “gwishin”. Slightly worrying because it was late in the day and where we live is perfect habitat for gwishins! We live in an old village full of old houses and abandoned falling down houses. We also live near a school. Schools feature heavily in gwishin folklore because schools are so creepy at night and are all very similar looking across Korea. If I see a school in a Korean horror movie I know that at some point I need to walk past the school here at night, so it’s probably best not to watch those types of movies.
When we cut through the school grounds I usually salute the statue of Admiral Yi (important figure in Korean history) just to be on his good side. Many schools have a statue of him and it’s said that he gets down from his pedestal and walks around the school grounds at night. We figure that if a gwishin in the school is coming after us, Admiral Yi can come save us. Of course we don’t really have a strong belief in ghosts and all that, but it’s funny how folklore can affect the little things you do day to day.
Western furniture is something I really miss while in Korea. A lot of homes have barely any furniture, especially out in the countryside. My husband’s parents have a decent sized house for Korea but there is no sofa, no dining table. There are a limited amount of chairs and there is 1 single bed in the spare room. His parents sleep on the floor and we sleep on a mattress (I miss having a real bed too).
Meals are eaten on small tables (밥상) which are put away between meals. I understand why people don’t have much furniture because the space is used in a different way and traditionally Korean houses and furniture are very different to what we are used to in western countries. Furniture is also very expensive in Korea. There is not much range and it’s often quite bulky. While we now have space for a sofa technically, it would still have to be small one. Easy and cheap to get in Australia… not so easy or cheap in Korea.
My body really misses being able to relax on a sofa and I always take the opportunity to sit on them when we visit friends who have sofas. If you watch a lot of Korean dramas and Korean commercials it looks like Koreans have lots of western furniture, and houses and apartments are well furnished but that is not an accurate representation at all! It’s slightly more realistic when they are showing very wealthy families in dramas, but commercials that are supposed to be showing an average family but the average family lives in a huge apartment with lots of furniture?! Lies!
So I’m just stuck with my imagination now. Maybe if I wish really hard and believe… one will magically appear?
Recent Comments