This weekend marked another exciting foray into Amy's ancestral homeland: Daegu. The reason for this sojourn? The crazy Korean holiday called Chuseok (click for Wikipedia page... summary follows for lazy readers) It is comparable to Thanksgiving in scope and focus; everybody returns to their hometowns... more specifically, traditionally to the home of the eldest son of a family, which was also traditionally the residence of his parents. Thus, most people today return to their grandparents' house, as the nuclear family continues to gain an edge in the non-Western world. So, everybody gather together with their relatives and pigs out to celebrate the prosperity of the fall harvest. Is this sounding like a certain American holiday yet? The traditional dress for Chuseok is the often brightly-colored hanbok, the traditional dress of Korea. Here is an example of a hanbok:
Yellow and pink are popular colors for women. Children's hanbok are very very very very very colorful, often with rainbow-striped sleeves and primary colors. Both men and women wear hanbok; women's hanbok are kind of like jackets over long skirts, whereas mens are kind of jackets over INCREDIBLY baggy pants. Refer to an older post on this blog to check out my hanbok. :)
Another aspect of Chuseok is ancestor worship, reserved for non-Christians and moderate Christians for the most part these days. People tend their ancestors' graves, make offerings, go to special ceremonies, etc. Amy's family is pretty Christian, so they do not even wear hanbok for Chuseok (What the heck?! At least they do at Seollal - lunar New Year!) or visit graves, let alone practice ancestor worship. I was very sad, as I was eager to wear my hanbok. In church on sunday, the priest ranted at length about how it is terrible for Korean people to mourn and revere the dead in ancestor worship (they go to heaven when they die, silly!), and how even wearing a hanbok for Chuseok means you are going to hell. OK; the second part of that sentence is an exaggeration, but only ever so slightly.
The holiday gives 3 days off to the country. This year, the main day fell on Sunday, so we only got Monday off and were gypped out of another day off because the previous day was Saturday. Early Saturday morning, we trundled up to the KTX bullet train station and headed on down to farmland. We stayed at Amy's maternal grandmother's house, which had been converted from a traditional-style house with a large courtyard and such to a more enclosed sort of dwelling. She had lots of awesome fruit trees around; we enjoyed the pomegranate I picked from the roof. I was jealous of the neighbors' copious persimmon trees, however; I was in the mood for one. It was refreshing to be away from the hustle and bustle of Bundang and have the chance to relax in the sunny fields surrounding Daegu. It was dark and quiet at night, aside from angry jindogae
barking their heads off. We ate tons of delicious food; including having various types of kimchi, fish, and bibimbap for literally 5 meals in a row (the 6th one we ate there lacked bimbimbap).
There was also plenty of fresh fruit, in keeping with the harvest holiday theme. I helped Amy's grandmother make songpyeon along with Amy and one of her aunts. They are a kind of rice-paste dumpling filled with beans, sesame, nuts, or the like. They are traditionally steamed in pine needles for a fresh piney aroma but this time, alas, they were not. I got to meet all sorts of Amy-relatives, including some she didn't really even know, allowing me endless opportunities to sit and stare awkwardly as people babbled at me in crazy Korean moonspeak. All in all, it was a very refreshing weekend, as it mostly consisted of eating, sleeping, and relaxing jaunts through the countryside.
Chuseok: Thanksgiving with more Kimchi!
Pet Updates!
Because we felt bad about not updating very regularly, here is a bonus second post for today, detailing our animaly adventures!
First, we are pleased to report that we found a forever home for Tony! We will miss his constant barking and flair for Hawaiian shirts.
Next up here is an action shot of Fugu. After sleeping, this is generally his most common position, namely terror/rage. We recently banned him from using kitty litter as a toilet as attempting to wash a towel with a few sprinkles of the stuff has filled my washing machine with endless tides of disgusting gritty sludge, utterly ruining its functionality. I wonder how much a new machine costs...
Here is Tony's successor (and superior in every way except fashion sense): KAMJA! (His name means "potato"; He is kind of shaped like one, being a morbidly-obese toy poodle and all). Kamja is a true rescued dog; we picked out this ball of feces-caked black fur from a city-run kill shelter and after a long, intense grooming session, brought home a shaved bundle of love.
Watch out for his puppy eyes! It is still hard to resist their charm for long...
He is now on a diet and exercise regimen, and his weight is coming down steadily. However, he now has flaps of loose skin hanging off his body, making for an intriguing drapery effect when he is lying down or being held.
We are highly considering making him our second adopted dog. The deal is pretty much sealed, despite some occasional behavorial issues. But at least he doesn't bark. He is a doggy of the "tortured intellectual" variety. He is too smart for his own good, as he is always hatching schemes to uncover more food (He once ate an entire tupperware container of doggy treats, resulting in a spectacular neon orange extrusion the next day), but he also is great at learning new tricks and discipline. His personality quirks make him a great fit in this household :)
Finally, we have another recent addition, though we hope he will soon leave us. Seriously. Amy recently has been acting as a middleman between a Korean animal rescue group and the English-speaking ex-pat population here in Korea. After lengthy discussions with a woman confroming to many stereotypes, we picked up this bundle of hyperactive love from a shelter in Yongin, about an hour and a half away from us. We rescued him three days before his date with euthanasia.
Then, after we had picked him up for delivery, less than 12 hours before we were scheduled to meet with this chick, she texts us and says "I have a problem. A dog showed up at my house" or some such nonsense. According to her, "somebody" myseriously dropped off a poodle in her fenced-in yard in broad daylight. She claimed that the dog was outfitted with an RFID chip marking it as belonging to a person who had mysteriously left the country. Oh yeah, and her husband also does not want multiple dogs.
So now we are stuck with this hyperactive bundle of Maltese unintelligence with a penchant for emitting eardrum-shattering barks, at least until we can find another person willing to ACTUALLY COMMIT TO SOMETHING.
Thus, we give you: Tracy.
Second Trip to Japan!
Well, we finally did it; we got our visas! Now we are embroiled in the process of obtaining our full alien registration (and then comes health insurance! finally!) We had our health checks on Friday, with everything from hearing and vision tests to chest x-rays to the naked theft of various bodily fluids. So now we wait. And gather up money for the next round of bureaucratic fees.
Anyway, back to Japan...
This time we just went for an overnight trip, getting up at 5 am to start our journeys. Once there, we proceeded to the Korean consulate, where we were embroiled in another epic SNAFU involving a certain 7s employee and various governmental offices scattered across East Asia.
This picture illustrates the general tone of things during the long 3-4 hours we were at the consulate...
After that, we arrived at our hotel, the Grand Hyatt at Canal City in Fukuoka! Canal City is a massive complex of shopping, entertainment, and FOOD centered around a canal in Fukuoka. The complex towers half a dozen stories above the colorfully-lit water beneath. We once again spent WAAAAAAY more money than we should have on UFO catcher games, allowing us to come home with a massive array of cute stuffed animals.
Because there were no rooms with views of the Canal, I opted for the city view instead. Unfortunately, it was more like the "industrial wasteland" view, though the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon"-style building (seen in the center of the picture) looked pretty cool.
And what would a trip to Japan be without encountering random semi-useless robots?
Here is Amy with some random Canal City automaton of mysterious function.
We returned to the amazing Ohori Park in Fukuoka, and this time we caught the Asian Art Museum when it was open! There was a special exhibit of Japanese prints on loan from the Boston MFA that was stunning! Sadly, it was extremely crowded, as it was the weekend before the exhibit closed. Here I am with this random but epic fiberglass pumpkin sculpture located on the museum grounds. Go Steelers! The museum also had plenty of traditional Japanese art, as well as modern Japanese/European/American offerings, including TRASH like Warhol.
It was a hectic yet ultimately rewarding overnight stay in Japan.