Korea: The Good, The Bad, and the Weird.

**I'm having some formatting issues I don't know how to rectify, so just bear with me! (Insert a picture of a bear.)**

Living away from home for this long and this far often makes me feel as though I’m on a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes I’m full of nervous expectations at the top of the hill, other times I’m flying down with not many thoughts but ‘oh shit’, other times I just want to get off, and other times I’m taking the smaller hills with ease and enjoying every minute of it. As I am getting closer to my three-month mark I’m starting to realize that I won’t be here forever, and I don’t want to waste my time here thinking how the culture doesn’t always suit my fancy, or how Koreans in Seoul can be rude, or how far away home is. One day I’ll be back in America, probably back in good ‘ol NEPA, looking fondly back on my time and experiences here. Here’s to riding the small hills with joy and excitement.

This past weekend really flipped my thinking switch for me as I got to see a different and magical side of Korea. Last Sunday I went to Yeongdong county in Chungcheongbuk-do with some friends for a music/wine/fall festival. AMAZING. We went with a group called ‘Adventure Korea’, which caters to foreigners but there were some Koreans, too. The bus ride was three-hours out of Seoul, but well worth it. We started out in a Music Village of sorts and visited a museum with traditional Korean instruments; I think I saw some sort of traditional Korean banjo, but as it was behind a case I could only stare longingly. Then we went into a room full of traditional Korean drums and were taught how to play them. Bum, bum, bumbumbum! The drums lay on their side so there are two heads at each end; one side is hit with a mallet and the other with a slim wooden stick. It was FUN. The woman who was teaching the class was amaaaazing at the drum and she showed off a little bit, which was grand.

Then we were bused off to the wine/music/fall festival about 20 minutes away from the first stop. This was a place full of tents turned booths, with wine tasting, FRUIT (grapes of course, apples, a pear/apple mixture of magic fruit, persimmons, peaches, apricots….), food to eat, some games to play (ring toss on bottles of wine), and a wine tasting show of sorts in the middle. I went with three other friends who were also ready for a Korean Adventure. We got some food first, and luckily my friend Nicole has been here a while so she can read some Korean and we knew what to order. It was amazing how much more friendly Koreans were to us foreigners outside of the city. One lady kept coming over to us, oooing and awing over Ada and Nicole’s tattoos, and trying shoving makoli (Korean rice wine) in our face. Then one old man who worked there brought us, free of charge, some sort of Korean kimchee pancake/crepe. It was good, bad, and weird. The table next to us held some adults and two little girls who kept coming up to us and talking, which their dad was pushing them to do this at first, but then they became enamored and hung around longer. Being good Koreans talking to foreigners, they giggled a lot, stared, and told us we were pretty.

Then we met back up with our group and got to take part in the wine tasting. As we were waiting in line to sit at our tables right in the middle of the festival, I tried chatting it up with a local vendor asking about his wine. I guess he took to this waeguk (foreigner) because before I knew it he asked me to write down my name, then proceeded to give me a folded up piece of paper with a drawing that he did on it…..of a short Korean looking cartoon woman in an apron holding a broom and dustpan. It was a good drawing and I had him sign it; it’s now on my fridge. Perhaps it was his way of showing me how good my life could be if I married a Korean wine-maker?

We finally sat down at our table, along with other foreigners on the trip, and each had a bunch of local Korean wine on our tables to sample, along with some snacks. We all felt like high royalty as folks kept coming around to us pouring wine, telling us about the wine, and generally giggling as they talked to all the foreigners. I sampled a few, when in Rome eh?, and they were very, very sweet as are the grapes here – go figure. I didn’t really like any of them, but ended up winning a free bottle in a dance competition. Korea, the good, the bad and the weird.

During the sampling there was a band playing, then a guy up front speaking in Korean. We had no idea what was going on, but were following what the other Koreans in the tented tabled area were doing. There was a Korean wine-making woman next to our table who told us to dance when the guy up front finished talking, so our whole table got up (the only one) and busted a move. I was confused, but I like to dance so I kept going. Then our table got called up front. In front of the other 20 tables, and a crowd of Koreans gathered around the edges of the tent, we were told we were going to have a dance-off of sorts. In instances like this, I’m glad that I’m a Kearney and also a teacher and therefore don’t mind being the center of attention sometimes. We all danced together first, then each got a number and danced one by one. All of the sudden I found myself charged with the task of dancing my heart out in front of 100s of people I didn’t know and whose language I could not understand. So I danced. Hard. We all did, but the winner was David, a tall, gangly, white boy from Maine who danced just like you would imagine a tall, white, gangly, white boy to dance. The Koreans were cracking up and declared him the winner.

But! Lo and behold, enter one of the little girls we met while we were eating lunch, and her very pushy father who insisted she had a dance off with David. Words were said, then the dance off began – David vs. 7 year-old Korean girl. Both had great moves, and the father kept showing his daughter the ‘right’ way to do things, and at the end picked her up and put her in David’s arms. I’m not sure if I have ever witnessed a more awkward scene in my life, and it was purely amazing. We all ended up winning a bottle of wine (David got two, the little girl got something, not sure what) for being such good sports.

Once the shock of that experience was over, we got to explore the rest of the festival. We started walking towards another part and watched some traditional dancing for a hot second before we were scooped up by an adjuma who just said, “Hello! Follow me!” How could you say no? So she took us to this HUGE drum and we had to hit it three times with a big drumstick – I believe it was meant to ensure a good harvest. So the four of us hit that drum with all our might and while we did that, about 23,442 Koreans took pictures of us. I can honestly say I have never had so many people I did not know take pictures of me. Korea: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.

Next our adjuma guide took us to another drumming thing, with drums like we had played earlier in the day. I felt a little bit like a rock star since I already knew how to do it, and while I was playing there were again 23,442 Koreans snapping pictures of us. It was disconcerting, but entertaining and it made me giggle. Once we rocked the drums once more, our adjuma took us to a traditional green tea drinking ceremony. We took off our shoes, sat down on pink pillows in front of another adjuma dressed in a hanbok (traditional Korean dress for women) and had a down-right tea ceremony. There was a proper way to hold the cup (one hand underneath the mug, one on the side) and we had to smell it, take it away from our face, and then sip it – three times. Afterwards we enjoyed a sang pyoeong, which is a sweet rice cake. We got to do the tea-drinking twice, and even met the mayor of the town whilst doing so. I have to say, politicians look very similar despite their cultural heritage. He was kind though and was excited to meet us foreign ladies. Again during this whole process, lots of pictures snapped by those unknown to us.

The adjuma bid us farewell at this point, so we decided to check out some more of the traditional Korean instruments. I really enjoyed one that I had seen in the King Sejong museum as it was an instrument created by him. Almost like a lap dulcimer, it had strings that were actually made of string and boy howdy did I really enjoyed it. The lady who was running that musical tent showed me some things and was impressed when Ada told her I played banjo so she showed me some more strumming techniques, after she wowed me with playing “Ob-La-Di” by the Beatles on her instrument. I have to say it was GD thrilling to be able to play another stringed instrument sort of okay because I play the banj. I have wanted to be able to play instruments my whole life - here’s to doing things that you want to do.

We shopped around a bit (I bought a present for my big bro-ski that he just has to wait and see about) and then headed back to the main wine festival part to make some wine cookies. I tried to make a volcano, but the woman made me push it into a crater and I’m not too sure why. When we were leaving I ran into the wine guy who gave me the picture he drew and he really wanted a picture with me, so he gave his camera to Nicole, grabbed my hand, and we had a nice little photo shoot. I grabbed a frozen persimmon on the way out and the owner of the stand took a picture of me and Nicole eating our frozen fruit, then shoved his daughters next to us and took another picture, then gave the camera to his wife and he got into the picture, too.

It was probably one of the best Korean adventures I have had thus far.

To bring it back home, on Monday I celebrated my first Canadian Thanksgiving…in Korea. Half of our staff is Canadian and my friend Ada in particular was really bummin’ to be missing this big holiday at home. So we banded together, bought a cheesecake, some roasted chickens from the chicken man, made some potatoes and veggies, and had us a feast. These gals here are feeling more like my family away from home, and I love the opportunities we all have together to bond. I have done things with them that I have never done, or probably never will do again, with anybody else.

I can get overwhelmed here sometimes, but it’s all a journey. I am here now because I am supposed to be, and I am enjoying my moments more and more. Thanks for reading. Happy weekend.