Korea, Metaphorically Speaking

For our last paper in my Korean Language and Culture Class (University of Maryland, 3 credits), Professor Kim instructed us to write a personal response about our first impressions of Korea.  What follows is my paper for that assignment:


Before I ever experienced Korea, I lived in Europe for eighteen years and then Japan for nine months. From Japan, some friends and I took a quick jaunt to Seoul over a Memorial Day weekend, and I remember thinking multiple times during that brief visit: Japan is Germany and Korea is Italy! Four and a half years after that first trip to Seoul, I actually live in Seoul—four months now—and Korea is still Asia’s Italy! Certainly, like both Germany and Japan, Korea’s infrastructure functions and performs with ease and on schedule, and Korea, too, is a technological powerhouse. In demeanor, attitude, and style, though, Korea is Italy: louder, in your face, and more than willing to nudge you, even bump you, if necessary. Koreans are not so self-contained either, and they do not dwell inside the boundaries of an inner realm of their own creation; instead they are expressive and offer easy access. On trains in Korea, I never have the sense of being invisible; I am noticed, talked about, talked to, and motioned over to take a just vacated seat.

Korea is exuberance—energy, motion, and joy. It is wind, not a polite breeze. It is breaking surf, not glassy calm. It is a sprint, not a stroll. During that first visit to Seoul, I remember walking with my friends along a sidewalk with very few other people in view at all. From behind we heard the sound of running footsteps approaching us. When we turned around to look, we saw a young man—late teens perhaps—running towards us and then on past us. He had no interest in us, no one was chasing him, and he was not wearing running apparel or even running shoes. In fact, he was also hauling a small backpack on his back. And I will never forget the expression on his face: pure pleasure—he was running only because he wanted to run. I run sometimes in cities—to cross a street before a light changes, to catch up with someone, because the sidewalk tipped to a decline and I couldn’t resist the urge. But usually I also feel somewhat undignified or lacking in proper decorum; after all, no one else really seems to run on city streets. However, in Seoul I have seen people—besides me—run, and I’m not talking about the serious runners running their course; I’m talking about people clad in jeans or overcoats, people wearing boots or dress shoes, and people toting shoulder bags or shopping bags. At moments, someone will run.

Korea is a new world order—on the streets! Post yourself at any intersection in Seoul and watch the dance of vehicles and pedestrians as orchestrated by the stoplights . . . or not. And that dance? Ballet or ballroom it definitely is not. Instead, it is all improvisation based on random fundamentals learned in a jazzy interpretation of driver’s education and instituted with the bravado of break dancing. Car horns play multiple roles to instruct the dance format: announcing one’s presence, criticism of another’s style, warning of portending doom, and just plain old accompaniment for the developing drama. On my team at work, I have five colleagues; in the last month two have had their cars totaled in a Seoul intersection while commuting to work, and a third had his two rear wheels punctured when driving around—as directed by police, may I add—the scene of another accident. Driving in Korea is not for the timid or the slow of reflex!

Korea is juxtaposition, a land where a block of high-rise apartment buildings stands beside a lush green patchwork of rice paddies. Within a city like Seoul, an ancient palace from a bygone dynasty unfurls in classic lines of Asian architecture inside a valley of towering glass and steel skyscrapers. On a peninsula where two Korean nations side by side have developed so separately and so differently for over fifty years, a native Korean speaker from the North who arrives in the South must take language classes to achieve full competency in the Korean language spoken in the South due to the massive influx of English words now included in the language.

Korea is a motion picture—light and shadow, colors, shapes, and an unfolding narrative—not a framed black and white or sepia-toned photograph. Of course, Korea has a storied history and a rich cultural heritage, but its view looks to the present and on to the future. With a reverence for what was, Korea seems to always be in the process of becoming. Sometimes that requires the phoenix-like ability to re-emerge from ashes and sometimes just constant nurturing of the creativity and dedication necessary to continually reinvent oneself in a changing world.

Korea is not perfection, but it is possibility. The heart beats passionately, the eyes search the horizons and glimpse beyond, the mind asks questions and constructs solutions, determination remains resolute, and the soul opens to what could be.

Sayonara Japan (one more time)

(7)  Japanese Man Hole Covers.  In Japan, each district/township has distinctly designed man hole covers.  Here are the covers in Ashina, where I lived.

This one is smaller and designates a different kind of pipeline below.

(8)  Pepper Lunch.  Yes, Japan has McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc., but Pepper Lunch is Japanese fast food.  One enters, selects one of the meals pictured on a machine, inserts money, and then the machines issues a ticket or tickets--depending on what one ordered and paid for.  Next, one sits at the counter and gives the ticket(s) to the person behind the counter, who notifies the kitchen what to prepare before bringing a glass of water and a paper placemat.  I almost always ordered the pepper steak--one of my few forays into the realm of red meat.  The steak arrives still in the process of cooking on a very hot iron plate resting inside a larger wooden platter.  My order always included a mound of bean sprouts and three green beans with two large carrot slices added the metal plate to heat just before it was brought to me.  On the side came a plate of rice--small, medium, or large.  Pepper Lunch was a must stop for anyone who came to visit.  I wish I could have taken you there!

(9)  The 8th Graders at Yokosuka Middle School.  Indeed, the chance to teach eighth graders at Yokosuka Middle School has been one of the favorite parts of my life for the past four years.  (I taught sixth grade my first year in Japan and then taught almost half of those same students when they became eighth graders two years later.)  They have helped shape my thinking and my living; they have touched my soul.  I will miss them.

At the end of third quater--the first week of April--our 8th grade team walked to the bowling alley on base for a bowling party and followed that with a picnic lunch.  A few students suggested playing Red Rover only to learn that over half the kids had never heard of the game, much less played it.  (The game has been banned from most schools because of the potential for student injury.)  We teachers, foolishly or not--after all, isn't Red Rover a rite of passage in all childhoods?!--allowed the game to commence, and the team lines grew rapidly.  I loved watching how those lines formed to include even the "macho-est" of boys holding hands with other "macho-est" of boys!

(10)  Attending church in an office building in downtown Yokosuka.  A building is really only a shell. What is right and true and of the spirit can join together in even the most unconventional locations.  At first our church--comprised of two congregations,one Japanese and one American--met only on a portion of the third floor of the building, a building shared with an office of the Mitsubishi Corporation, another Christian denomination, a dentist office, some apartments, a few other sundry offices, and a cigarette machine in the main lobby.  As the American congregation grew beyond what could be accommodated within the third floor space (the American congregation tripled in size during my five years in Yokosuka while the Japanese congregation remained virtually static), a portion of the sixth floor was leased and renovated for addtional classrooms. The elevators and stairwell became interesting socializing destinations in addition to their functions as transport.

This rosy hued building housed our church.

The entrance just left of the Coke machine.

I usually took the stairs, leaving the elevators to those with babes in arms, kids, and strollers.

Here's what you see when exiting the elevator on the third floor.

Sayonara Japan (continued yet again)

(4)  The Japanese national anthem.  Fairly short and in a minor key, it is hauntingly beautiful.  At eight every morning near the dock harboring the fleet, a loudspeaker broadcasts a recording of the American national anthem followed by the Japanese one.  Because the BOQ where I currently live on base is much closer to the dock than to the school, I have heard both anthems much more frequently the last few weeks.  Whenever the military or JROTC presents the colors at some function, the Japanese anthem always follows "The Star Spangled Banner."  I remember I liked the German national anthem as well.  Perhaps there is a solemn beauty and grandeur to the music selected for any national anthem.


(5)  Mt. Fuji.  I'll miss watching for the days Fuji-san decides to stand on the horizon.  Living on the side of the Miura Peninsula where I did, I had easy access to view him whenever he was visible. Once the humidity dissipates in the fall, he appears quite regularly on clear days until the humidity builds again in the late spring; he shows a clear preference for sunrise and sunset hours, often blurring into the haze of mid-day.  In the summer, catching a glimpse of him depends totally on gale force winds or a typhoon blowing clear the atmosphere, and his hours of visibility rarely last long!

Three morning shots:  actual beach view and then two using the zoom.

This last one is a view at sunset.

(6)  Fishermen and their stuff.  Before WWII, scattered fishing villages dotted the coastline of the Miura Peninsula and agricultural endeavors dominated the interior.  Yokosuka itself was the site of a Japanese navy base.  Today the Miura Peninsula is one of the quickest "beach" escapes from Tokyo and Yokohama, and especially its coastal areas are now high rent districts.  Although "high rent" properties have invaded and nearly conquered, Sajima Bay--not quite a mile away from where I lived in Ashina--still retains some of its small fishing village style and aura.

Looking toward the village of Sajima Bay just before sunset.

Drying seaweed.

Sayonara Japan (continued)

As I continue my listing of what I will miss about Japan, realize that only the position of number one indicates any priority in ranking.  Living by the sea I will miss the most; the rest of my list is presented in an order created only by whim and random thought.  So, let the list continue:

(2)  Sampling Japanese fruits--in my case, always ones presented to me by my landlord.  [Apparently my landlord's family were originally farmers (artichokes being their premier crop) and at one time owned quite a bit of land in the area where I have been living.  The land has since been divided among children and even sold off, although my landlord's brother still farms artichokes.  Before he retired, my landlord was employed in the banking sector and even achieved the title of CEO.]  Perhaps because of some combination of his farming bloodline along with a perception of me as someone devoted to good health (not fully sure how that developed), fruit became the most common bestowance proffered by my landlord.  My favorite food offering forever remained strawberries (perfect as only the Japanese can cultivate), but, of course, strawberries don't count as "new."  Neither do grapes (although the Japanese have some varieties I've never seen in the USA or Europe), Fuji apples, cantaloupe (which I always passed on to others who would actually eat what surely cost at least $10 minimum), cherries, and peaches.  I first sampled a Japanese pear (Asian pear) either in Thailand or China, but I had the chance to indulge much more frequently during the last five years, courtesy of Muto-san, my landlord. And persimmons I first read about in some book as a child; in fact, I believe my mother even bought a few once to sample because we were both curious.  However, I don't remember liking them on that occasion and there was never a second occasion, so my mom probably wasn't impressed either.  But the ones Muto-san supplied me with during several autumns I loved.  In truth, Japan is renowned for its persimmons, and the fruit is widely popular. 

I have some photos of a few of the new--and stranger--fruits I have sampled since living in Japan.  Honestly I did ask Muto-san their names, but the Japanese expression usually proved insurmountable for me to grasp.  Consequently, I have resorted to the Internet for aid in labeling, and I may or may not be totally correct.

amanatsu:  My landlord has a couple of trees growing on his property as do many of the neighbors.  They look similar to a grapefruit, peel like an orange, and are quite tart.

By the way, my house is the white one in the background; the amanatsu tree is in the next door neighbor's yard.

ichijiku (fig):  The Japanese eat these fresh as well as dried.  I really liked them fresh.  They are rich, though, and best eaten only one or two at a time.  Despite the rather off-putting appearance of the inside--okay, texture is a bit weird, too--they are good!

loquat:  I tasted these for the first time just this May.  Muto-san brought them over to me with some bread from his favorite bakery.  He didn't have a name for them but I found photos and descriptions on the Internet that make me feel pretty confident about this identification!  They reminded me of apricots, although they are certainly larger in size, but their slightly fuzzy skin, the interior texture, even the flavor--all have a definite correlation to the apricot experience!

(3)  Cherry blossom time.  Japan's cherry blossom fame and traditions spin not from fluke, hype, or hyperbole, but from a dazzling reality.  Every spring holds within it a period of days--actual length dependent on weather conditions--when cherry blossoms transfigure the landscape of our daily existence, and every spring that transfiguration took my breath away.  Even the ending of the transfiguration has a magical beauty:  cherry blossom rain.  Petals spinning, floating, dancing in a breeze.  A pale pink drift lying across the top of the blade of a windshield wiper.  Curbs and sidewalks lined in a fluff of blossoms.  Brief stretches of road pink-carpeted in the petals of one-time cherry blossoms.

Sayonara Japan

Living in Japan for almost five years has gifted me with experiences that, with my imminent departure, leave me with a growing sense of nostalgia now. There is much that I will miss:

(1)  Living by the sea.  For almost as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live by the sea.  In Japan, I have lived by the sea...even if my imagined conception of the experience never quite looked like the reality of my doing so while here in Japan.  I have loved my easy access to the sea and the chance to watch her in all seasons, lit and shaded, mellow and turbulent.  I will miss the scent of salt-tang in the atmosphere, the lazy lap of low tide, the thundering rumble of  stormy surf on the beach or against the seawall, and the squeak, whisper, and moan of the lines stretched and released between boats and their moorings.

Ashina Beach, the one closest to my house

Ashina fishing marina, looking southeast just before sunset

Ashina fishing marina, looking northwest toward Mt. Fuji (hidden in clouds) early in the morning

Sajima Bay, just south of Ashina

Fishing boats at Sajima Bay

Looking out toward Sajima Bay through an open area in the row of fishermen shacks

Another space between the fishermen shacks on Sajima Bay

Between Ashina and Sajima Bay

Akiya Beach, the next beach north from Ashina

Akiya Beach at sunset, looking northwest toward Mt Fuji (concealed in clouds and haze)