Mountain Monks:
While hiking up Guksabong (the local hiking mountain) this past Thursday, on the first day of our Lunar New Year holiday, I saw an elder and younger man out splitting wood and hauling away tree branches. B and I had seen them a couple weeks ago cutting and splitting wood. I wanted to stop but she thought it might be strange so we went on. This time round though, it was just me and I wanted to help split the wood they had cut up.
On another occasion, I heard the wooden "clunk, clunk, clunk" of a Buddhist monk's call to prayer (this sound comes from striking a wooden mallet on essentially a wooden "bell") followed by a chanted prayer echoing up the mountain. If you've never experienced this, it is altogether mesmerizing and mystifying. Something about the resonance and rhythm command the attention of your ears.
Anyway, as I was saying, I wanted to help split wood. I walked right up past a building, said 여보세요Anyong-ha-se-yo (hello in Korean) and played charades with the old and young guy to convey that I wanted to "try" to split their firewood. They were very concerned and cautioned me at least half a dozen times to be careful and how to swing.
After splitting three rounds, they cautioned me to not swing with all my force, "no use hard chop." This was foreboding; I broke their splitting maul on the very next piece of wood! I should mention though that this "maul" had a good splitting shaped head but the handle was puny and felt like a relatively soft wood. It was no problem though. The younger monk (I learned quickly that the place is, in fact, a Buddhist Temple) said, "no problem, no problem my uncle want fix anyway" while the elder monk was laughing and saying "too strong, too strong" and flexing his arms.
Elder Monk, in just a few minutes, retrieved a new handle that had obviously been hand cut and hewn from a shed. He deftly trimmed it to fit, removed the broken handle from the axe head, installed the new handle and had us splitting wood again. During the course of splitting about a cord of wood, they brought out coffee and cake; watermelon, grapes, and Asian fig*; Makgeolli (a traditional Korean rice based drink; somewhere between a beer and wine) and ground rice formed into balls, cooked and dusted with… something; and a wonderful rice soup to share. This was a beautiful experience and I will go back often to visit and help. I hope to help in their garden and maybe be allowed to grow some vegetables for B and I!
Death Scooters:
Every time we head out the door of our apartment building, we step basically right onto a street just a few feet from a "Y" intersection. With the way folks drive here in the "dirty south" of Korea, we have learned a Pavlovian fear response from the sound of a scooter. More than a few times, and already far too many times, B and/or I have been buzzed by maniacal scooter drivers buzzing by, often through stopped traffic down the center line of the road, or ON the sidewalk. Delivery drivers for pizza places, Chinese restaurants, and McDonald's seem to be the worst.
They'll run out the door of the restaurant, toss the food in a nifty retrofitted "heater box" on the back of the scooter, and away they go to deliver a hot meal…apparently to people at risk of immediate death, the Korean mafia, a last meal request with a time crunch, or some other high risk issue. This can be the only logical explanation for me thinking that Cake's "The Distance" cued at "they deftly maneuver and muscle for rank" and an overlay of SilverChair's "Suicidal Dream" should somehow be played as theme and caution music. I know I do, and I bet B also puckers, cringes, and helplessly hope while jumping out of the way as they come ripping past us.
Ok, more later y'all. Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments if there are things you would like to know!
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