Jeon-ju: the heart of Korean culture

1. Me sporting the han-bok.
2. Erin, Jessica, and I- modeling our luxury bedding.

3. Getting dolled up: Korean style.
4. Michelle demonstrating our superb sleeping accommodations.
5. This food would have been inedible without our Korean "volunteers."
6. Bibimpap- traditional mixed rice.




You know how sometimes a day seems to fill up a few weeks but then months can be crammed into one day? This weekend was like that. I surrendered my usual tour group cynicism to travel with "Work n' Play", a Korean group that herds foreigners around in hopes of helping them understand the culture.

I signed up Friday, thirty minutes before the deadline. This was largely because a two day, one night, all expenses included trip to Jeon-ju (in Southern South Korea) was $30. Apparently it was supplemented by the city's government, which is quite eager to educate all these foreign teachers running around Korea. How could I say no?!

So as I'm accustomed to doing, I made plans with two girls who were complete strangers less than a week before. I ignored the mockery from my co-workers that it would be intensely painful waking up at 5:30 Saturday morning. After all, it is around our usual bedtime. I walked away from dinner at midnight with John's response to my sarcasm that THEY didn't know how to get up early- "I AM up at 5! It's just when I go to bed!"

Erin called Michelle at 6 to let her know she overslept (what trip is complete without a panicked beginning?) and then called back 10 minutes later telling her to WAIT- she thinks she can make it. She did make it, and we found her running toward us on the bare Saturday morning sidewalk, her bag thumping her with every step.

After deciding that the bus didn't arrive because we missed it, we took a forty-five minute taxi ride to Seoul that would have been a fortune in the states. It was less than $10 apiece.

After a four hour bus ride with about 30 other foreigners, we arrived in Jeon-ju! It took me awhile to get over my pseudo jet- lag but we did so many things that I forgot I was even tired.

We started by making bibimpap- mixed rice with 25 ingredients. Luckily they had cut almost all the vegetables for us. Unluckily, they had left the zucchini: which they wanted us to peel with a butcher knife. In a hurry to display my excellent cooking skills I grabbed the knife and started to peel. Less than a second into it I almost sliced my thumb open, and promptly handed the knife to Jessica (a university student who was sweet enough to volunteer her time assisting helpless foreigners with everything Korean). She started to cut and "AHH!" We all gasped and looked at her finger- luckily it wasn't bleeding. Michelle looked around and said, "I think these are the wrong knives!" as if to suggest that the larger, serrated butcher knives that other tables were using would be better. Our inadequecy was a stench in the nostrils of the strong Korean woman who was teaching us to make bibimpap. Of indistinguishable age, she floated around the cooking groups with knowledge that only years of mothering and work could bring. She picked up the chunk of zucchini and in a single swipe carved the whole thing into a flat rectangle.

We had to fry everything separately so the tastes of the vegetables wouldn't mix, even though this is mixed rice and we just mix it all up at the end anyways. Oh well, I won't argue with centuries-old culinary traditions. It took four Koreans at varying intervals to demonstrate, correct, and eventually decorate our bowl by themselves. Each food had to be arranged in a spiral of color on top of the steamed rice- greens opposite the zucchini, turnips opposite the onions, roots opposite the mushrooms, and so on. We noticed the five eggs in the bowl beside us with a heightening sense of uneasiness: we'll fry them, right? Our qualms begin to be vocalized by other members of the group- "Hey, did that take you guys' frying pan away? Oh, can we borrow it to fry our eggs?" Something was about to happen, and we seemed powerless to stop it. Our fears were confirmed when an older woman marched over, swiftly cracked an egg, and poured the yolk on top of our glorious creation. Our eyes widened as she did this one by one with four others. We remained silent. Jessica, who sensed our terror, assured us, "You won't taste it once it's mixed!"

I trusted her and tried to remind myself of her wisdom as I sat bare-foot in the sunlight of the grassy courtyard, spooning bibimpap into my mouth from a brass bowl.

We lay outside for a little bit and then they called us into the expansive wood-floored room of the building (picture the guru in a Japanese ninja movie- or whatever ninjas are) and proceeded to teach us how to wear the Korean han-bok- the traditional clothing of Korea. We laughed harder at each new article of clothing they added to the guy model (who reluctantly sacrificed himself). Purple pants, bright pink shirt, seafoam green overcoat. The grandma was proud to don his head with a bun-topped black hairnet. They put about three more hats on his head and felt satisfied. I wished I could cover my mouth, but I had my right hand over my left on my knee: the way they taught us to sit properly.

Next was the girls. Great, I got to watch another person be dressed up like a doll. My amusement abruptly ceased when the girls in front of me leaned and parted like the Red Sea- the ajima was pointing at ME. Surely there was someone else in this room- but nope, it was clear now that the mother (the one who would take no nonsense from us while we were cooking) and the grandma were hell-bent on me wearing the han-bok first. Ajima's wrinkled eyes crinkled in a smile as I stood up, she was pleased to have another victim. As the magenta-hanboked instructor proudly told us in Korean each step of wearing a han-bok, Sunmi, our guide, translated her instructions. I stepped into silk underpants (literally pants), let them zip me up in a white underdress, held my arms out as they tied a deep blue silk skirt under my armpits, and started to relax. This wasn't all that bad! I was starting to feel like a princess! I wouldn't mind someone dressing me every day for the rest of my life! As ajima held out a shirt for me to slip my arms into, tied another blood-red shirt across my chest, and proceeded to create an intricate bow, my mind wandered back 200 years in time. What if I was a princess, and I woke up every morning in this village, and had someone dress me, and could wander around in my silk hanbok doing absolutely nothing except eating delicious food and rejecting suitors, picking flowers and .... I felt her firmly push me to the ground. Perplexed, I fell to my knees and realized she was only doing my hair. My ponytail was soon transformed into a braided bun- a jade clip stuck through it like a dagger.

I was feeling pretty good until she once again chose me to demonstrate the correct bow that a woman should do before her elders, and when meeting her husband's parents. My self-confidence quickly disintegrated as it became clear that my gracefulness was far below the empty promise that the regal hanbok bluffed. I should have watched her first. It ended up in her pushing me down, grabbing my feet and placing one ankle over the other (that tickled, and I tried really hard not to laugh), and firmly gluing one hand over the other on my belly after I finally, and shakily, attempted to rise to a regal standing position. I bowed with a flourish, and stood up to applause. When I was a drum major in high school I would always go home and listen to the tapes the judges recorded for me during the performance. After the initial insult or praise of my uniform, and the expression of surprise that such a small girl could bellow like a man, the same line was repeated over and over, "Loosen up! You're so stiff! Work on being more fluid!"

Obviously my neglect to tend to this virtue has resurfaced.

We reluctantly spun out of our hanboks and the princess-like sentiments they inspired and were then guided to our rooms. We stayed in a village that was set up just like it would have been hundreds of years before. In many undeveloped countries this is the norm: people walk through rice fields and massacre goats while chatting on their cellphones. Korea, however, is eager to become Western, new, and nothing like its surrounding Asian neighbors. Before Jeon-ju, everywhere I'd been was a carnival of skyscrapers, flashing neon lights, and overdressed people. It was much calmer here- the low wooden houses had sloping stone roofs, There was a dirt path instead of an eight lane road, and the walls of our cottage (I can find no better word to describe it) were made of paper. Yes, that is correct. Between an intricate lattice-work of unstained wood lay nothing more than a sheet of paper. We also noticed after opening the padlock on our door that the inside lock was a spoon, and our beds would be the stack of blankets on the floor. After all, it is "traditional." The bathroom was the size of a closet, with a shower head daintily hanging from the wall- suggesting the function of a shower but offering no logical place to take one.

We spent our afternoon poking around in a paper-factory (the four people working there must have been related). They didn't seem to mind that we were leaning over them as they swiftly tore the paper from its stack, slapped it onto a metal heating board, and peeled it off seconds later (it seemed to be instinct for that old woman to turn around from her work when the paper was dry) and pat it on a stack of new paper. The man pulling the lever on the huge machine that made paper out of pulp had no qualms about letting a curious visitor try it for herself: he has been doing this for forty years; it's probably a relief to take a break for a minute.

The small gift shop had no visible walls, as the floor-to-ceiling stacks of colorful paper neatly arranged themselves like the sequins of a kaleidescope. There were lamps made of paper, socks made of paper (which Jessica excitedly snatched up- her parents would love these- as long as she doesn't tell her dad the socks are only made for women), keychains made of paper, things that looked nothing like paper: made of paper.

I'm leaving you at 4 pm on Saturday. Like I said, months were crammed into these few hours. To be continued...