It's Daejeon!

We said goodbye to Kevin and Lucy, and proceeded to our former home, Daejeon. We stayed with our friend Ashely, who is also an English Teacher. Ashely has recently been hooked up with a mission organization to teach Syrian refugees somewhere in Europe, which is very exciting.

Ashely took us out to dinner with Mijin, Kim Sujin, his wife Sophia, and their daughter Ga-un.  Kim Sujin is an unofficial ambassador of South Korea.  When he was in university, he studied abroad in Oklahoma, which is a go-to destination for English language learners. His host family was from the beloved island of Puerto Rico, which has been the victim of misfortune lately.  The Puerto Ricans of Oklahoma, treated Sujin very well, and were unofficial ambassadors of the US, showing him the best America has to offer.  Since then, Sujin has made it his work to welcome foreigners to Korea in much the same way. When we were very new to S Korea, Sujin took us to Gangwando, the province where the Olympics are being held, and we learned how Koreans have fun on family vacations, and got to see the amazing foraging skills that his aunts had retained from harder times.  We had some delicious wild mushrooms and wild caught fish on that trip (post here). On that trip, I was also served Korean spicy soup—the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten and actually liked.  I've ordered this at some resturaunts, but I think they gave me the milder version formulated especially for the Western palette (or my taste buds had been thoroughly burned off by that point.) 

The next day after reuniting with our old associates, we were able to get out and see a bit of Daejeon. We have some pictures below. Then, we departed for Ganglung for the Olympics.

Dinner with old friends

The famous Expo Bridge

Margaret under a random bridge in Daejeon

Stepping stones across the Gapcheon river. Don't fall in :-) 

The Olympics Addendum Part II: Korea’s beef

Koreans have strong feelings about some stuff. The biggest issues we've observed relate to "Free" trade and the Empires of Japan and China. For instance, free trade bothers Koreans as much as it does Americans, because they view it as a betrayal of the Korean farmers to benefit the rich owners of the 10 businesses the essentially run Korea. Big business is the 4^th and most powerful branch of government. Who controls most of your life?  It’s not the IRS.

 

Koreans with beef at the Independence Hall Museum. Note the "gun box" and rocket launcher.

One symbol of Korea’s anti-free trade sentiment is an aversion to American beef (see news story here).  I don’t really blame them, since “free” trade harms the smaller farmers of South Korea, but the small farm market may crumble in the coming decades, because industrial agricultural facilities are starting to open up, unfortunately.  Agriculture markets dominated by small farms are often cited as a near-ideal free market in economics classes.  In the small farm market, capitalism can flourish unfettered by the business thuggery inherent to oligopoly (only somewhat better than monopoly). Industrial agriculture results in the market being consolidated to have too few players, so market failure occurs, regulations get made with mixed success to address said market failure, and then you wind up with stuff like the American airline industry. Consolidation is the enemy of capitalism and it is closer to communism than I would like.  So the recent free trade agreement with the US which has brought us many nice home appliances, and has brought Koreans cheaper food is opposed similarly in both countries. We actually got a TV camera pointed in our faces a few nights ago and they asked our opinion of Korean Beef, and we said it was delicious. That said, big business helps the owning country on the international stage, which is one of the reasons we keep them around.

The biggest beef Koreans have is with imperialism—mostly of the Japanese variety. Empire is defined as a country that rules conquered peoples. From the 1890s to ~1980 various powers have vied for control of East Asia, and Korea has suffered through most of it. Prior to WWI, the US and Britain backed Japan in its war with Russia for control of the region.  The Japanese beat the snot out of the Russians at a time when non-European countries typically lost wars. Japan thus took over Korean region for themselves and started the disgusting process of empire building. They continued, and likely would have been successful if they hadn’t attacked Perl Harbor (Many Japanese advisors knew that was a bad idea, but the “tea party of Japan” won the dispute to their own detriment.) During the years from ~1905 through 1945, Japan raped Korea on many levels. (A) they did a lot of raping, (B) they stole all the natural resources, and (C) they enslaved the people etc. These are just a few of the crimes committed by the Japanese, and while much of East Asia harbors bitter feelings, Korea probably does the most. No matter how many times Japan says  “We’re sorry,” many Korean’s are still so traumatized that many see the apologies as “just words” and no amount of reparation can undo what has been done here. In Japan's defense, Japan probably learned most of this stuff from the western nations, who were just as evil back before WWI, we just don't talk about it.

After the Japanese got nuked, Russia and the US divided the Korean peninsula. As in most wars, there were no good guys.  The South Korean leadership was dictatorial in that time, and had no redeeming value.  North Korea at least gave everyone a free bowl of rice every day, but the tables have turned since then.  South Korea got a better dictator who built up the economy, but was a ruthless SOB. Eventually S Korea became a democracy. 

WWII was part of a larger conflict to unify East Asia, which was ultimately performed by Mao. China is the new Empire of East Asia, and has expanded its soft power across the globe.

Korea still has an open territorial dispute with Japan oven an Island in the sea of Japan, which Korea actively lobbies international bodies to rename as the East Sea. A lot of people here feel really strongly about it, but I think it’s mostly about natural gas. I roll my eyes when I see news about it, because it looks to be two islands, so it seems most sensible to split it down the middle, but that’s apparently unacceptable to either Korea or Japan. Add it to the list of Korea’s beefs.  

The Olympics Addendum Part I: Our First Day Back in the Land of the Morning Calm

We first arrived in Korea on Jan 5 after crossing the international dateline, landing in Incheon International Airport’s new terminal II. The Olympics in Korea are much like our wedding was for Margaret’s parents—namely an excuse to get stuff done.  Infrastructure improvements that were expedited for the Olympics included extending a KTX (Korea’s original bullet train) to the North West coast of South Korea, and adding another terminal to the Incheon Airport. The new terminal was very nice, as all new Korean things are.  Since it’s a big investment, I’m sure they’ll make sure it ages well.  Note: due to Korea’s love of all things shiny, many things don’t age well. Once that thin shiny surface coat starts to wear, it shows.

Once we landed, we had a small misadventure.  We had been planning to get KTX tickets to the city of Cheonan (pronounced Chŏnan—don’t let that “e” fool you) to visit our friend Kevin and Lucy. Cheonan is about 60 miles South of Seoul.  However, we had forgotten that Kevin lives next to the Cheonan-Asan station, and the KTX does not go to Cheonan, so we wound up deciding to go west to Seoul (there’s that mis-leading “e” again), and then south to Cheonan.  We arrived at Cheonan station, and Kevin picked us up in his car, and we drove across town to the Cheonan-Asan station.  This is the second time we’ve been fooled by a two-station city.

Our friend Kevin, has lived here since 2008, and likes it here so much that we wonder if he’ll ever leave. Kevin’s wife, Lucy is an English teacher, who is pivoting toward counseling. Lucy holds the honor and distinction of being the only person to ever feed us a midnight meal. Upon arrival, we were greeted with some really nice Bip-im-bab (mixed vegetables and rice—we have another blog post on that).  The vegetables are all pickled or fermented, so it’s not stir fry by any stretch of the imagination.  Being people who like that sort of thing, we devoured it.

But the insane hospitality didn’t stop there. The next morning, we got quiche in Korea!!!  Kevin loves cooking the most delicious of American dishes. When we were here, he was hailed by all foreigners in the city of Daejeon as The Great Maker of Lasagna. He has one or two secret, East Asian substitutions that make it extra yummy. 

Kevin is part time these days, which is nice.  He got a masters in teaching English as a second language (TESL) from a program sponsored both by a US and Korean University.  Given that he has really good people skills, he has been able to run with this and done well.

After the delicious breakfast (a joint Kevin/Lucy effort this time), Kevin took us to then Independence Hall of Korea. The museum is an excellent display of why war is bad, because it was all about war, specifically the Japanese Colonial Occupation of Korea. America & Britain started out as bad guys in all of this, but thankfully wound up as good guys in the end.  It was a huge museum, and we mostly focused on the part on pre-1900 history, which in, even though the majority of the museum was devoted to Korea’s version of the holocaust. Some items included pre-Gutenburg  movable type made from cast metal.

We also saw some displays about the Turtle Ships, which were clad with iron and spikes to harden them against burning arrows and  boarding parties (Japan's favorite tactic). The ships deployed in the 1590s to repel the Japanese navy, long before the famed iron-clad vessels of the US Civil War. The mastermind behind all this was Yi Sun-Shin (Wikipedia) who had a hand in the design of the turtle ships. In one famed battle, 13 turtle ships were victorious against a Japanese armada of 133 war ships, and 200 logistical support vessels. Admiral Yi also had home court advantage, because his navigators knew where all the sharp rocks were, and made sure the Japanese sailed over them. The Turtle Ships were slow, but a Turtle Ship out-ranged and out-gunned the average Japanese vessel.

Exhibit of Korean sailor loading a cannon on a Turtle Ship in Independence Hall Museum

Sending the Japanese Navy home

After that, we proceed to the beautiful City of Daejeon, the city of Interesting Tradition and Science, which is the source of the “It’s Daejeon! “Brand. 

Finally Settled Down in America!

Its been a year since we came back from South Korea!  We still eat a lot of rice, but its hard to find good kimchi!  We spent this year getting over reverse culture shock and figuring out how the US works Riley worked part-time as a consultant and part-time as a job seeker.  It paid off!  Riley finally started work this month in East Tennessee! 
After spending half of this year working at a State Park, its weird not getting to walk around in the woods everyday.  Now its my time to apply for jobs.  I am volunteering at various interesting organizations in the area, and I want to start a new blog on nature-y things.  This will hopefully keep me sharp and give my future employer something to look at.
Thank you for all our faithful readers!  I hope you enjoyed our Korean Adventure as much as we did!

Seorak-san National Park

If you think about it, National Parks in South Korea are about the equivalent of State Parks in North Carolina.  South Korea is similar in area to NC, and thus the many national parks cannot all be like the ones in the entire USA.  This was definitely true with Gyereongsan  National Park near our city in South Korea.  However, in our last week in South Korea, we visited a national park that would be worthy of that title in any size country, Seoraksan National Park.  We barely scraped the surface of the miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of hiking that could be done in this park.  It is a huge mountain range in the NE corner.  From this mountain range there is a continuous slope to the Pacific Ocean.  Its amazing to climb up the mountains and then view the ocean.

We stayed at the town of Sokcho (famous for squid), and bused to the national park.  Sokcho is amazing in itself having once been a park of North Korea before the war moved the border North.  Many North Korean refugees settled in the area, so the food is supposed to be a mix of North and South.

Some of Sokcho's famous squid

Back to the mountain climbing, we decided to climb the rocks on the edge of the park to get a good view of the rest of the park that we didn't have enough time to explore.  On the way we climbed past two places where you could stop and eat.  It was very strange, suddenly there were a lot of outdoor tables, a bathroom, and a restaurant with ladies trying to sell you water and rice wine.

Right before the extremely steep part was a small Buddhist cave and a famous rock that you were supposed to try to wobble.  Apparently large groups are able to shake it, but it never will fall.  We were not strong enough to move it, but we tried.

Trying to wobble the rock!

 Oh, and I forgot to mention that around the temple, carved into the surrounding rocks were poems!  Lots and lots of poems, in old Korean i.e. Chinese.  We couldn't read any of them, but they were still pretty.

Next came the steep steps that went up and up and up.  We finally made it to the top, and the view was amazing!  Every direction there were forests and mountains, until the land evened off towards the ocean.  Even more amazing, there was a little shop at the very top that sold coffee and ramen.  The person who runs that little shop must be in really good shape.  The rest of the park was really pretty, someday we have to go back and explore the rest.

The view from the top

Later we hiked up a river to a waterfall.  It was also beautiful.  Also not to be missed is the local history museum!  They have architecture from different areas of North Korea, and we got to see an amazing performance of the spinney hat drum guys!  It was the best one I have seen in Korea, and the only other people watching were kindergartners, so we had a great view!  This is probably one of the most remote and most beautiful areas in all of South Korea!

Membership Training

Membership Training, or "MT" as it is called in konglish, is a time where labs or departments go off and bond.  Traditionally, there is no actual "training" involved.  Usually, it is a time for students to get together and bond without professors, and there is lots of alcohol involved.  Our lab is very very odd in that the professor actually wants to get to know his students outside the lab, and that he does not drink alcohol.
When he decided that our lab should have an MT, the Koreans in our lab had no idea what to do.  We found it amusing because there are hundreds of little team building games that we could use, but the people planning had trouble thinking outside the traditional "MT" box, especially when they learned both our professor and the new research professor wanted to come along and participate in the games.  Having fun with your professor is a scary thing for some people.
We also needed to have a different MT because two members of our lab are Muslim and don't drink, and one of the guys brought his wife and 1 year old son with him.  It was a lot of fun having them around, and the traditional MT wasn't going to work.
We ended up going to a "pension" (a large, rent-able vacation home) in a very beautiful part of Korea.

The view behind our pension.

Behind the pension was a giant mudflat full of oysters.  When you walked on the path between them, the oysters would squirt at you.  It was a drizzly day, so the clouds looked amazing!
There I learned many new things about my labmates.  First of all, the Korean guys like to dance to k-pop (even dances done by girls).  Secondly, Koreans are afraid of moths because their mothers told them that the dust from their wings are toxic (NOT TRUE!).  And last, singing is a common talent.  We ran out of games and switched to a talent show.  Everyone either sang or danced except me (I played spoons).
The next day we went to the shore and saw a famous rock feature while playing in tidal pools.

Dr. Yim, Irfan, and Riley in front of the famous rocks.

Then we ate tons of clams and went home.  It was really nice.  Even though this was a different sort of MT, I think the Koreans still had a good time.  Our professor is trying to change the culture of the labs one person at a time!

But wait, there's more!

Some of you may know that Riley and I are actually moved back to the US and are no longer in South Korea eating kimchi.  Though this is true, this does not mean we are done with this blog.  The last few weeks in Korea were hectic, so there is a small back log of blog posts that I did not get a chance to put up.  Coming soon will be a description of our lab's "MT," a visit to the most beautiful place in South Korea, a list of what we will miss (and not miss) in Korea, and our reverse culture shock experiences! 
Before the back log of posts, I thought I would update you on how we are doing.  Riley now has a master's degree in Nuclear and Quantum Engineering (the quantum part sounds cool, but we are not sure what it actually means).  He is currently applying to lots and lots of jobs, and today he scheduled his first phone interview!  Where we will end up is still unknown, but we will be within at least one day's driving of all the parents.
While Riley applies to jobs, I get to run around and do all the little stuff that needs to get done when you switch countries.  We bought a car!  We have independence!  Job-wise, since I can get jobs in many places, but Riley can only get jobs in a few places, I have to wait.  After we figure out where we will live, I will be applying to lots of places!
Meanwhile, we are staying with my parents, so if you want to visit look for us there.  There is lots of room and its beautiful here!
One tidbit of reverse culture shock, when we bought our car and had to sign our names, there was plenty of room and we didn't have to squeeze our signature into the little box they use for the official red stamps.  Its little things like that that will stick with us for a while.