Goodbye, Farewell and Amen: A salute to Korea

So sitting on the youth hostel balcony in Seoul, we are now afforded the opportunity to reflect on our time in Korea. Since the last series of posts, we took several classes about Korea, spent the night in a Buddhist temple, had an Ulsan farewell party, tromped all over Seoul, and a few of us took an expedition into a warzone. It has been the week of weeks for our Korea trip, and our last memories here will likely be our fondest.

It is important to thank all those that made this trip what it was. Hyundai Heavy Industries, The University of Ulsan, and The University of Michigan were of course integral to our successes, so thank you. On a personal level, the real benefactors of this journey have been our Korean UoU student colleagues. They suffered our pain, shared our victories, and put up with us through our cultural ignorance. This not being enough, we can now legitimately call them friends, and that outcome could be the most valuable part of this experience. So Broski, Juneski, He Man, Q Force, Miss Young, Mr. Seo Helpful, our hats are off to you.

Korea is a wonderful country, and we have enjoyed it thoroughly. The national work ethic, culture and pride have been inspiring. The accomplishments of this country are not small, especially if you consider the timeline. We are proud to be associated with such a great nation.

This being said, it is time for the sons and daughters of wolverine nation to return home, and we are ready. Fate be willing, we should see some of you tomorrow.

-UM NA&ME Korea 2009

DMZ

Al, He Man, Cory and I went to the DMZ today. The DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is a 4km band of land that separates North and South Korea. It is more or less centered on the 38th parallel, and is technically a warzone. North and South Korea are still at war, a cease-fire being the only peace document in existence. Armed guards, lots of barbed wire and strict regulations abound. During the time immediately after the Korean War, over 700,000 land mines were placed throughout the DMZ. About 30% have been removed, but moving off the beaten path can be extremely dangerous. There are land mine signs everywhere, hanging from barbed wire. Since the war, the North Korean’s have been digging infiltration tunnels into South Korea. Four have been discovered so far, the last one in 1990. It is believed that there are at least 17 more that have not been found. We went into tunnel number three, which is 73m deep and has a total length of ~1650m. Of course most of this tunnel is under North Korea. Civilians are able to get within 170m of the border, where there the tunnel is blocked except for a small steel door. There are two more blocks, the last one being directly under the border. We touched the barbed wire, which represents the closest we were able to get to North Korea. Sorry, but we were not allowed to take pictures of the most interesting things. 

After the tunnel, we went to an observation post where we could see the border and North Korea’s propaganda village. This is a fake village, designed to attract South Korean’s to defect. No people live there. It boasts the tallest flagpole in the world, sporting the largest flag in the world. Apparently, the flag must be taken down in the rain for fear that the weight of the water will break the pole. Directly across from it is South Korea’s Freedom village, which does have a population. Living in the constant danger of an invasion, and the threat from land mines, the citizens of this village pay no taxes and their sons are immune from compulsory military service. The economy is mostly ginseng based. Most families make around $100,000 per year, which is quite high for agrarian families in South Korea.

Lastly we went to the Dorasan train station, which is “Not the last station from the South. But the first station to the North.” Built in the 00’s during high hopes for reunification, the train station was a hub for South Korean commuters on their way to factories in North Korea. It also served as a customs station for cargo from the same factories returning south. As typical of relations with North Korea, an incident in which a woman was shot brought all rail traffic to a close. The same person who designed Seoul’s Inchon airport designed the station, and the roofline symbolizes the holding of hands.

Temple Stay

We arrived at the temple in the middle of Thursday afternoon, and left the next day at noon enlightened. Maybe not enlightened by Buddhist standards, but enlightened about Buddhism. We participated in Buddhist ceremonies, ate in the traditional Buddhist way and slept in the finest of Buddhist lodgings. Buddhist ceremonies involved sitting in extremely uncomfortable positions, and attempting to understand an esoteric concept twice translated into English. The most enjoyable was meditation. There was an open-air pavilion, overlooking the mountains and set above a rushing stream. It was one of the most beautiful places in the world. While sitting in silence, ignoring the pain in your knees, you get to contemplate life. The last step of meditation was to lie on your back, which was great. We all agreed that the meditation pavilion was our favorite place. A traditional Buddhist meal is a process in which eating is a secondary benefit. You start with four bowls, a spoon and chopsticks. You get a little bit of water in one bowl, rice in another, then soup and finally side dishes. The unpacking, placement, arrangement and filling of these bowls are quite particular. One yellow radish is included with the bowls. Once finished eating, you clean the inside of all the bowls with the radish, and a little bit of water (no soap). You then drink the water, and eat the radish. Finally, you are given a little bit more water for final bowl rinse. Then everyone dumps his or her water into a common bucket. If there are ANY food particles in the bucket, everyone shares drinking the water…

For sleeping, you are allotted a blanket and a pillow. There is a large room with no furniture. We slept on the floor. This was actually rather nice, except for the grandfather clock that successfully woke us up every hour. Reveille was at 3:30 AM. We participated in a couple ceremonies including 108 bows, which involves standing to kneeling 108 times. Apparently, several thousand bow ceremonies are not uncommon, so we were happy with only the 108. We were scheduled to go for a hike around the mountains, but it was raining so we got to take a two-hour nap. This was heaven, given the 3:30 wake up. Apparently napping is not a typical monk activity; they were smiling at us when that was what we chose to do. There was also some clandestine Pringle eating at night, also not condoned by the monks.

UoU classes

So we took a few classes, Shipbuilding of Korea, Korean Traditional Music, North Korea, Taekwondo, and Globalization etc. All of these were distinctively interesting, but North Korea generated the most buzz within the group. Taught by westerner, this class gave the background of how North Koreans probably think, and theories on why they act the way they do. The lecturer was making generalizations about NK and SK, and it was interesting to know that the SK’s disagreed with a lot of what he said. According to the lecturer, there will probably be some sort of armed conflict within six months. 

Taekwondo was the most interactive of all the classes. This is the Korean Martial Art, and it is more about discipline and peace than fighting. The first step of learning Taekwondo is adequately stretching. When attempting a stretch, if the instructors did not think one was adequately extended, they hand no problem walking over and PUSHING your appendages beyond maximum yielding strength. After 30 minutes of this, we learned basic attack, block and kick moves. A few of us successfully kicked a board into multiple pieces.

One afternoon we took a bus down to Busan again. This time we actually went swimming at the beach, and also toured the aquarium. The water is pretty shallow a long way out at the beach, so the ocean swells get nice and large as they come in. We had a great time trying to surf them on inner tubes, or just getting crushed into the sand. A few of the group actually made it onto Korean TV too.

UUUULLLLLSAN TIGERS!

We got back from the market on Saturday, and just as I was sinking into a blissful nap opportunity knocked. Broski (Yeung-Ha) said that he could take us to a soccer game. We walked about 20 minutes to the Ulsan stadium that was built for the World Cup in 2002.  Originally we were going to pay 8000 Won for normal seats, but bumping up to 10000 Won ($8.02) got us midfield in the premium section. I feel like the Michigan Athletic Department should seriously reevaluate its ticket prices.

Last year it was mentioned that Hyundai basically owned Ulsan, and I would agree with this in part. The real question is which Hyundai? There is HHI, Hyundai Motors, Hyundai Climate Control, the towel hooks in the bathroom say Hyundai… In any case, the local team is the Hyundai Tigers. The stadium was at less than 15% capacity, but there was a dedicated fan base near one goal. They sang, drummed and chanted the entire game. Our premium section was much more reserved, so we attempted to spice things up. Someone bought some of the balloon banger things, and we began jeering the referees with wolverine traditional chants for bad calls. We got a lot of smiles and giggles. Because the stadium was so empty and we were close to the field this was a very personal experience. We could hear the players’ fake screams of agony, and I know they could hear our commentary. Not all of the players were Korean. Those good soccer players who cannot make MLS or club soccer in Europe go pro in places like Korea. It was interesting to see them out there.

Super Bowl planners should also take note from our halftime show. We got a quintet playing a very recognizable tune, followed by a few rounds of ballroom dancing. This was much more intellectually stimulating than anything Janet Jackson could come up with.

Sung Nam Dong a.k.a. Purse City

A few of us having adequately recovered from getting to know Mr. Seo, we decided to hit the Ulsan markets on Saturday. The district is called Sung Nam Dong. The streets are narrow and filled with a variety of shops, street vendors and food joints. Most of the streets are covered. Most of the shopping is clothes and purses, though if you want a bottled squid or live eel you could get that too. I buckled down and looked in a few purse stores for my wife. I have evidence that I did so, now I can move on with my life.

We learned in class the other day (and this is an unconfirmed broad generalization) that to Korean’s globalization means export, but no imports. I can see where this view would come from, because almost everything here is made in Korea, and we in the U.S. have plenty of Kias and Hyundais. However, this does not hold true for culture. Apparently our University is quite famous everywhere, as is Detroit’s murder rate…

Pork's Potential Revenge

Our first evening at UoU was highly successful by all accounts. First off, we ate pork at another Korean restaurant. At these places the tables are about a foot off the ground, and one is expected to sit cross-legged on the floor. For inflexible people like me, and tall people like Al, this can prove rather uncomfortable after long periods of time. Normally we would simply stretch our legs in an alternating pattern under the table. This was complicated somewhat by the fact that the basin for the red-hot charcoal cooking our food was located under the table. The choices were footsy with Al, or 3^rd degree burns.

Despite this, the food was excellent and the company better. After having been fully stuffed, Mr. Seo (Our UoU contact) wanted to take us out to get know us better, and we ended up at a bar/restaurant. It is required to order some food at these places, so he placed a modest order. What arrived at our table was two giant plates of chicken salad, two whole fried chickens, two dishes of corn, be bim bop and bowls of something similar to frootloops. We were inclined to introduce Mr. Seo to the game “Quarters” or “Scat”, which meant that we needed to remove some of the food from the table. Some hours and many pitchers later, Mr. Seo was quite familiar with “Scat.”