Berlin, from top to bottom: a hole punched in the wall presumably c 1989, a Trabant used to advertise city tours parked alongside the longest remaining section of wall at the east side gallery, the main doors to the stasi head quarters in the former DDR, and, finally, from the past to the future, the writing is literally on The Wall.

A Little Division

It is over a fortnight now since the end of my korean sojourn and the damp return to this blustery little island. The flight home carried me in on a squall of undecipherable feelings, feelings through which I have had ample space but hitherto little time to navigate. Their sudden onslaught matched only by the rapidity of their subsidence within me so that, by the time the rubber had scorched the asphalt of Heathrow, the significance of the tempest had waned in my mind, falling far behind more immediate issues, in this case negotiating the chaos of London and boarding the first available train home. 


The problem with squalls is that you never quite know when they will arise, more than one is the number of occasions since that I have found myself in the clutches of such uncertainty, a mixture of thoughts and emotions, seemingly inseparable their constituent parts, but at times I picture them curdling in my mind and gathering into clumps, with all of the ephemeral solidity of hale they strike and, upon such occasions I find myself vaguely able to give them definition before they melt in my cupped hands and slip away once more through the unsealed spaces between my fingers. Of these concretions there are but few that hold form long enough to muse on, but clearly discernible upon all is the unmistakable lustre of my newly acquired  perspective, which I now apply liberally to every fresh observation of this small corner of the earth in its relationship to what lays beyond. You see, for all the esteem with which this nation holds itself, for all of its allusions to grandeur, her significance stands like vanity, inflated only in the minds of her subjects, a myth bordering on self obsession and based largely on past glories and perpetuated by geographical divisions. 


Britain stands - as it ever will - colloquial and grey, and frustratingly beyond arms length of any meaningful connection with the very continent from which she was hewn. Twenty miles of water are all that divide Dover from Calais, my own home stands just 50 miles from the French port - ten nearer there than to London - but closer in every other respect to the latter, and all for a body of water. Yet The Republic of Korea - from whence I have come - is no less, and perhaps to a far greater degree, an island, isolated not by geography but rather by an ideology far greater in breadth than the English Channel, to Koreans as to Britains, their island is the axis around which the rest of the world revolves, they, like the British, operate under an illusion of independence, preferring to ignore the all encompassing umbrella under which they stand (ask almost any beer swilling Brit and they will have you believe that they alone, saw off the third reich). Of course, the advantages then of a substantial geological division were bought sharply into focus for this Kingdom for it remains as such but for Korea, the very fact that their boundary is created of men brings with it the hope that it may one day be traversed, and one only need visit Berlin to witness first hand how positive such an outcome can be.


It was just such a trip which provided for me, the perfect filter through which to sift the sedimentary mass of my past year, in order that I may take from it - for now at least - a little essence for the vial, or - for a better analogy still - a thread of commonality upon which to affix the experiences of my recent past (Korea), present (The UK), and future (Palestine), that seemingly disparate triptych of environs and associations which otherwise appear as insoluble as the most hardy of concrete walls. And walls themselves are nothing if not the very thread of which I speak, Berlin, in this sense represents something of a happy ending, a place where the banal and the mundane stand daily as miracles to behold, a train, a car, cyclists commuting to and from work across a line which once stood as the very frontier of an ideology, the very edge of life itself for some, and now holds not even the blinking of an eye nor check of stride for those who unconsciously traverse it. 


In contrast there is Palestine, a nation not looking for reunification but independence, their division stands upon religious lines, their wall holds them out of their own land as opposed to keeping them in, although the result is much the same, imprisonment and the loss of freedom. Of course not all divisions are quite so material, or national, and we traverse boundaries daily, be they moral, linguistic or legal there are lines and limits in every aspect of our lives, of course they are often necessary but all of this really is by the by, because usually the choices we make in relation to them are in our hands whereas in some parts of the world people simply are not given the freedom to choose, and are then robbed of any tools which may enable them to do so. This forms the backbone of my motivation for pressing forward in my forthcoming endeavours, it is true that the next six months will not be easy, but if I can push even the tiniest fraction, in the right direction (or even illustrate the wrong), then I will consider my time to have been entirely well spent. ( for news from my time in Palestine visit http://palestinianthings.blogspot.com/ )

The Inhabited Tree

Upon discovering a sign reading 'Inhabited Tree' at Andong's Hahoe folk village, my mind wasted little time in conjuring the image of a gnarled and ancient leviathan of gothic proportions, the result of the centuries it had undoubtedly spent dragging its twisted carcass up from the ground against the best efforts of gravity and becoming - on its way - the unorthodox residence of some or other folk. They would probably prove to be shamanistic in nature and may - it would not surprise me - have a penchant for animal sacrifice and other such disagreeable practices.

If you are one of the many who's connection with reality can be spoken of with the omittion of the terms 'tenuous' and 'loose', then it will not surprise you to learn at this point that my expectations were not met on several fronts. The tree (600 years old), did not disappoint but it transpired that its tenant was not a person at all but rather a goddess named Samsin who oversees pregnancy and childbirth. Surrounding the immense trunk stood a rudimentary fence, upon which grew a shaggy white down of paper prayers and wishes (pictured above),  left by those who had come to pay homage to its ethereal resident.

In Tongues we Trust

Pictures (top to bottom),river boat at Sungcheon, temple view at Dolsan-do, river delta at Sungcheon, prow and shadow, midnight feast

Prologue


The tired diesel engine clears its throat, sending an ominous black plume from each of the two exhausts which crane their necks backwards in curiosity at what lays beyond the coked confines of their iron kennels at the stern of the deck before they let out a number of laborious groans which soon give way to a reluctant chatter that is, in turn, duly answered by the stirring of hesitant propellers below the murky waterline. As we leave the harbour I tell myself that the sun is doing its damnedest to desiccate us despite its early altitude, I later concede that it isn't even trying and  the plight of those ill equipped for such an onslaught is soon sponsored by the cool sea breeze. Some time thereafter the din of those exhausts seems to strike the perfect note, they sing the groggy to sleep beneath their canvas canopy whilst those with more inclination to the vertical opt for a comfortable bench and an ice cream. I make my way past the cabin to the prow, upon which I find my friends, Moon Hee, Ji Hae, Young Mi and Jew Hyun. So there we sit at the furthermost, all of the labour is behind us, even the cutwater plies its trade in our wake and the calm of the ocean puts me in mind of reflection after the dynamism of previous weeks. The girl's English is good but our mutually limited vocabulary gives us only the reach of rhizomes, broad but shallow, yet on this occasion we feel no need to speak, we are sharing the beauty in silence, the unravelling coastline on the port side, the open ocean to starboard, the rhythm of our gentle pitch and the still unknown pleasures of our destination. Sometimes our words can frustrate us, sometimes they mislead, among the greatest casualties of miscommunication are some of our greatest traits, humour, philosophy, and passion, but here just in these moments, my connection with these people seems far reaching and as deep in nature, as any root may plumb, here, and now our understanding wants for nothing, nothing that is but an ice cream.


Communication


"That's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses." 


The immortal lexicon of Bill Bryson, and rarely has a justification for cultural naivity rung truer in my mind. Of course encounters of the childlike kind can lose their lustre when one finds ones self immersed in such a state for any great length of time but for those seeking to reaquant themselves with feelings of yore, you could do no better than a stint in the orient, where the cultural and linguistic differences are so pronounced that even the most rudimentary of tasks can prove taxing. All of which presents the Guest English Teacher in Korea with a multitude of paradoxes with wich to contend.


For example, the occasions on which I have understood what exactly is transpiring around be have been refreshingly rare and as an exercise in imagination, there is little more entertaining than filling the blank swathes of ones understanding with fictionalised narratives and humerous conjecture. Even as I write there is a heated exchange raging between two teachers just feet away from me here in the staff room, one which I am attributing to the somewhat alien presence of peas in the batch of sticky rice cakes which, this break time, found its way to the teachers office for our delectation. On the one hand, the mathmatics teacher is clearly unhappy with this blatant misuse of the spherical legume, and feels strongly that it has no place in what is essentially a desert sweet, but, on the contrary, the head teacher argues that, whilst the humble pea may traditionally have been served alongside savoury dishes and in salads, its sweet flavour and nutritional value more than justify its re-formatting in such a way, and further more - though she concedes that this amalgamation may, at first, seem unorthadox - she insists that he embrace what she considers to be the future of grain-pulp based snack foods for his own benefit. As you may imagine such deductions are not easily made and there are times when one simply wishes for a scenario in which one can understand and be understood. These are felt most keenly - for me - during those social situations with Korean friends when one wishes to convey or understand in something more than a superficial way. 


Teachers Trip


Such was the case last weekend when I joined the teachers on their annual jolly, In knowing accordance with Bryson's own philosophy, I had no desire to learn in advance where exactly we were going and decided rather, to simply sit back on the coach and adopt the pleasingly vacant smile you often see on the faces of the elderly and infirm as they are wheeled along the promenade on their annual summer exodus from the care homes in which they otherwise seem to fester, the one that says, "I have long since ceded all control of my life and dignity to others and the only expectation - nay hope - for me here is that I neither dribble, or soil myself... a hope which I may or may not fulfil, such is my whimsy". At least I think that is what they are saying because this is much the way I felt on the bus heading south that day though I should mention that the Maekkolli was flowing within minutes of our departure from the school, and, on a vehicle with no bathroom and a piloted by a sadist with a disinclination to stop for the weak urinary needs of a westerner, the prospect of incontinence started to seem less a choice than an utter certainty.


In retrospect I felt compelled - by sheer beauty - to learn the names of those locations we visited and I can now tell you, with confidence, that we had stopped in Jinju city, followed by the phenominal Suncheon Mud Flats, an outstanding area of natural beauty and home to the country's largest reed bed and some improbably orange crabs and rather ancient looking rockhoppers, (as a footnote to this I would like to add that it is the only nature reserve I know of where you can eat the animals you have seen in the cafeteria afterwards). Thereafter we did just that, before alighting at a traditional Korean red clay house where we indulged in a midnight sashimi and watermelon feast (pictured above, and all washed down with yet more Maekkolli... a little cognac too), before turning in for the evening.


The following morning, the sick and weary who made up our number trickled out of their earthen abodes, some dragged their reluctant bodies, like penitent pilgrims, across damp boulders and over rock hewn steps to the spectacular temple which sat like a bird's nest on the steep flanks of  the adjacent mountain, for others, the pre-arranged rendezvous with breakfast was all their alcohol embalmed veins would allow. 


Repaired - by varying degrees - after our appointment with some exquisitely broiled blue crab and, of course, rice, our bleary eyed phalanx made for the nearby jetty where we stopped for some impossibly contrived photos and then boarded a small and charmingly dilapidated ferry which would take us on the final leg of our journey from Dolsan-do to Oedong-do where we would board the bus for home.

Somewhere Near the End

Today saw me clear of my last ever term-time class at Sangju Girls Middle School (pictured above), on Saturday the curtain will fall on the semester leaving the school corridors bereft of their indefatigable life blood, and hollow as they resort to repeating - in their hush - the apologetic footsteps and half hearted laughter of the few who choose to enrol on summer study programmes, all of which will serve only to emphasise the very absence they punctuate. And the record will show that we were hitherto fantastic, so young, and at times so alive that the very essence of death could have been cast in our curriculum, and no one would have cared, either to disseminate, or to study it.

The Night Train to Jongdongjin

 Saturday, 12:35am, I am struggling through the haze of a premature awakening, to introduce my left leg to the correct hole in my trousers, which, given the relative dearth of options for such an operation, suggests a hopeless lack of preparedness for the journey that lies ahead of me. Luckily I am soon acompanied by Son Mi La who possesses enough sense for us both (thankfully by this time I am entirely betrousered), as well as the means to ambulate chancers such as myself from their apartments to the railway station in Sangju where we hope to make the 01:08 to Jongdongjin. Thankfully we do so and once aquainted with our seats on the train, the only requirement for the next six hours is to abandon our heads to the gentle lolling and occasional rolling which invariably accompanies the uneasy slumber of the weary on public transportation at such unearthly hours.

Jongdongjin is something of a tourist draw here in the Republic, thanks - in no small part - to a Korean drama which introduced the town to millions during the mid nineties and accounts almost entirely for its modern day popularity. Being on the east coast puts us in perfect sun rise territory and the intention of most is just this, for us - however - the slow meandering of our vehicle through the sharp inclines of the northern provinces has rendered such an appointment impossible but then, I have never been one to jump on a bandwagon.

Jumping off ours sees us alighting exquisitely close to the ocean and - but for the inconvenience of the train station's fence - we step off our carriage less than 10 meters from the sand of the shore. there is little to fill the time in Jongdongjin between our arrival at around 6am and our return train at 1:30pm but this is exactly the charm of the place, we manage to wander up and down the coast several times before our lack of sleep takes its toll and deposits us upon the sandy foreshore for a rest and an ice cream. Our lethargy though, does little to dampen our enthusiasm and we manage a tilt at the sea, inso doing we become the only inhabitants of the foreshore to immerse themselves beyond the hight of a kneecap - koreans, you see, do not swim - and before long our unorthadox actions have drawn the attention and constellation of those in our vicinity. 

A short while and several tours later, we are ready to make the taxing journey back to the sleepy environs of Sangju, a twelve hour round trip may seem like a day wasted to some and to that I would always reply that there are few better ways to waste a day!

Winged things

Gyong Cheong Dae

Butted firmly against the rocky banks of the Nag Dong river, Gyong Cheon Dae is an incredibly popular public park frequented by Sangjuites during all seasons, on this occasion though, the throngs were held at bay by the stifling humidity, filling the air with an ominous intensity which served as the opening salvos of July. 

Seams of Chalk and Clay

As if sentence should be passed this way, on sixpence pressed of misplaced mirth

Then tossed like poison from the hip hung vial, more's the chance and less the trial (still at birth)

Whilst in cahoots were neck tied loops for epitaphs to cultured roots

And in the fields they burned the books - by way, they say, of mission

To raise the roofs and smoke the eaves to purge the pests of their contrition

As those who marched with most intent long such seams of chalk and clay

To quarry bent of mal-intent were hung out in the sun to flay

The English Tree

A short animation produced by my students and I during the winter of 2010.

Papier

Korean students - I have found - possess an unbounded enthusiasm for the employment of paper to creative ends. I often find those who have no interest in the beautiful language, applying such skills during English class as they battle to stave off the incomprehensible and manic ramblings of their teacher, the silence of whom can easily be bought with the presentation of a well folded sheet of A4 (which now adorn his desk). 

On the subject of desks, mine, as you can see, is unique in that it acts as a kind of magnet for general office based flotsam and - in particular - post it notes, upon which my memory overwhelmingly relies. Sometimes though, my rather utilitarian and functional collection receives a little warmth and decoration in the form of the small notes which my students occasionally write me.

Mira's Gift

The material manifestation of Mira Son's beautiful generosity, The bracelets are buddhist beads and the partially decomposed leaf was given to me by one of Mira's elementary school children during our picnic/water fight at the weekend. I will miss Mira a terrible amount when I have gone!

Journal for English Lovers

I have - of late - taken to writing in my journal in the playground at lunchtimes, this has the entirely wonderful effect of encouraging the more curious students to come and engage with me in an environment other than the classroom. Some of my students have even taken to making their own entries within the journal, something I wholeheartedly endorse! This particular image was skilfully penned by Kwon Ga Young following a conversation about nationalities, the message is self evident and completely typical of the magic that these children possess.

Registration

An example of what may happen if a fellow sporting a dearth of scruples were to allow his students the freedom to sign the register of their own wonderfully creative volition!

Mira Son

Mira Son works in a rural school in Sangju-si, her entire class consists of three students. All of whom were entirely magical during our outing yesterday, they bought me a cake and sang me happy birthday but only after soaking me during a water fight in a nearby stream!

Lessons in History

Two men are out hiking one crisp Autumn day, the elder has been discussing with the younger, the misfortunes and annexations which had befallen his country during previous epochs, “The kind of colonization – he says – which your country is famous for,  Korea is known as the land of the morning calm, Japan, the land of the rising sun, but...do you know what we called the British Empire? – knowing full well that his companion has no answer, a short rhetorical pause ensues before he bestows the answer onto him – we called it the land of eternal dawn and do you know why?", another cursory pause, "because the empire was so vast that the sun was always rising somewhere within it", something within this statement disturbs its recipient and whilst the conversation moves on, his thoughts do not because, try as he may to distance himself from the actions of his forebears, he cannot not deny the conflicting pangs of pride which refuse to capitulate within him.

 Far from being a shallow allegory, the above – but for the addition of some subtle theatrical enhancement – is based on a personal truth, but little did I know that the conflicting feelings elicited that day would prove to weave such a defining thread through my year.

Sitting - as I now am - within the hazy twilight of my Korean year it would seem the hour is late, in which to begin the lengthy dissemination of my experience here. However, I have decided that now is the time to employ my hitherto indolent fingers in the task of reflecting on my time away, having boldly set this as my desired outcome, I must hereby confess my predilection for meandering wildly awry during such exercises and offer no guarantees with regards to the destination of this entry.

Immediately my mind is turned toward those things which I hoped to achieve *'here' and if I am honest with myself - as I sometimes am - my aim was fixed primarily on obtaining some objective distance from *'there'.

*Here: A somewhat rural and entirely enchanting town in the interior of the Korean peninsular, easily distinguished from 'there' by - amongst other things - it's geographical location and love for pickled vegetables.

*There: A small town on a peculiar island in the north Atlantic replete with eccentricities and a love for - amongst other things -deep fried fish and hop based alchoholic beverages.

The obvious question to ask then is, did I achieve any such objectivity? The answer, alas, is entirely convoluted and inconclusive. It goes without saying that in undertaking such an exercise, one is essentially seeking to know ones self but the problem with removing one's self from 'there' to 'here' is that one has to bring ones self along which somewhat compromises the outcome given it's ongoing umbilical dependence on 'there', (at this point though, I will leave behind this thread of pseudo psychoanalysis and instead give you what I think I know).

One of the most recurrent feelings that has befallen me during the course of the year is – as you may gather from my opening paragraph – one of post-colonial guilt relating to national identity. The Korean people - you see - have suffered horrifically at the hands of colonization, in particular, at the hands of the Japanese and most recently during the annexation by the latter of the former during the period between 1910 and 1945. Having witnessed first hand, the damage this has done to the national psyche and the animosity it still fosters today, one cannot help but disdain the actions of my forbears in their own occupations. However, having already concluded that the individual is inseparable from the environ in which he or she is raised, and, further more, having myself been raised with a certain sense of pride in the achievements of the empire, one is really forced to examine where one's conditioning ends, and where personal values begin to override what we are given to know, the answer – the record will show –  still eludes me.

The question of national identity is daily at play here, rarely does one fall by without ones own being questioned. Amongst the foreign community too, people's views are influenced by their native cultures and I have the utmost sympathy for my American friends in particular, who often - very sportingly - tolerate the anti American barbs which fly from my own tongue on the days when my frustrations at their nation’s global dominance defeat me.

If it were as clear cut as being able to claim autonomy from one’s motherland then none of these things would hold any sway, my persona is, however, heavily influenced by the English stereotype and whilst this is to be taken with more than a pinch of irony, I must – in tandem – admit an affection for it. In this way I have learned that – whilst one can stand in opposition to the actions of one’s nation – one cannot, and should not, claim immunity from its influence, we are all – to some degree – products of the state. The truths we are given, however, are subject to nuance and I am entirely grateful to have been offered the opportunity to stand beyond the boundaries of my culture in this way, and from there to recognize the partial perspectives that have been fostered therein. It is true that I have not always succeeded in overcoming them but I have now accepted my Englishness and all of its connotations. It is true that the actions of those who proceeded us were not without fault, but without everything that came before, not one of us would be who we are today.

Dokdo Island

A short and- superficially- informative film on Dokdo Island!