This is a proverb from my proverb book.
신선 노리에 도끼 자루 썩는 줄 모른다.
sin·seon no·ri·e do·kki ja·ru sseok·neun jul mo·reun·da
faerie play-LOC ax handle rot-GER likely-fact not-know-PRES
[A man] at play with the faeries doesn’t realize [his] ax-handle is rotting.
The book explains that it is based on a fairy tale about a woodcutter who goes into the mountains and plays with wood nymphs or sprites and forgets the world, and only awakens from his reverie as a bent old man with a rotting ax-handle. It seems similar to the story of the lotus-eaters in Homer, but there are many stories of people losing track of their regular lives in lost reveries by falling under enchantment.
In looking up the proverb online, there seems to be a more common grammatical variation on this proverb that begins “신선 놀음에…” – this is just substituting 놀음 (a gerund of the verb “to play”) for the related noun meaning “play”.
I doubt this temple-panel picture has anything to do with the story, but it seemed to share something of the same atmospherics, at least to my mind.
Day: October 20, 2013
Caveat: Driving Around Ganghwa Island
I drove around Ganghwa Island (강화도) today with my mom, Jacob, Helen and May. First we went to lunch and had traditional galbi-style cook-at-the-table fare. Then we went to 전등사 [jeondeung temple], which I'd visited with my friend Peter [broken link! FIXME] exactly one year ago. Finally, we drove up and saw a site called 연미정 [yeonmijeong], an old fortress location where Joseon Korea surrendered to China in a humiliting historical moment in the 17th century, but where now you can also look across the Han River estuary at North Korea.
Here are some pictures.
First, the temple.
Next, the fortress.
That's North Korea in the far background.
A picture of all of us, taken by a nice man who was looking at the North with some binoculars.
After all that driving around, we were tired, but then my boss Curt invited us to dinner with his family – his wife Migyeong and his daughter Nayun and son Baegang. So we ate 칼국수 [kalguksu = homemade noodle soup] made with lots of mussels (바지락) for dinner. Jacob ate a very large amount today but he wanted ice cream when we got home. I think he has recovered his appetite. Now we are home resting.
[daily log: walking, 2 km]