Category: Life in Korea

I am participating in a rather in-depth, week-long orientation and training program related to my new job. This is very disorienting – because I never had so much as an hour of orientation or training at any of my three previous jobs in Korea.

Some of the “cultural content” it is a bit redundant or boring, for someone who’s already been here a few years. But other bits are amazingly useful, and I find myself thinking, “gee, it would have been nice to have known that, say, 3 years ago.”

Overall, I think this will be good. Plus, the hotel where this is taking place is the poshest place I’ve stayed at in a long time – possibly since I had the Oracle 8i/9i certification at that resort in Pennsylvania in 2004.

Here’s a picture from my hotel balcony, looking west-southwest over Gwangju, as the sun is coming up behind the mountain behind me.

I like to invent little metaphors that sound like good names for rock bands.

Yesterday, walking around Gwangju, I ran across some monuments to the Gwangju democracy movement of 1980. Although the movement failed against the dictatorship of that time, it was a significant turning point in the evolution of South Korean politics.

I began to reflect on South Korea’s “protest culture.” A lot of people view this as a sort of political immaturity (even, or especially, South Koreans themselves), but I have a rather different take on it. Firstly, this “protest culture” is as innate and important to modern South Korean democracy as, say, a town hall meeting is to New England democracy. Secondly, however, I think the fact that people in this country feel free to begin a rally or protest at the drop of a hat actually makes South Korean politics a bit more genuinely responsive and, well, “democratic” than a superficial systemic analysis might suggest.  So rather than seeing it as a blemish on the South Korean polity, I see the protest culture as a sort of enhancement, if an imperfect one.

But it seems odd, doesn’t it, that a country still so steeped in Confucian culture and values would adopt protests and riots as a (more or less) legitimate means of political expression?  Thus I stumbled on the idea of a “Confucian riot.” Which sounds cool, and is maybe less oxymoronic than you’d think. And I was contrasting the idea, in my mind, with Japan. Japan doesn’t have the same kind of protest culture as South Korea – not at all. Perhaps, lacking a recent historical experience with in-your-face dictatorship (i.e. at least not since WWII, and arguably even before that), Japan never developed the need.  Japan is a more consensual polity, whether truly democratic or not. More like a “pep rally” than a riot.  And so I stumbled on the contrasting idea of a “zen pep rally.”

I’m just thinking about these things. This is not a polished thesis or even intended to be a well-structured argument. More like a suggestion for two contrasting metaphors for two intimately related but profoundly distinct societies.

Here is a picture of a monument to the “518” movement (the Gwangju uprising of 1980), in front of the central high school. And some other monuments I noticed, not far away.

I love public art. Probably, that’s one reason I like walking around Ilsan. And Fukuoka was interesting, this morning, too. Here are some pictures of public art (and/or interesting architecture).

Walking around Ilsan, near Baekma area:

Here is something tucked next to a building walking out the east end of the mall called “WesternDom” in Ilsan, on the way to Madu Station:

Here is a picture I took this morning, here in Fukuoka, Japan. It’s a digital clock that changes to show the time. But the pixels are made of little fountain spouts. So it’s an altogether new take on the “water clock” idea:

Here is a weird frog-creature-arch-thing in the Tenjin area (downtown) of Fukuoka:

Here is the somewhat famous ACROS cultural center in Fukuoka, with its rooftop gardens:

For contrast, some blossoming cherry trees along the river:

Lastly, some palm trees in the median of a major street near Hakata Station:

Korea has a lot of history. And contemporary Korea loves exploring, studying and re-enacting their history. Just take a look at the sorts of dramas popular on TV, for example – there’re always several historical dramas running. Those aren’t the sort I enjoy, mostly because the language is stilted and harder to understand (which makes sense, since they’re trying to capture the more formal Korean of centuries past). Also, I don’t always think those sorts of dramas are particularly faithful to the historical “facts.” But anyway…

Yesterday I went with some of my Suwon friends to see some re-enactors at the Hwaseong palace. These were guys with swords and pikes and other things, doing martial arts displays of various kinds. Half choreography, half hapkido / geondo (= japanese kendo), etc. Here are some pictures.

In the first two, the guy was using a big pikelike-thing to hack up some bundles of straw. The last picture is me with some re-enactors, along with two kids I’ve gotten to know, who are the Chinese tea-maker’s children: a brother and sister named Dong-jun and Dong-hui (it’s very common for siblings to share a syllable that way, in their name).

Modern Korean pop architecture is fun to look at sometimes. I think any country where there is a strong capitalist, advertising-driven culture, you will find architecture that is kitschy, often tasteless, over-the-top, etc. Some of the more interesting buildings tend to be the ubiquitous “wedding halls” as well as churches. Here are some pictures I’ve taken recently.

I know that’s a strange title to a blog post, but I couldn’t resist.   I was taking a long walk the other day, and saw Suwon’s “World Cup Stadium” out on the east side of town.   There’s a park around the stadium, and in the park, there are soccer-ball-themed public restrooms.  I just had to make use of the facilities, just to be able to say I’d done it.

Here are pictures – you can see the boy-girl icon on the giant soccer ball, that tells you there are public restrooms inside.

Here’s a view of the stadium from a pedestrian overpass.

Below is a picture of the northeast gate of the Suwon city walls – where they’ve punched a hole under the wall for (or reconstructed it over) a major street.