One Muddled Month

Hello, everyone! Katy, here. We're ringing in our first month here in Goheung with out first Korean holiday; Chuseok. Chuseok is described often as the Korean Thanksgiving, though it is a bit of a mash up between an American Thanksgiving, and what we understand a Mexican Day of the Dead to be. It is a day when people celebrate the harvest, say goodbye to the summer, and celebrate their ancestors. It falls on the fifteenth day of the eight lunar month, which this year falls on a Thursday. So, employees and students are given, at a minimum, the Wednesday and Friday surrounding it off of their obligations so as to be with family. We, of course, don't have any Korean family, and are not yet close enough with friends or neighbors to be comfortable accepting invites into what is a very important family time. As such, we knew we would be having a 5 day weekend to ourselves and didn't want to travel twice so close together. So last weekend, a few days before Chuseok, we spent our first full weekend home in Goheung since arriving in Korea.

It was really nice for me to get the opportunity to show off a bit, since I have been spending every day since we moved here getting to know the town and a few people. Jamie hasn't had the chance yet to really explore Goheung since he is gone all day every day. By the time he gets off work, we rarely make it past a ramen shop and the PC bang before the sun sets. So getting to take him to the temple, the park, and the fortress was a treat for me.

As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, Korea is Buddhist and Christian, though Christianity is a more modern development. Due to this there are a number of absolutely beautiful temples and ceremonial sites with a long history throughout any given city or town. The largest temple in Goheung is an impressive collection of traditional style buildings and is still currently active, meaning at least a handful of monks live there that I have seen personally. The painting and figures of Buddhas are especially impressive and ornate. Every night at sunset, the various temples around town ring these enormous bells with a huge wooden pestle hanging from heavy chains so that it can swing horizontally to strike the outside of the bell. The temple I took Jamie to visit, which is the one pictured below, seems to initiate the bell ringing at sunset, and is echoed by at least two others in different parts of town. This call and response ringing seems to go on for a few minutes, though I haven't grasped yet just how many times they are rung. This temple is composed of four main structures (including the one that houses the bell/gong) and what seems to be a dormitory outside which there are large traditional pots which are in constant use fermenting kimchi. There is also this enormous image of a Buddha that is completely golden. For perspective, find Jamie in the picture and notice how small his is in comparison.

 

The large stone wall that I'm frolicking along in the picture below is what is left of a fortress from the Joseon period of Korean history which is just across the street from the above temple. There are several fragments of the wall left, and flags and a park within the walls now mark it's original position.

 

Finally, the pictures below are of one of the other temples (not sure how active) in town that echoes the big temple's gong as the sun sets. It has just three structures, one for the bell, a prayer hall, and another which was closed. Notice what I thought were Nazi symbols on the buildings. Apparently, it's a holy symbol in a number of south Asian religions, and it spread to east Asia through Buddhism. These swastikas rotate the opposite direction from what we know of the Nazi symbol, and predates the Nazi's use of the character by thousands and thousands of years. It is known in these cultures to be a holy symbol, and so denotes the holy buildings pictured below.

 

This view pictured below is as seen from the above, smaller temple which is just on the outskirts of town, part way up one of the bordering mountains. I love to visit this area while Jamie works. It is very quiet and rural, mostly made up of family farms.

So we successfully stayed in and explored our own beautiful valley city (Gohueng-eup) last weekend, in an attempt to recover from all the traveling, and prepare for Chuseok. Jamie had Wednesday through Sunday off for the holiday and we did a lot of research to learn just what the holiday was all about. As I mentioned, it combines a celebration of ancestors, and a celebration of the harvest into a big family gathering. Monday and Tuesday, Jamie came home with all sorts of rice treats that they had made in school, or his students had made for him. We had homemade rice cakes, dok, Sungpyeon (sticky rice empanadas filled with brown sugar and sesame oil) and more. Because most people travel to visit family, we had been warned that leaving the county could be pricey and crowded. So with rice treats in hand, we indulged in our own celebration of our new home by spending the holiday traveling the rest of the island (Goheung-gun) in order to better know our home turf. But more on that next week (when I have the pictures uploaded)!

Have a great week!
-Katy