Yogjakarta, Indonesia

Hello, all. Katy (and a little Jamie) here! First and foremost, happy year of the fire rooster to you all! The 27th of this month marked the lunar new year, and according to the Chinese zodiac, and the symbology adopted by much of east and southeast Asia, that means we have entered the elemental year of fire, and the animal year of the rooster. J and I rung in the new year with Tet in Vietnam, but this week, I'll be catching up by telling you all about our stay in Indonesia which ended just a few days ago.

There's a lot to tell, as you can imagine, so I'll take this more or less in chronological order. First of all, why Indonesia? Well, on top of the fact that we were desperate to escape the winter weather, we also have a good friend from Java, one of the bigger islands that make up the archipelago. He features heavily in the photos, so I'll tell you now, his name is Adi and he was J's roommate in college. Ultimately arriving in the morning (a two hour time difference from Korea), we started our adventure after an eventful, 36 hours of traveling and multiple layovers, with a long nap.

The first event of note was a trip to the Kraton. Now this requires a little explaining, since I didn't know before I went that such a place even existed. Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogdjakarta) is a city on the island of Java, many hours from Jakarta, the capital that most people are familiar with. It was its own country until as recently as WWII, and though it has joined with the country of Indonesia, is still it's own special district with a sultan presiding. That being said, the Kraton is the Sultan's palace. I was surprised that it was open for tours, and granted the hours are limited, but the amount of the grounds that the public is allowed to wander was surprising to someone who has never seen more than the outside of the White House. There we walked through halls, displays, and galleries of traditional art and clothing of old Yogyakarta. One of the most impressive and interesting things to me was the Batik. Batik is an old style of wax printing on fabric, in highly symbolic patters that were worn traditionally tied around the waist in a sort of skirt by all genders. Those worn by the nobility, obviously, were very unique, as there are certain patters only one of royal blood was allowed to wear. Others were unique because they displayed animals, a pattern that is not so common anymore, due to the Muslim influence in Indonesia and the religious taboo against depicting living beings in art.

 

 

Photos of the Kraton below...

The language on the sign is the Javanese script.
It was based on Sanskrit, so it looks a lot like it for anyone who is familiar.
It has largely been replaced by the Latin script (this one),
but the government has elementary students study it, and
it is used in public signage alongside the Latin script.

Photos of Batik below...

A sculpture display showing how Batik is made.

A batik skirt with traditional garb

Photos of the traditional language (numbers) and symbol below...



The symbol in the middle is the official symbol of Yogyakarta from
its days as a nation. It is still represented on their flags.

The next big adventure was a trip to the water palace which we, fittingly, took on a rainy day. The water palace was originally a palace for the Sultan and his family with elaborate underground tunnels for escaping in the case of emergency. It also housed beautiful green pools, elaborate carvings, all in more or less disrepair after the nearby volcano crumbled large parts of the original structures. Nonetheless, wandering the grounds of this palace was hauntingly beautiful. The surrounding town, within a specified area, is preserved as part of the old city, and is home to Yogyakarta's underground mosque. Here it is worth noting that the country of Indonesia is majority Muslim. More than 85% in fact, which is greater than the percentage of Christians in America (which to my understanding sat around 70% in 2015). So when we visited the underground mosque, which is no longer in use, it was surprising to hear of the time in Indonesia's history when Muslims had to hide to the extent that they buried their place of worship to avoid detection. The space was incredible, with short doorways, and tunnels and staircases to boot. And, while we're on the topic of religion in Indonesia, I have to say that one of the things I found the most surprising and interesting was the interplay of different religions, making up the cultural landscape. Old tradition, at least in Yogyakarta, and it seemed, all of Java, was that the island was Hindu, as seen in old architecture. Recently too there has been an influx of Christianity leading to an interesting population celebrating the traditions of the east, mid-east, and west. As I said though, Islam is still the majority religion by quite a margin these days.

Photos of the Water Palace below...

Jamie snags a local tour guide

There were once walls where I am standing

Photos of the Underground Mosque below...

Next was Temple Day. We visited two of the ancient temples uncovered within an hour or so of Yogyakarta, one of which was completely buried until archeologists dug it out quite recently. The scale, preservation, and detail of the temples was absolutely awe inspiring. On most days, it is important enough to preserve the reverence of the spaces, that anyone wearing shorts is asked to wrap a batik cloth around them as a long skirt, which is provided at the entrance to the temple. On this particular day however, the batik were not available, and all of our clothes covered our knees, which seemed to be the important part. In the first temple pictured below, called Borobudur, the one which was recently excavated, you can see the tiers from the pictures. Each tier allows a person to walk all the way around the temple on that level, until you come to a set of stairs which would take you to the next. There was a set of stairs on each side, one for ascending and one for descending. The belief is that those who built and used the temple originally would spiral up and then down the temple in a sort of sacred pattern, much like those who walk labyrinths for spiritual reasons.

Photos of Borobudur below...

I was very impressed by the preservation of the carvings in stone

There is a Buddha in each of the diamond holed
domes. This one was revealed.

The stairs were a little steep for my taste



There's Adi!

Dragonfly for Gma

The second temple, Prambanan, was actually a collection of temples, each dedicated to a different Hindu god, with a different statue inside each to represent the god. We were here during sunset, which added another element of tranquility to the space, which was much needed given the size of the crowd, and the volume of the schoolchildren there on a field trip. Speaking of schoolchildren, many of the tourists from rural parts of Java had not seen many, if any white people before, and it could be difficult to move from temple to temple without being stopped and asked for a selfie together.

Photos of Prambanan below...

Jamie and Adi approach the temples

Schoolchildren ask Jamie for a selfie

It was hard to take a break anywhere without being scouted by schoolchildren

Spot the Jamie

One unfortunate event was that on the day we intended to go up the volcano, by the time we reached
the base, and wandered through the museum there, it was pouring rain and we couldn't go any further. Needless to say, I have no volcano pictures or stories, but getting caught in the rain at this particular museum was a blessing in disguise. The museum showcased artwork of traditional Yogyakarta, from before it joined with Indonesia, and held the family trees, portraits, and stories of the Sultans and their families. Pictures were not allowed in most of the museum, until the end where we were allowed to pose in front of the large piece pictured below. By that time it had started to rain, and so we rushed inside to the restaurant of the museum.

Photos from the museum below...

Traditional instruments

Winter vacation family photo

The restaurant was the first I had seen of the Dutch influence that Adi had told us about. Apparently, the Dutch and Japanese were the two big colonizers that tried to take Indonesia. Interestingly, Indonesians seem to remember Dutch colonialism with less bitterness, while the Japanese are still considered villains. From what Adi told us and our own understanding of history, this is because the Dutch were mostly interested in getting their hands on spices, and while they were disruptive, the Japanese tried to completely supplant traditional culture. This restaurant was very European in design, and offered a range of western foods that we happily ordered too much of. From pasta to cheesecake, I was in foodie heaven, eating my fill of foods I know I wont get again for quite some time.

Finally, our last excursion was to an art gallery of a local Yogyakartan artist who looks a bit like the Indonesian Einstien (mostly for the hair). Regretably I don't have any pictures of the artist himself to show you, as I was told after taking a few pictures, that photography was not allowed. If you want to look him up though, google Affandi Yogyakarta. The pictures below show what I did manage to take before I was told to put the camera away. Affandi was a bit of an eccentric man, and he designed his museum himself, including the home he built himself in it, and burying his entire family on the property.

Photos of the gallery below...

 

 

 

Some additional notes of interest on life and culture (or as much as we could gather from a 6 day trip) were as follows. Eating with your hands it pretty acceptable, especially in certain types of restaurants. The way to recognize such a place is if the give you a small bowl of water which you should interpret as a place to wash your hands before and after your meal. Street food is also very good and very cheap. We had no concerns about food poisoning, though we did have Adi to point out when a vendor's sanitation wasn't up to par. There is also a lot of floor sitting in restaurants, much like in Korea. As for money, the exchange rate is about 12K Indonesian Rupiah to 1 US Dollar. Additionally, when reading a receipt, know that they use commas where we use periods and vice versa. Also, expect streets flooded with small motorcycles (maybe more aptly referred to as mopeds?) and when hopping in the (rare) four wheeled vehicle, expect the steering wheel on the right side of the car, and to drive on the left side of the road. And finally, local products include shadow puppets, sweet soy sauce, and Bali Hai beer.

 

And last but not least, to complete this post. Thanks to these fella's for getting along in college, and thanks to Adi in particular for showing us around and kicking off this trip in the best way!

 

 

Cheers, and I hope everyone has a great first week of the year of the Fire Rooster!

Next week, Ho Chi Minh City!

-K

Sorokdo and Blackjack

Katy here. This week I am going to tell you all about a couple day trips that I've taken recently that show some very interesting and different sides of Korea. They also carry with them a bit of history, and a bit of policy I thought you all might find interesting.

The first trip was to the Island of Sorokdo. Broken down by syllable (so-rok-do), the name means "little deer island" because when viewed from above it is said to be in the shape of a baby deer. I did see a picture of the island from the air, but I must admit, I didn't see a deer in it. It was a bit like someone telling you there is a man in the moon and straining your eyes to make the dark spots fit the description only to eventually shrug it off with a "yeah okay, sure I see him."

Sorokdo is interesting however for a very different reason than it's odd shape. Sorokdo is the island that, during the Japanese invasion, the lepers were quarantined to. All of those with Hansen's Disease (or Leprosy) were rounded up and shipped off to the small island of Sorokdo, long before there was a bridge connecting it to the mainland. On the island, the lepers worked constructing a beautiful garden that is now the focal point of the island as a tourist destination.

In addition to being treated poorly during their lives, there were gross violations of their rights after their death. Families of the lepers who lived back on the mainland wanted their relatives bodies after they died for a proper burial, but there were many who wanted to study their bodies to try and determine a cause and a cure. While it was an honest curiosity and a valuable goal, the manner in which the experiments and autopsies were done after a person with Hansen's Disease died violated their pre-stated wishes and the desires of their families. Also regarding the families, it was said that there would be long lines waiting for small ferries that could only shuttle a couple people to the island at a time to visit their quarantined relatives, causing a lot of grief and trauma. It wasn't all bad however, as it is recognized that the many German and Dutch nurses who lived on the island worked hard to keep the people on the island comfortable, and established lasting relationships that are preserved to this day in Korea's memory. There are memorials to the nurses as well as the patients around the island.

I visited the island with two of my friends on a very cold Tuesday. These days there are museums, galleries, preserved buildings showing the disturbing conditions of the housing and autopsy rooms, and, of course, the garden. The garden is notable for it's memorials and a special type of tree that blooms in the winter. The flowers are thick and either white or pink with a very sweet aroma that gave the entire garden a pleasant odor. To this day a few lepers still live on the island, though now by choice, to maintain the garden.

The second day trip of the week was with two different friends of mine to Gwangju. You might remember my description of Gwangju from and earlier post. It is a rather large city, and is home to one of the friends I traveled with that day. About two hours away, we drove up after my friends got off work and had a great Korean barbeque meal before heading to one of their houses. There I was taught blackjack and informed we would be spending the evening at a nearby casinobar.

Generally in Korea, gambling is illegal, though there are lot of special permissions for certain industries, such as tourism. Lotteries are also permitted, but only if for public welfare promotion. To get around this, a lot of the gambling that takes place happens in what is called a "casinobar" where rather than winning cash or chips, you win bar credit. This worked out beautifully well for me, as my elementary ability to play blackjack managed to provide me with drinks for the night without ever having to buy more than $9 worth of chips as we walked in the door.

Needless to say we had a blast and spent the night in Gwangju at my friend's house, as a trip home would have been too much. The experience was amusingly Korean, as you might imagine if you have ever been to a music concert, club, or bar in Korea. Koreans are incredibly nice drinkers, dancers, and partiers. Unlike other western countries I have engaged in any of the above activities in, Koreans are incredibly calm and polite. Similarly, at the casinobar, though the music was uncomfortably loud and the strobe lights were blinding, everyone there was seated calmly at a table, smiling and nodding. No one threw their arms up when the won, or shouted when they lost. The behavior, from my perspective contrasted the environment in every way.

Now, I realize that many of you who follow the blog are aware that J and I are currently on vacation, and, you may have been hoping for tales of our adventures through Southeast Asia. But, as we will be traveling for better than three weeks, and have only been gone a matter of days, I will be waiting until next week's post to fill you in. You can expect a one week's post on Indonesia, and the two weeks following to detail Vietnam. After those few weeks of gloating about the heat and drool-worthy photos, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming on life and culture in Korea.

Have a great week!
-K

We, Korea

Hi, all. You've got Katy again this week. It has been a relatively uneventful week, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to address a cultural comment that I've been thinking about a bit recently. Many of you have heard eastern cultures to be generalized as "collectivist cultures" while the western world is characterized by being "individualistic." These are generalizations, and certainly don't hold true all the time, and when they do, they come in so many variations and with so much complexity that they are really subtle. That being said, there are those moments when I think to myself, "oh that is what they mean!"

The instigating event that had me thinking about this was a Korean lesson in which the features of Kakao (a Korean messaging app) were being explained to me. There is a method in the app for purchasing gift coupons and gifts virtually to send to friends. The categories for these purchases range from cash to house warming gifts, and, something called (rough translation of course) the loner-gifts. When I asked my friend what this meant, she asked what the word was in English for people doing something by themselves. "What do you mean?" I asked. She specified that it was something of a prefix in Korean, a 2 character set that you stuck on the front of a word to indicate that the person was doing whatever it was alone. She went on to explain that this is a very new term, practically slang, that only the youth really used yet. Apparently there wasn't a unique term for specifying "lone (verb-ing)" previously. As we talked longer, she explained that these days it is more relevant to be able to express that when you say someone has an apartment, that they are specifically living alone. Or that if someone is traveling, that they might be doing so solo. It isn't that Korean doesn't have a word for "alone," but that these days it is becoming practical to have an easy way to specify the alone-ness of an activity. This is indicative of the traditional cultural assumption that one would never live alone, go out to eat alone, raise a child alone, travel alone, etc. I believe that the need to draw attention to whether someone is doing something alone or not, says something about societal expectations and degree of deviation from cultural norms it represents.

One of the reasons that living alone needs specifying here, is that it is relatively uncommon to live anywhere other than your parent's home or on a college campus until you are married. A lone-habitor (the best way I can approximate the Korean phrase for non-cohabiting situation) is pretty uncommon. As the country develops and foreign trends are adopted, this is becoming more and more desirable for many youth, hence the population inventing and using the new term. It is also, understandably, more common in the big cities. Here in Goheung, for example, it is extremely rare for an apartment to house less than two or three people that are related in some capacity. If you have been following this blog, you know that our apartment is quite small, and difficult for just Jamie and I space wise. Our neighbors have the same size space, but the apartment houses a family of 3, including a pre-teen boy. Living in such close quarters is hardly given a second thought, though I'm sure they would upgrade if presented with the opportunity. In this case, however, the divide between western - individualistic, eastern - collectivist breaks down a bit, as it is also something I experienced living in Latin America. So who's to say what the cause really is, but in considering the differences potentially attributable to a collectivist culture, this came to mind.

Another demonstration of that underlying "we/our" assumption, is  ordering food at a restaurant. Between just two or three people, a dish each is common enough. But even in small numbers, some types of restaurants are simply not set up for individual servings. It is common, especially in big groups, and almost always at home, to order or cook food for the table, not for individual servings. For example, on a normal lunch out, Jamie and I might order one roll of kimbap, one bowl of ramen, and a pork cutlet, which the server will place between us, in the middle of the table, assuming we are sharing it all. We are rarely given our own plate. Individual bowls are more common, because sharing soups, and some pasta dishes are hard to eat without spilling from a bowl that is not directly below your mouth. In large groups, there is generally just a spread of food down the middle of the table which each person picks at with their chopsticks, taking the food strait to their mouth, rather than dropping a portion on an individual dish before feeding themselves.

Along the same lines, payment is never, under any circumstances, done separately. Korean people consider it a very funny-foreign thing to do to "Dutch pay." One person always pays for a meal, and it can be considered quite rude to hand a server multiple cards. It is also rude to handle money excessively at the table, so individual parties pulling out their meal money and combining it on the table is never seen. Even when money is exchanged, it is generally done in envelopes in public so that the actual bills are not obvious, or better yet by transferring money online. People simply pay each other back by taking turns paying for every other meal. In the case that you will not see the person again, or the hierarchical gap is very big, the invitee (usually the older/superior) always pays. There is simply no splitting the check. Whether this aspect of the culture is due to a collectivist nature, the social hierarchy, or patriarchal structure, I can't really say. I'm sure the answer is not so simple.

The final example comes from Jamie's stories from the classroom. Due to the culture here, saving face, maintaining relationships, and operating in groups is the norm. Because of this, public humiliation, or singling a student out is the most effective punishment in a classroom. I have heard many stories of Korean teachers asking a misbehaving student to simply stand up, and the singled out attention brought the student to tears. In the same way, Jamie has expressed that it is very hard to get the classroom to engage in discussion if you ask one person to answer a question. Asking tables to come together and come up with a group answer gets a lot more participation out of the students. Some of this is similar to student behavior in the States, of course, but the degree of refusal/discomfort acting individually in the classroom setting seems stronger here. There is never any competitive hand raising or "teacher pick me pick me" that I have heard about in Jamie's stories.

As I mentioned, it is hard to say what parts of culture are a "collectivist" nature coming through in behaviors and expectations, but filtering my experiences this way this week was an thought provoking exercise.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to comment here on the blog. I get those comments directly to my email, so I won't miss them! Oh, and I apologize for the lack of pictures this week. I know I for one am not particularly inclined to read a wall of text on the internet. Hopefully next week's post will be more visual.
-K

Christmas in Korea

Happy Holidays, everyone! Though, unlike the US, where Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years fall within about a month, Christmas is the only holiday of substance during this time here. Thanksgiving I have explained, and New Years celebrations are saved for the Lunar New Year which will fall in late January this year. As many of you know, Jamie and I went to Busan for the weekend, taking the western Christmas holiday as an excuse to indulge in aspects of our home culture we were sorely missing. This post will be relatively picture heavy, as I had a hard time putting the camera down for all the lights and excitement.

Busan is the second biggest city in Korea, and according to many Koreans, a much nicer city than it's big brother, Seoul. It is certainly newer, thriving, and very international as Korean cities go. Being a port city, and the host of the Busan international film festival, there are quite a few tourists, fellow expats, international students and businessmen. It is about a 3 hour drive from Goheung, though depending on which bus you take, it can easily be more like a 4 hour trip. We left early on Saturday, in an attempt to squeeze as much time out of the mini-vacation as we could. Unfortunately, being such an enormous city (the population is almost 3.5 million), even once we finally arrived and stepped off the bus, we were greeted by an hour trip on a very crowded subway just to get to anywhere of interest. We started our afternoon on the Haeundae Beach, a very popular spot among tourists for it's white sandy beaches, surf-able waters, upscale restaurants, and nightlife. As it hovered around freezing temperatures that day, we did not venture down to the water, but wandered the boardwalk, enjoying the view. And what a view it was!

 

We even got to enjoy a little juggling show!

 

For dinner we went to the Busan Hard Rock Café, curing our cravings for American food with burgers, mac n' cheese, and cocktails. As it was Christmas Eve, there was a duo on the stage singing Christmas songs in English, which was a lovely, unexpected addition to the evening. The Hard Rock was all decorated for Christmas, and all of the staff we interacted with spoke fluent English. We were even served by one white, seemingly American (based on his accent) waiter, which surprised us given what we know about the difficulty of holding a non-esl job here without Korean citizenship.

 

The big reason that we landed on Busan as our city of choice for the holiday, aside from the promise of western food, was that due to it's international attraction, it hosts the largest christams tree lights festival in the country, decking out it's streets with lights, selfie zones, charicature drawing, street vendors, and so, so many Christams trees. In researching for the trip, we planned accordingly and booked a guesthouse room in the district that promised the most spectacular display. In fact, we were within a block of some of the most decorated streets in town and enjoyed sipping tea at a café that overlooked the festivities. Families stayed out together until very late, and the young children all had cotton candy in the shape of bears, complete with ears, and little stickers for the eyes and nose.

 

Though there were plenty of families, it is worth noting that in Korea, Christmas has been adopted as more of a couple's holiday, with lot's of romantic tones. Christmas is not a big holiday in Korea to start with, but as it has recently been adopted and is even now a federal holiday, Koreans have really run with it and put their own romantic spin on it. You may notice that in many of the pictures I've posted thus far, there are a disproportionate number of pairs walking around. There were even a few spots where the romance was pretty overt, with places where couples are encouraged to write love notes in public places among the lights.

 

Needless to say, we got a late night Christams eve and were beyond exhausted when we finally got to the guesthouse. Thank goodness it was close. Though a complimentary breakfast was included in the cost of the room, we have learned not to expect too much from a Korean complimentary breakfast. Koreans aren't very big into breakfast as a meal in the first place, and even where they adopt a "western" buffet breakfast at hotels, this usually just consists of hard boiled eggs, coffee, and some fruit (which doesn't really cut it when you're as much of a breakfast person as I am). Fortunately, I love planning trips, and I found a café within a few blocks of the guesthouse serving "American style" brunch that sounded promising. Though it wasn't spot on culturally, it more than exceeded our expectations with big portions, variety, and quality. The café was internationally themed with postcards, stamps, maps, and the like. There was even a station where you could write a postcard to your future self, address it, and leave it in their "fly me to the future" mailboxes for them to send back to you at an undetermined time in the future. Pretty neat! We spent at least a couple hours lounging, eating and chatting that Christmas morning and though it wasn't Christmas-y per-se, it was festive in its own right, and, exactly what we needed.

 

Once we worked up the courage to go back outside, we were pleasantly surprised that it had warmed up to about 10 degrees (celcius of course) and was beautifully sunny. We decided to take a stroll up the hill to a park that boasted the Busan Tower, a sky-needle type tower where visitors can ride the elevator up for a view of the entire city. We knew that Busan was big, but it was still a surprise to see the expanse of the city stretching out in all directions. Afterwards, we wandered the rest of the park, enjoying the traditional buildings and paintings. Beautiful, isn't it?

 



And that was the extent of our Christmas venture. We had an absolute blast, but needless to say, we will be utterly boring till the winter vacation we've planned for mid-Jan. Next week I'll fill you in on the complexity of the new years holiday here in Korea, and elaborate on Korean-age as well (no, it's not the same as counting the years since you were born). Happy 2017, everyone!
-K