The lkl korea Trip 2010

31. Namsa-ri Hanok Village (80%) (Rice dish, red bean ice and Hague conference)

Another lunchtime treat today. Sancheong is known for its rice, indeed I was told that the Blue House wouldn’t accept any other rice. This particular restaurant’s speciality is [ ]. Rice mixed with nuts and beans is brought in a sizzling stone bowl. There are the usual vegetable and meat side dishes. On finishing the rice, water is poured into the bowl and the charred grains scraped off the bottom for a tasty rice tea. It’s the sort of thing that would probably be regarded as frightfully bad manners in England, but it’s a way of making sure than not any of that precious rice is wasted.
The restaurant is a popular one, and in a private room on the side a large party of dignitaries from Seoul are tucking in to their own lunch.
Next on the agenda is a visit to the local hanok village. The village’s name is Namsa-ri. Unlike the folk village in Yongin, which is an artificial creation, this one is the genuine article. Not every building is in traditional style, but the gems that remain are worth a visit. We walk down a long alleyway, tall walls on either side preventing roving male eyes from seeing the timid womenfolk on the other side. Or maybe it’s the other way round, because we were told that the reason see-saws and swings were a popular diversion with young Joseon dynasty girls was so that they could propel themselves high enough to see over the walls and eye up the local boys.
At the end of the alley we come across the local yangban’s house. Its grounds are open to the public, but the house itself is still inhabited by a “real” person. To demonstrate its ongoing use, an exercise bike is on the veranda.
To the side of the male reception rooms is a door in the tall garden wall leading through to the women’s quarters. Open the door, and you see another tall wall. After all you don’t want casual passers-by to get a sneak peek of the ladies as you go through. In order to get through to the women’s quarters you need to go round a corner, having shut the door.
Although it’s early May, the sun is beating down fiercely. Korea’s famed four distinct seasons seem to be reducing to two: springs and autumns are getting shorter and shorter, and today it seems like summer already. The sun is bright, and the red azaleas are almost painful on the eye against the green of the grass. In another corner of the courtyard is the kitchen garden: one of the few places the wife and mother-in-law can easily talk and gossip about the husband of the house.
At the end of another passageway is the old village school, still in impressive condition. One of the rooms is available for rent, for families to sleep in overnight. Why would they want to do that? Namsan-ri, like Sancheong more generally, is full of ki energy from the earth, and the energy seems to be strongest in this school building. Once again, our guide demonstrated the power of ki. Yoseph was asked to make the “O” with his thumb and index finger, and Mr Min tried to break the “O” before and after Yoseph placed his hands on the wall of the building to absorb some of the energy. Yoseph didn’t look convinced, but Mr Min carried on regardless. “You see? And that’s why people sit on the floor in Korea. It’s to absorb the ki energy from the earth.” And there was me thinking it was to get the warmth from the toasty warm ondol system…
And there’s more to be said of Namsa-ri, a tiny hamlet, in the small county of Sancheong. It has produced three national assemblymen. Admiral Yi Sun-shin stayed there on his way to giving the invading Japanese another bloody nose with his famous turtle ships. And it was in Namsa-ri that a secret plot was hatched to send a Korean delegation to the Hague Peace conference in 1907. This was a big international conference designed to [ ]. Since 1905, Japan had governed Korea’s foreign policy as an interim stage towards full annexation in 1910. Nationalists saw the conference as an opportunity to protest about Japanese occupation of Korea and to proclaim independence. The problem was, as Korea didn’t have its own foreign policy they couldn’t send their own delegation. A secret proclamation was drafted on hanji, Korea’s famous indestructible mulberry paper. The paper was rolled up into rope, and a pair of sandals was woven out of the rope. And thus was the crucial document smuggled out of Korea to the Hague, to alert the international community to Japan’s aggression.
Sancheong is truly a place in which legends are made.
The Korean delegation to the conference were unsuccessful in getting their message fully heard, but represented a brave manifestation of nationalist resistance to Japan.

After such heroic tales, a cup of tea was in order, and Namsa-ri has a perfect tea-shop, packed with curios for sale. We ordered a round of [P'at' Bing Soo ]: sweet red beans, fresh fruit, and a milky sauce piled on top of crushed ice. A perfect refresher for a hot day.

32. Song Chol (90%) (Further research on his life)

Song Chol Sunim is one of Korea’s most eminent Buddhists. When he died in 1993, he was so popular that he was named Man of the Year. But that was not the most remarkable story about his death. It is said that after his cremation, the mound of ash contained [28] crystals.
There is little available on his life in English: a one-page biography can be found on a general Buddhist website.
What is Buddhism all about? I confess to knowing very little. One night of temple stay, and browsing round a few exhibitions of Buddhist art, does not qualify as a proper introduction.
In Daewonsa, Neunghae Sunim, took a pleasingly laid back approach to the Buddhist life. “Don’t rush things” and “Enjoy yourself” seemed to be the most frequently heard injunction as I laboured painstakingly (though with an eye on the clock) over my sutra painting. I’m sure there was some more complex guidance she was trying to offer, but it either got lost in translation or I was so keen to latch on to the good news that Buddhism was all about chilling out that I couldn’t cope with any other new information.
My local guide Mr Min also tried to give me a crash course on just about everything Sancheong had to offer. The problem is, every topic seemed like a Mastermind Specialist Subject in its own right. Korea’s ancient herbal medicine; the history of the leftist partisan struggle, 1948-1963; the history of the Kaya kingdom; Elements of Buddhist philosophy; Ancient Korean geomantic theory and Taoist thought; the life and times of Song Chol; traditional Korean architectural practices and their connection with Confucian hierarchy. The list of topics was never-ending, and difficult enough to communicate to a novice even in the same language, but nigh-on impossible to convey to a foreigner. My interpreter Morgan certainly earned her keep during our stay in Sancheong, and every now and then needed to take a break, when her translation duties were assumed by Kyung-sook or Yoseph.
Throughout the two-day tour around the sights of Sancheong the one constant message that Mr Min tried to impress on me was that obsession and Buddhism did not go together. He was in despair at trying to convey the full story of the Seon master’s life, and the complexity of the Buddhist concepts that the reverent monk grappled with. So instead he told me some simple human interest stories about Master Song Chol’s life which indicated his devotion to achieving personal enlightenment. But to an unsophisticated lay person such as myself, it seemed that Master Song’s devotion to the Buddhist way, and his avoidance of the earthly life, bordered on that cardinal sin, Obsession. In a very holy way, of course.
Take his early decision to abandon his wife, six months pregnant with his daughter, to start following the Buddhist path and sever his ties to the past. Or his reluctance to meet his teenage daughter when she wanted to connect with the father that she had never set eyes on all her life. Or his reluctance to permit his mother to visit him: When his fellow monks remonstrated with him, he pointed out that some Chinese monk had done the same and had ended up becoming an even greater sage. On this point though his fellow monks finally persuaded Master Song to relent, and he duly carried his aged mother around the mountain on his back.
And how about this as a way of pruning your diary of unwanted meetings? Anyone who wanted to see him was told that they first had to prostrate themselves 3,000 times. The idea was that during the course of this intense Buddhist devotional exercise, they would figure out the answer to whatever problem they were going to ask Master Song about. I’m heartily in agreement that the lessons you learn for yourself are the ones that you learn best.
But Master Song’s pursuit of enlightenment, which involved sacrifice by himself and by those dear to him, and years of self-discipline, study and meditation, resulted in…. [ ]
My apologies to devout Buddhists who may be offended by my somewhat flippant treatment of one of the most prominent and admired of modern-day Korean Buddhist monks. I am only relaying what I was told on an all-too-brief visit, and in the absence of readily-available English biographical information about the great man, I look forward to being sent plenty of corrections so that I can pay proper respect to him next time I am in Sancheong, which I hope will be soon.
www.songchol.net

http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/master/priest_view.asp?cat_seq=10&priest_seq=6&page=1