Happy Seollal (Lunar New Year)!

Happy Seollal! I spent the weekend with my friend Catherine, celebrating Seollal (Lunar New Year) with her family in Tongyeong (pop. 140,000), a small city by Korean standards on the southern coast of the country.

Here were are at the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul on Saturday morning. That's our bus behind us. Tongyeong or bust!It took us about 6 hours to get there. The traffic was pretty heavy because of the big holiday, but it kept moving the whole time. It was drizzly and foggy for most of the ride, so it was difficult to see the scenery.

Saturday evening, Catherine and I helped her mom cook food for the next day, and then her dad drove us all around the area. The whole time I was there, her parents couldn't remember my name, so they just called me "chin-gu" which means friend. That was fine with me. Here are Catherine and her mom and dad at one of the lookout points.Here's a panoramic view of the islands off the coast. Thanks, Ted, for fusing the images together for meCatherine's mom had been given a box of oranges as a Seollal gift, and she was very pleased with them, so she asked me to take a picture. These aren't just any oranges, though. They're special, huge oranges that are grown on Jeju Island, way off the southern tip of Korea. They sell for about $10 an orange. Her mom gave me one of them to take home with me. I plan to take it to school to share with Joy since I tend to get sick from eating oranges. I was really touched by the gift, though, and have to say it's the prettiest orange I've ever seen.Saturday night Catherine's dad wanted to talk to me because he'd never actually met a foreigner before. He doesn't speak any English, so Catherine had to interpret. He wanted to tell me all about Korean customs and politics. He seems to think that all Western cultures are pretty much the same, much like many Americans think that all Asian cultures are pretty much the same. I realized at that point that I was not only representing my family and community and country, but to this man, the entire Western world! That's a lot of responsibility.

Sunday was the actual New Year's Day. Catherine's parents got up early and set up a table in honor of their ancestors and bowed before it. Catherine and I were still asleep, but they left the table set up so I could see it and take some pictures. It was a really beautiful display of fresh and dried fruit, fish, rice, makoli (rice wine), and other food. We ate a wonderful breakfast of some of the food we had helped Catherine's mom prepare the night before--fish, rice, vegetables, and soup. Some of Catherine's aunts, uncles, and cousins showed up at the house. It was really funny to see their reactions when they noticed a foreigner in the house. Several of them actually did a double-take. Catherine's middle school aged cousin was the funniest. She looked at me, ran in another room, peeked her head around the door, said hi, giggled, and then disappeared again.

The men went to the ancestors' grave for a memorial, and the women stayed back at the house. We ate some more, cleaned up, ate, watched tv, ate, slept, ate, and then Catherine and I decided to go out for a walk. We ended up taking a walking tour of the whole city. The weather was beautiful, and it was a really enjoyable afternoon.

Our first stop was at the fish tanks by the harbor. Much of the country's fresh fish comes from the area around Tongyeong, and the city's economy depends largely on the fishing industry. Here, Catherine looks into one of the massive holding tanks for freshly caught fish.And here the fish looks back at us!Our next stop was Chungryeolsa, a shrine dedicated to Admiral Yi Soon-shin, a naval leader of the late 1500s. He is beloved and revered by Koreans for being victorious in all twenty-some-odd naval battles he commanded, including victories over the Japanese, and for the innovation of turtle ships (more on that topic later). Tongyeong is especially proud of Admiral Yi Soon-shin because several of the battles happened in that region.

Here we are on the grounds of the shrine. The trees behind us are special camellia trees that are over 300 years old.And here we are walking up the steps on the shrine grounds to the gated entrance to the shrine itself.
Here's the inside of the shrine.
Next we went to Saebyeong-gwan, which was the naval command center of Korea's southern provinces from 1597 to 1896. This particular structure was built in 1603 and last renovated in 1973.From Saebyeong-gwan, we continued our walking tour and passed this stone guardian figure. Guardian figures have been used in Korea for centuries to ward off disease and evil spirits from villages. I kinda see a resemblance between the two characters in this picture.Next we walked down to the harbor and saw a replica of the famed Korean turtle ship! Turtle ships were used from the 15th to 18th centuries and are credited for aiding Korean victory over the Japanese in sea battles. I'm all for turtle ships.Here's the head of the "turtle" with two seagulls sitting on its nose. (No one can tell me what kind of turtle it's supposed to be. If you ask me, it looks a little like the luck dragon from The Neverending Story.)
Inside the turtle ship is a statue of our dear friend, Admiral Yi Soon-shin. Here Catherine and I are doing our Admiral impressions.
And here we're trying on traditional naval hats inside the turtle ship.From the turtle ship, we walked along the harbor to Nammangsan Park. Here are the fishing boats along the way.Nammangsan Park is the hill in the background of this picture.From Nammangsan Park there was a beautiful view of the city, islands, and mountains. Here's a view of the harbor.This is another panorama that my friend Ted created from three separate photos that I took, including the harbor shot above. Thank you again, Ted!Finally we headed back to Catherine's parents' house for dinner, shown here. Notice the fish head soup. Yummy!After dinner we went out with some of Catherine's friends from middle and high school for drinks and more dinner. They were really fun but spoke about as much English as I speak Korean, so our conversations were limited. Catherine was a good interpreter, but mostly, I just listened to them speaking to each other in Korean. We boarded the bus this morning to return to Seoul. It was another 6 hour drive. The traffic was heavier than it was on Saturday but never completely stopped. I'm glad to be back to my apartment, but I'm also really thankful for the experience this weekend, for a glimpse into a Korean family's life during the holidays, for a tour of a new place, and for friends who have opened their lives to a stranger. I hope to be able to return the hospitality shown to me someday . . . or to pass it on.