Mixed Encounters of the Weird Kind

(Note: this post is several months old at the time I'm publishing it, but it's part of the history of living here, so I'm releasing it for viewing anyway) Now that I've been in Korea a little longer (3.75 months), some of the happyshinyjoy glow is wearing off a little. As I'm getting more comfortable with venturing out, I inevitably have more chances of encountering the less pleasant side of life here. That's not to say everything's horrible, but I'm seeing a more mixed collection of things. This weekend I had the opportunity to go to a little festival in the north Jeolla province. The festival was the Muju Firefly Festival.

While it's true that I have a reasonably high regard for the insects that inspired the eco-festival, I personally was more interested in the festival because of the name. I didn't really go into detail about my interest to my trip buddies, knowing it would be a long story and suspecting that if they knew I wanted to go because of a sci-fi/western TV show... well, I just didn't bother explaining. :)

On the first of two buses there, we were pretty excited about the trip! Since we had trouble finding each other in the massive Seoul subway stop known as "Express Bus Terminal," we ended up rather close to the wire in getting on our first bus. So the adrenaline was rushing. We had several Americans and several South Africans, all seven were ladies. Oh, and one small dog. Tension seemed to be building around us as we laughed together and tried to talk above the loud hum of expressway traffic. Finally, one of the passengers (a young/middle-aged Korean man) couldn't take it anymore; he turned, leaned around his seat, glared at some of the ladies in the back of the bus, and said with thinly veiled anger, "Excuse me. Be. Quiet. PLEASE!"

The entire bus (Koreans and foreigners) fell completely silent. We were all a little shocked. He hadn't been trying to sleep; I was almost in the row next to him and could see him. He was just really annoyed. The fact that we had held up the bus departure for 1-2 minutes as we waited for our whole group to pay for snacks at a convenience store probably hadn't helped our cause. So it was quiet the rest of the awkward ride to our midway point. Well, mostly quiet. One of the Korean gals near the back decided to passive-aggressively stick it to the man, and after his outburst she played her Latin-American music through her headphones as loud as she could, so she could be heard halfway up the bus. Heh.

Daejeon was our midway point, over an hour south of Seoul. We took a second express bus from there, again cutting it close to the departure since we didn't understand that at Dunkin Donuts we had to pick out our own bagels to be toasted (at the back of the line, of course), and they didn't understand "Fast, please! Don't toast it. No spread! No bake!" :) Oh, well. On this bus, the South Africans reverted to speaking in Afrikaans among themselves, and it turned out that there was a resident foreigner living in Muju on the bus--she happened to be from South Africa too! She, a sun-loving middle-aged lady, was thrilled to give us a tour of the main areas.

After giving us the basics, the lady bid us farewell and we were left to explore the Firefly festival as we saw fit. It was already early afternoon, and we didn't have a lot of time, so we first went into the main exhibition building to see the live fireflies that had been advertized. The building had all the posters from past years, graphic depictions of the firefly's life-cycle (in the sense that they were visual, and in the sense of showing fireflies mating), and a many-times enlarged firefly statue in the middle of the building. I posed by that, wearing my Firefly dinosaur shirt proudly. *wink* The fireflies themselves were in a pitch-black tunnel through part of the building. Problem was, because the sun was so bright outside, we were completely blind in the tunnel, stumbling and giggling our way through, completely missing the effect of the fireflies! Oh well...!

This building also had live, giant insects on display in open cages, so you could hold or touch them. The giant beetles were pretty cool. The teenage-looking, festival volunteer boy holding some of them seemed pretty fearless. We were also able to make our own pinwheels in this area. There wasn't much to see beyond that though, so we left and tried to figure out what to do next. As we were deliberating, a wrinkled ajosshi (middle-aged man) wandered up to us, and started pinching our arms (well, arm fat, really...). Very weird and uncomfortable. He finally walked away (while we stood sort of stunned), and we decided to split into two groups.

My group waited in line for some face-painting, though when I got to my turn finally (lots of children cut the line in front of me), I ended up getting a firefly on my arm. We watched a pinwheel display in a nearby garden and posed by some paper/mossy-looking statues of people in traditional clothes, large firefies, and of course giant, smiling vegetables. The festival had some small, automated carts for children to ride around in, pulled by giant, walking, mechanized, stuffed animals. Since it was hot, we got some ice cream (more like popsicles really) outside from a vendor. Wandering around the festival grounds brought us to an art center. Hoping to find some air conditioning and shelter from the heat, we ducked in, and found a beautiful photo gallery as well as a (maybe?) local artist who did exquisite sand paintings. He was present and demonstrating his art as part of the festival.

The artist smiled at us three foreigners as we came in, and set to work making another sample piece. He finished the art--a nature scene, and held it up, looking deliberately from one of us to the next and though evaluating, and giving it to the gal who had set up the trip who was SO excited about what he was doing. How cool! Then he set to work on another small picture, sort of halfway between abstract and a landscape. He looked us over again and handed that one to the other friend with our group, a pretty blonde. I sat and waited expectantly as he made a few more, but he pointedly ignored me. This went on for about 5-10 minutes, until the second gal pulled me away, whispering sympathetically, "Let's just go. You can have mine. He's being a jerk." I was crushed by his treatment, to say the least. Kinda put a damper on my whole day, being rejected by my appearance and temperament or whatever he disliked about me. I struggled to be cheerful in the next building, a wine and agricultural goods sampling and store building. The trip planner had moved ahead, and my other friend consoled me as best she could, mentioning that she'd been on the receiving end of it too before.

The rest of the day was sort of a blur since I was so discouraged. After the wine building, we came across a lottery-ball-style contest drawing. my friends both won bottles of wine, but alas, I caught the wrong color foam ball and didn't win anything but the onlooking Korean crowd's sympathy. I had even grabbed the right one (much larger) but second-guessed myself and let it go. Shame! At least it spared me from having to dance on-stage to collect my prize! A cheerful young man in a clown costume on stilts posed with us and followed us around a little. We did get to see a traditional-style dragon dance too, in which two dancers held giant dragon banners and did battle with them, acting out the dragons' lunges as the banners streamed far above. We found some small craft booths, and I purchased some herb-scented handmade glycerine soaps. We also passed row after row of traditional foods too, in an eating booth.

Another part of the festival grounds revealed carnival or county fair-like games like balloon pop with darts. The stuffed animals were cuter than ones I've won at comparable games in the States! Maybe they were just glad someone had paid to play their game! It wasn't crowded at that part at all. We meandered our way through more eating areas until the festival grounds opened up again on the main road, and we could walk alongside the river. The dalk galbi at a nearby food area smelled pretty good, so the trip leader went off to find the rest of our group and walk down by the river for taking pictures. We met up and shared both the food and some of the day's stories. Apparently my group got off easy only having the ajosshi grab our arms...

During our meal, a hobo-dressed clown (another ajosshi) was performing a comedy show onstage behind us. He was laughing at his jokes far more than his tired, elderly audience was. My back was to him, but apparently, he tried to catch our attention a few times.

Got a few good pictures at the river, but mostly it was a very odd sort of day. The return bus was a nice, relaxing trip though, on the KTX part of the way, I believe. That was my first time riding the KTX and oh my, what a nice way to travel! The train reached 298 kph at one point, and it was quiet and comfortable. I sat with people from the other group and got to know them a little better, swapping stories of the day and about our lives "back home."

The negative aspects of the day had really put me on edge though. It was hard to appreciate much about Korea that weekend, in spite of my efforts. What can I say? Homesickness is a reality here, and rural area citizens still don't quite know how to react to seeing a group of half a dozen foreigner women all together.

The next day, I sat glumly on my long subway ride into town, my mind running over the uncomfortable previous day again and again. I had missed my first bus by moments and was in a pretty bad mood. At least I had a seat on the subway though. I glanced up about halfway to church since I heard English as a couple walked into the metro car. It was a short, lanky white man with a shaved head, and a pretty, sensibly-dressed Korean lady. I did my best to avoid eye contact, coming to all sorts of judgmental and stereotype-based conclusions. A seat opened up across from me, and she motioned to him to sit.

Well, that's odd, I thought. He limped over and gratefully accepted the seat. A few stops more, and a seat on either side of me opened up. I scooted over and motioned to them to both sit. A side-long glance showed wedding bands. Interesting! I finally got up the guts to ask the wife, "Excuse me, US military?" She replied in the affirmative, and i struck up a conversation. Apparently, he had just finished a tour of duty a few weeks ago. They had married just about 6 weeks before he had been deployed in Afghanistan from Korea. They were finally reunited a few weeks before I met them, after being apart for over a year. It seemed pretty clear that his tour had included some fairly serious injuries, due to his limp, weakened constitution, and some scars that looked like they were caused by shrapnel. Moved by their story, I offered my hand to him and thanked him for his service to the US for the cause of freedon. He looked so happy by the mention and so shocked too, saying, "Wow, thanks for that. Huh! So many people hate that we're here." It's sad that servicemen (and women) get so little appreciation, really a tragedy after what they and their families sacrifice.

They got off a few stations later, but I think we were all three encouraged and edified by the positive encounter. I hope and pray the best for that young couple that has had such a trying start to their marriage already. The encounter made me realize that being in Korea isn't all bad. There are ways I can encourage others even if I'm feeling down myself, and missing the bus isn't always a bad thing, since I wouldn't have talked with them if I had caught my bus. Perspective is always a welcome thing, especially when it emphasizes the good in a situation too.

Not my greatest weekend in Korea, by any means, but it was redeemed at the end.

(End--several months-old posting)