The strategy to Queen Munjeong’s Tomb / Courtesy of David Tizzard
By David A. Tizzard
Autumn in Korea is magical. You may even scent it coming, strolling the streets late at evening. Barbeque joints, hen homes, and all kinds of different cafes, bakeries, and locations promoting meals and booze lastly open their doorways and home windows, placing prospects out within the highway. Folks not run from constructing to constructing searching for both the candy solace of an air conditioner or the protection of an umbrella. Now, as an alternative, they dawdle. Loitering exterior, catching the breeze, and consuming lengthy into the evening. An area joke has it that it’s not simply the horses that get fats in autumn, it’s the individuals too. Love and mischief will be heard and seen all over the place. It seems like this can be a season when not solely are loads of infants made, the divorce depend and counselling charges in all probability soar up as properly.
The festive perspective is supplemented by an array of various public holidays, giving individuals the excuse to have another glass of beer, highball, or bottle of soju. Chuseok, Basis Day, Korean Language Day, and Armed Forces Day all seem inside just a few weeks of one another giving most of us six days off work. It doesn’t matter that few can now precisely recount the story of Tangun Grandfather nor clarify the charye ceremony that used to dominate households up and down the peninsula. The traditions, the myths and the tradition have disappeared, and we’re left with commodified replacements, encouraging us to spend huge quantities on fruit, spam, and journeys to Japan and Vietnam. But this substitution will not be frowned upon an excessive amount of as a result of we nonetheless get the time without work. Some have even instructed that holidays like Basis Day are nonetheless saved purely as a result of the climate is so good this time of 12 months.
The temperature fluctuates between heat and chilly, nevertheless it by no means hurts you want summer time or winter. The cries of “nomu teowo” fade away. The shrieks of “aigo chuwo” are but to be heard. The sky shines with a blue radiance and stark white clouds burst throughout the sky. These white clouds are a nod to historical past. As a result of because the buildings, the style, the expertise and the values has modified at lighting pace, the blue sky and the white clouds have been watching over this land for millennia.
The Colour White
Whereas you may think Korea to be a rustic of flashy colours and neon lights, conventional apparel and clothes on the peninsula was white. Hanboks didn’t at all times have the intense pinks and yellows that you just see strolling across the palaces immediately. The give attention to white made the Koreans distinct from their Asian neighbors. It gave them a way of id and togetherness. They have been the “baeguiminjok” (white-clothed individuals). An odd shade contemplating how simply it will need to have been stained or ruined in agricultural life.
Guests from Japan, China and America remarked on the locals’ propensity for sporting white although they usually differed of their speculations as to why Koreans did so. Some have instructed that the phrases “solar” and “white” have the identical etymology and thus sporting white was a mirrored image of Korean individuals’s love of the sky and of sunshine. Even the Koreans themselves sing the very fact, with the lyrics of the navy tune “Hwinallineun Taegeukgi” declaring that Korean persons are “The descendants of Tangun, clad in white.”
White was additionally the colour of the aristocracy, the Yangban. It was the colour of the eggs from which the kings have been born. Their pores and skin was then naturally far whiter as a result of they spent their time indoors, learning. The commoners and the slaves have been topic to the climate all 12 months spherical and have become a lot darker in complexion. Thus, there’s a sense of elitism to the love of whiteness. Sadly, all of this context will get misplaced on Insta and TikTok as individuals declare fashionable skin-whitening to be a type of racism seen via a completely ethnocentric lens of contemporary American racism and devoid of Korean historical past.
Taerung
With all this glorious climate and shade blanketing the nation, I took 41 college students out to the native Royal Gardens that home the tomb of Queen Munjeong of Joseon (1501-1565). A formidable girl with robust Buddhist beliefs in a Confucian society, she held affect over the nation for almost 20 years. A powerful feat and her resting place is testomony to that reality.
Only a minute’s stroll down the highway from our college it’s on the very outskirts of the capital metropolis. The strategy is lined with tall vertical bushes and never a comfort retailer, espresso store, or pub in sight. The shortage is intentional. And, except you might be paying consideration, you won’t understand it. You may usually discover a complete host of retailers all over the place round you in Seoul. Right here, you battle.
My Korean college students enter the gardens without cost. I pay for my worldwide college students as a result of I’m now properly used to this “distinctive scenario.” I had advised the attendants I used to be bringing 40-odd younger individuals in a few days however the sight of them arriving nonetheless brought on fairly a stir. Whereas we have been inside, there have been at most 5 different individuals. An enormous pure panorama, with clear grass, benches, and delightful structure to take a seat amongst…and no-one there.
Earlier than strolling to the Queen’s tomb, we appeared within the museum. A big desk had been laid out with a show of conventional meals lined up for ancestor worship, usually carried out throughout holidays. Round five-to-six of my college students stated they’d simply finished one thing comparable throughout Chuseok. Different Korean college students sidled as much as me quietly and requested me to elucidate it to them. They’d by no means seen this earlier than, they advised me, as a result of they’re Christian and their household doesn’t do this stuff. Have been anybody there, I’m positive it might have been fairly a putting sight to see a white man explaining Korean conventional tradition to younger Korean college students. Name it modernity, or one thing. The scenario was made much more pleasant when a world pupil stated, “We do a really comparable factor in India.” The Koreans checked out her amazed. “Actually?!” I laughed at them: “Asia’s a giant place, ?”
College students sitting amongst nature / Courtesy of David Tizzard
Nature
As soon as we had walked the gardens and I had defined the Buddhist and Taoist influences within the geomancy and structure, I gave my college students a easy task. I requested them to only sit down and calm down. Do nothing. Be current. Be with one another. Take pleasure in nature and, extra importantly, be a part of nature. It is a season the place the climate is inviting. It doesn’t burn or scold us. It doesn’t freeze our fingers and nose-hairs. As a substitute, it refreshes us. Reminds us we’re alive. And so, all of them sat there. With out telephones. Some choosing on the grass. Some trying on the clouds. Some by themselves, nonetheless a bit weirded out by the concept of being round individuals. Others have been chatting about Mac DeMarco’s first couple of albums.
It was a wierd feeling. Nearly as if we had been transported again to a time when Korean individuals wore white and lived amongst nature. Circadian rhythms and faith working in tandem. We had bonded underneath the blue sky and white clouds. We had realized that there’s extra to training than sociological theories and PPT-fueled lectures in stuffy lecture rooms.
I woke the following day to emails from college students saying that they’d by no means imagined college life may very well be about sitting in a park. They didn’t suppose it was doable that they might have Korean historical past and faith defined to them by a “white” man. However they have been completely satisfied they usually needed to do it once more. One even instructed we return and play “mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida” (pink mild, inexperienced mild) within the park subsequent week.
Subsequent week, nonetheless, we don’t have class as a result of it’s Armed Forces Day and one other nationwide vacation. Extra smells, consuming, and late evening revelry for the individuals of the nation. All of this makes you understand that Korea doesn’t must be so bballi-bballi (fast, fast). A minimum of not in autumn when the skies are excessive and the horses (however hopefully not the professors) are fats.
David A. Tizzard has a doctorate in Korean Research and lectures at Seoul Girls’s College and Hanyang College. He’s a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for almost 20 years. He’s additionally the host of the “Korea Deconstructed” podcast, which will be discovered on-line. He will be reached at datizzard@swu.ac.kr.
