With no spring holiday to look forward to and no desire to give in to Japan's National Rip-off (golden week 400% increase in plane ticket prices), Vicky and I decided to go on a short holiday to Seoul in South Korea, a mere hour in the air from Hiroshima airport. Now, in this new life of mine, holiday does not equal “a period of rest”. Closer to the truth would be “long days, late nights, sensory overdose and rushing from one spot to the next”. As with my weekends, I return from my holidays even more exhausted than I was at the start. Is this the live fast, die young thing I’ve been reading about? It’s the symptom of the problem that there just isn’t enough time on earth.
Now that I’ve justified that sleeping is waste of time, it’s time to reporto on Korea.
After 8-9 months in Japan, I can finally walk down a street and make out a word or two on posters, banners and advertisements. I can ask basic questions if I get lost, or if I don’t understand. It’s not quite swimming, but it’s definitely treading water.
Then I went to Korea, and I was back to square one.
Wait. Time out. Stop... the boat, Mr. Wonka. I need to retrace my steps. As I was walking down the empty stone roads in the Jongmyo Royal Shrine, I started mentally composing my blog entry. I only just now remembered that stroll of thought. So here goes.. it went something like this:
While I was living in Pretoria, I was completely fascinated with the outside of a certain fruit & veg shop, which soon became my favourite. The green glass panes were covered in strange scribbles which I thought of as alien hieroglyphs. It became my favorite alphabet to look at, and still is. Little did I know that, less that a year later, I’d be walking down the streets of the country that uses that alphabet, assaulted by its lines and circles, drowned in neon miscomprehension.
(Insert photo)
That’s how far I got. But really, the language is even more impenetrable than Japanese. Even if you have a Korean street name or local dish written out in roman letters.. your pronunciation is so far off, you just confuse them even more. Japanese also helped a bit, as we found out just after we booked into the hostel and the Russian owner could not speak a word of English or Korean, but managed alright in broken Japanese. In fact, the Japanese influence is visible everywhere. More than half of the kids in our hostel were from Japan, shopfronts had signs like ようこそいらっしゃいませ！ and taxis boasted 日本語O.K. It did make me feel a little bit more at home. Even with Japan being the major source of tourism and influence, there is still an underlying bitterness towards Japan, stemming from Japan’s annexation of Korea from 1910-1945, and the harsh rule that ensued. In fact, there are many fights still going on today, such as what the name of the sea between Japan and Korea should be, which country owns the Takeshima islands (or Dokdo Islands, according to S.Korea) and Japan refusing to extend warcrime compensation or apologies to the South Korean comfort women that were obviously scarred during the colonial rule. (Even today, they still protest once a week on front of the Japanese Embassy in S.K, but are skillfully ignored).
While I was living in Pretoria, I was completely fascinated with the outside of a certain fruit & veg shop, which soon became my favourite. The green glass panes were covered in strange scribbles which I thought of as alien hieroglyphs. It became my favorite alphabet to look at, and still is. Little did I know that, less that a year later, I’d be walking down the streets of the country that uses that alphabet, assaulted by its lines and circles, drowned in neon miscomprehension.
(Insert photo)
That’s how far I got. But really, the language is even more impenetrable than Japanese. Even if you have a Korean street name or local dish written out in roman letters.. your pronunciation is so far off, you just confuse them even more. Japanese also helped a bit, as we found out just after we booked into the hostel and the Russian owner could not speak a word of English or Korean, but managed alright in broken Japanese. In fact, the Japanese influence is visible everywhere. More than half of the kids in our hostel were from Japan, shopfronts had signs like ようこそいらっしゃいませ！ and taxis boasted 日本語O.K. It did make me feel a little bit more at home. Even with Japan being the major source of tourism and influence, there is still an underlying bitterness towards Japan, stemming from Japan’s annexation of Korea from 1910-1945, and the harsh rule that ensued. In fact, there are many fights still going on today, such as what the name of the sea between Japan and Korea should be, which country owns the Takeshima islands (or Dokdo Islands, according to S.Korea) and Japan refusing to extend warcrime compensation or apologies to the South Korean comfort women that were obviously scarred during the colonial rule. (Even today, they still protest once a week on front of the Japanese Embassy in S.K, but are skillfully ignored).
I’m digressing, but it was really interesting to see another thriving Asian country while having Japan as a reference. If you take fashion as an example, it was a breath of fresh air to not see bags adorned with stuffed animals, keitais without 1kg of dangly pink things, no cartoon characters on everything from trucks to tampons, to see boys dressed like boys (as opposed to the furry jackets and hairclips the Japanese androgenous sport). Who knows why Japan cannot grow up, and even adults are caught up in the “kawaii” (cute) culture. SK seems more mature, sensible and level-headed than Japan.In fact, if I have to sum up my impression of South Korea (wait, who am I kidding, I don’t know shit about South Korea. Spent 4 days in one city.) Okay, my impression of Seoul is.. an intelligent fusion of art and technology. This is dynamic Korea.
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