July 10, 2011: Korea Day 4 - Deoksukoong, Namdaemun & Tongdaemun markets, MBC TV

July 10, 2011: Yang and I met for breakfast which we ate at a restaurant famous for its seolneungtang – spicy soup with beef strips:

Seolneungtang restaurant

Seolneungtang restaurant

After breakfast, we went to Namdaemun (Southgate) Market which had not changed much from when I had lived in Korea in the 70’s:

Namdaemun market alley

There were also a number of other buildings, old and new, that I enjoyed seeing:

Korean National Bank - where Korean money is printed

After that, we went to Cheong Kyeh Cheon, a stream that had been covered by cement and an elevated highway when I was living in Korea in the 70’s, but that the government opened up after tearing down the raised highway. They restored the stream to be a pleasant walkway for people to stroll by:

Cheong Kyeh Cheon

Following that, we traveled east to Dongdaemun (Eastgate) Market which was expanded significantly since I lived in Korea. It is now a huge area where clothing is sold 24/7.

One of the clothing stores near Tongdaemun Market

The national stadium that had been located near there was torn down and new construction is ongoing:

While in the area, we had some nice kimchi chigae (spicy kimchi soup) and then traveled to Deoksukoong (Deoksu Palace) where we visited the gardens and palace. On the way, I saw these children getting cool in the fountains:

While we were sitting at the Deoksu Palace, we heard a very haunting flute melody being played from somewhere within the palace. The sound was quite soothing, but for Yang, he was very affected by the sound since to him, it was very mournful. He commented over and over how sad the music sounded to him.

Deoksu Palace

Deoksu Palace

Deoksu Palace

Deoksu Palace

Art Museum at Deoksu Palace

Deoksu Palace

Deoksu Palace

King Sejong Statue at Deoksu Palace

After that Yang drove me to the MBC TV station where he works as a Deputy Managing Director and Senior Reporter. He showed me around the studio and took me to several sets where various programs are filmed. 

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC Television Studio

MBC's new Anchor Man

MBC's new cameraman

Then we went to see a program that was being taped. The program was a quiz show of teens who were trying to impress a jury to give them “money” to build a house. I suppose that individual team houses were being built by all the teams participating in the contest to see which team could build it first

MBC Studio program being filmed

MBC Studio program being filmed

MBC Studio program being filmed

After that, two of my former students and their wives joined us and we went to a very nice restaurant for dinner where we ate shabu shabu. Like Yang, these two students have done extremely well in their careers. One, Mr. Young Jun Kim is a retired branch manager of a bank and now works in real estate, and the other, Mr. An Ho Kim is currently the Planning and Coordination Division Director of the National Library of Korea. Before that he had worked high in the government and had been one of the planners of the World Cup competition when Korea and Japan were co-hosts. Also, at one time, he was on the staff for one of the former presidents of Korea. At any rate, our dinner together was a real jovial time and there was plenty of laughter – and drinking. 

We started out with beer, moved to mokali (rice wine), then to soju (a drink that’s like turpentine, or in Hungarian terms, palinka). Then, after dinner we adjourned to Yang’s house where he served us two very nice bottles of French red wine that he had saved for just such an occasion and this was followed by several glasses of Napoleon cognac (Yang had lived for six years in France so he had collected quite a few bottles of fine wines and brandies). And Yang’s wife served everything on their Herend china! 

Quite an evening it was. I can’t remember hearing so much boisterous laughter of adults having a good time together. As you can imagine, the two Mr. Kims were in no condition to be driving home so they made use of a new service that has become quite in demand in Korea – a hotline that one calls to send a driver to drive people home in their cars after a fine evening out on the town. This was done, and An Ho Kim and his wife dropped me off at my hotel on their way home. It really was a lot of fun meeting with these students. During the evening, they recalled many funny things we had done in the past

• Back in the 70’s, Korea still had a curfew of 11:00 p.m. meaning that anyone caught on the streets after that time would be arrested and thrown in jail. So, naturally the boys would come to my house around 10:55 p.m., say “Hi”, and then say, “Oh, look at the time! It’s 11:00 o’clock so I guess we’re going to have to spend the night here!” And then we would play cards and other games all night, sometimes ending at sunrise.
• Yang recalled one of the games we played which was Pass Out, a game that was popular when I went to undergraduate school. A player would advance on the board and if he/she landed on a pink elephant space, he/she would have to draw a card and read a tongue twister. If he/she made a mistake, then he/she would have to take a drink of beer and repeat this tongue twister until it was spoken correctly. I was particularly pleased when my students could read “Theophalous, the thistle sifter, sifted three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb. Three thousand thistles were sifted by Theophalous, the thistle sifter through the thick of this thumb” because the “th” sound is very difficult for Asian (and Hungarian students I have learned), to pronounce. (However, I never played this game with my Hungarian students since they’re underage for drinking.)
• Yang recalled how I had taught him and others how to make a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. He said that it was so delicious, that he continued to make them after I had left Korea and, in fact, he says that his kids love them as well and made them just the other day for lunch
• One summer I took a vacation to Seolak Mountain in the northeast of Korea. One of the interesting sites in this park is a huge several ton boulder called Heundelbaui. The interesting thing about this boulder is that it is balanced in a pocket of rocks and a single person can move the boulder! At any rate, after I had returned from my vacation, these boys came to my house to see how my vacation had been and I told them “I’ve done a terrible thing – I pushed Heundelbaui so hard that it rolled down the mountain and crushed some houses beneath it.” An Ho Kim, without much thought replied “Don’t worry. When I was there after you, I carried it back up the mountain and put it back.” No wonder he has progressed so far in his career with a mind like that!

Korean transportation: One of the most significant changes I saw between the Korea of the 70’s and the Korea on this visit is the transportation system. It truly is one that other countries, including my own, should emulate:

Buses: In the 70’s, I can recall getting on a bus and giving the bus girl coins to pay for the trip. Usually, people entering the bus would throw their money at the busgirl and often there were more coins on the floor of the bus than in the container she used to store them. The buses back then were often very crowded and hot. On the less crowded ones, salespeople would often come on the bus, pass out products they were trying to sell to the passengers, and give a speech about why they should buy this product. (In fact, I used this as a teaching opportunity by having my students prepare a speech that they would give if they were trying to sell something on the bus – you wouldn’t believe some of the speeches they gave – but that’s a topic for another blog that I probably should write about my teaching experiences in Korea back in the 70’s.) As for the buses of today, standing at the bus stop is an event in itself. At each bus stop stand, on the sign indicating the numbers of the buses stopping there, there’s a bar code. Yang used his mobile phone to scan this bar code and from that a screen came up which indicated which buses stop at the stop and the number of minutes that it would take for each of these buses to arrive at the stop. There was also an electronic poster at the stop with a video showing and a message on the video sign saying “Touch me”, so I touched the sign and immediately a video interactively started communicating with me asking me to select various options for it to tell me about. In addition, each bus has a very detailed map in both Korean and English indicating all the stops that the buses make as well as the connecting subway stops each of the bus stops meets. Stepping on a Korean bus was quite a pleasant event – the buses are all air-conditioned, a “must” in this weather. Once on the bus, there are all sorts of TVs displaying ads and shows. Then of course there’s a detailed electronic sign indicating the same information mentioned above as well as an indication telling the rider how soon the bus would arrive at the next stop. Oral announcements are also made at each stop and these announcements are spoken in Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese. Bus tokens are also very elaborate. Most riders have a special smart card that they use for the bus. This smart card has a chip in it that riders press against a receiver on the bus. The receiver then debits the cost of the bus ride directly from the rider’s bank account. When a rider dismounts the bus, he presses the smart card against one of two receivers near the exit door, one for a transfer to another bus which costs only 100 weon provided the rider gets on a bus that moves in the same direction as the bus he has dismounted (the computer can figure this out so don’t try to cheat it by returning in the direction from which you have come!); the other to complete the transaction with the bank account. The amount charged will be based on how far the passenger has traveled on the bus. These cards have a lot of data on them including personal information such as name, account numbers, bus stops used, times of mounting the bus and dismounting it, etc. This data enables the police to track down someone that they’re looking for since the cards relay data to the bank including time and place that a rider is on the bus. Sounds almost Orwellian.

Subways: Back in 1973 I can recall having to walk on planks covering construction work going on for the first subway. I can even remember riding on the first subway the day it went into operation. In those days there was only the one subway and I used it extensively. Now there are nine subways in Seoul and you wouldn’t believe the transformation that they’ve taken since the 70’s. For one thing, one can walk underground for kilometers where there are all sorts of shops selling anything you can imagine. These hallways are really the walkways that passengers must use to transfer from one subway to another and the distance can be long. The signs are very comprehensive giving all sorts of information on which exit steps to take (Sometimes there are as many as 12 exits for one station!) As for the stations, passengers must buy cards (like the Oyster cards sold on London subways) only these cards are obtained using a machine that tells you how much to pay depending on how far you wish to travel. 500 weon is added to the cost but that money is returned to the passenger when he leaves the station and inserts the card into a token return machine. The stops in the underground all have walls that prevent people from falling onto the tracks. When a train enters the subway stop, there are doors that open both in the wall and on the train to enable passengers to get on/off the train. As for signs and oral announcements on the train, they are as detailed as the ones that I described above on buses. On each subway car is a number identifying the car. If a passenger is feeling a bit warm or cold, he/she can call a telephone number and complain about the temperature on that car using the identification number and the heat or air conditioner will be turned on to correct the problem immediately. Also, when the subway is in motion, there is an outdoor movie projector flashing a movie on the walls of the subway so that a passenger can see an advertisement in lights flashing on the walls of the subway by looking out the window. How’s that for entertainment!

Korean Observations:

·         Respect: Koreans are very aware and respectful of their elders, peers, and others in general. Deep bows accompany every greeting or farewell between people. Many of my friends have mentioned to me that even the difference of one year in age (or one grade level) can make it socially compulsory for one to address the other as “Hyung nim” (older brother) as a sign of respect. And being older than another comes with other customs such as giving something to an older person with both hands instead of just one. In fact, one friend told me that the first thing done when two people are meeting is to establish who is older. As an example, this friend told me that at school, his son asked another boy in his class what age he was (this being asked even before he asked for the boy’s name) and when the question was reciprocated, his son answered so that he would be one year older than the first boy so that the other boy would have to address him as “hyung nim”. It eventually turned out that the other boy found out that his son was actually the same age as he was and the father had to deal with the lie his son had propagated. Another example – on the subway, a girl who stood near me accidentally stepped lightly on my shoe when the subway lurched and you would have thought that she had just slugged me in the stomach; she apologized profusely and even apologized to my Korean friend who was with me.