Solal Weekend - February 2007

It has been an eternity, I know. I apologize. I would like to announce that I bought my first computer about a month ago and I’m extremely proud of myself. This is the first time I have been able to purchase something such as this with my own hard earned money. I have arrived! I am an adult! Yeehah!

So I write this on my new HP laptop and it is sweet. It took me a while to get down to the nitty gritty of writing this because I had a computer but no Microsoft Office which I have just recently acquired. Goodbye Notepad!

The subjects of interest this time around will give you an overload of cool stuff to digest. As most of you know, the Lunar New Year usually occurs around February of every year. My Korean students all looked at me quizzically when I asked them what they planned to do for the Chinese New Year. They didn’t know what I was talking about. You see how we Westerns are so ignorant in so many ways? What was I doing saying the "Chinese New Year"? It’s the Lunar New Year and yet in the west we merely associate it to China because we know more about their culture and Japan’s than any other culture in Asia. In Korea, it is called Solal and we got to have a four day weekend.

I hadn’t had any intellectual stimulation for a while at that point and decided to get my act together and do something different. I booked a tour for the DMZ (demilitarized zone) which separates North Korea from South Korea. It was a half-day tour instead of the full-day I had initially wanted, but interesting nonetheless.

To be honest, I had expected to get to the point where you see the South Korean and North Korean guards staring each other down. I was not able to get as close as that. We were actually fairly far away from North Korea and could only catch a glimpse of it in the distance. The experience here was not so much seeing North Korea, but rather all the lengths both governments go through to kind of keep you away from North Korea. I have thought somewhat seriously about visiting North Korea, under no illusions about how controlled the visit would be. I was naïve, however, about the DMZ trip. I thought that by being on the South Korean side things would be a bit more lax. I suppose that, in theory, this is true however things were so incredibly restricted that many times we were wondering what we could possibly take pictures of that would be compromising.

Let me breakdown the weekend for you. The holiday lasted from Friday the 16th of February to Monday the 19th of February included. On that Friday morning I had to wake up at 6:30 to get to the pick-up spot for my DMZ trip. We drove roughly an hour north of Seoul and stopped at an area where the Freedom Bridge is located. This is a bridge that used to be the only access road between North and South Korea. At the end of this bridge is a fence where Koreans and foreigners alike have posted notes of peace and love in light of the situation between the two sides of this divided nation. Under the bridge was a little park where people could sit. In the distance we could see that a family had set up a shrine to which they were praying. The tour guide mentioned that many families would come here to pray for displaced or missing family members from the Korean War. In addition, Solal is the period in the year when people honor the family members who have passed away. This holiday, along with Chuseok, is the most important in terms of family gatherings.

After the Freedom Bridge, we went to an area where we saw a video about the divided nation. It was so commercial and so ‘Western’ that I had no doubts the Americans had helped them develop the video. It was a bit on the cheesy side, to be honest. We then walked through an area where we could read about different situations that had occurred between the two Koreas, the conflicts and plots the North Korean government had to build and eventually attack and overtake South Korea through a series of tunnels. Four tunnels have been discovered up to today, the most recent having been discovered less than ten years ago. People have no idea how many other tunnels may exist. We had an opportunity to go down into one of the tunnels but we couldn’t take any pictures. You could see holes in the walls from dynamite which had been set off to create the tunnel. It was wet and cold down there and fairly interesting.

After the tunnel, we went to Dorasan, a mountain that overlooks North Korea. There was a beautiful view and we had a soldier give us a little presentation. We were not allowed to take pictures from inside, but could from the balcony. But, there is a catch. You could only take pictures from behind the yellow line. You guys, the yellow line was about 5 meters behind the edge of the balcony. It was a joke! The only thing you can see from there is the North Korean mountain range. It was so funny that I took a picture of the line so that you could get an idea how ridiculous it was. But again, that’s part of the experience.

After Dora Mountain, we went to Dora Station, the last train station in South Korea, which in theory should connect both parts of the country if and when they are ready to re-merge. The station is beautiful, but empty. It’s pretty useless for the moment. Over there is a picture of the former South Korean president and President Bush who are both inaugurating the station. I took a picture of that picture. Look closely at it, there is something odd in the picture. I look forward to getting news from you to see who has found the oddity.



The next day, I met up with one of the guys from the tour and one of the teachers from YBM and we went to see an awesome traditional sport: Ssirreum, Korean style wrestling. It was really interesting. An interesting and strange thing: the wrestling is separated into only two weight categories: under 100kgs and over 100kgs. So you ended up seeing someone who was 110kgs wrestling against someone who was 160kgs. That’s a huge difference! An interesting twist to Korean wrestling is that each player has a piece of twisted cloth that is wrapped around his waist and thigh. The opposing player can use only that twisted cloth to throw his opponent. This means that they cannot touch their opponent with their hands. They are required to hook their hands in the cloth and hold on to that and to use that grip to throw his opponent down. This is a very difficult system and it was really cool to watch. There was entertainment between each set where North Korean dancers performed for the audience. It was interesting to see and listen to traditional North Korean entertainment. There was a particular dance called the 4 Seasons where the women changed the colors of their clothes in front of our eyes! I know that there is an explanation to it all, but they would go behind a wall of girls and come back out in different colors. I don’t know how they managed.

At the end of the competition, the winner received some money and a traditional gift, a cow. In the past, cows were given to the winners. Normally the winner would ride on the cow but seeing as this was a calf, he couldn’t possibly do that. He was placed on a throne and was carried around by six high school boys who were very obviously suffering from the weight. It was pretty cute, actually. They were so out of it!

After the competition, Seung Hyon and I went to meet up with some of the other girls at Doksu Palace, another one of the oldest palaces located in Seoul, where we hung around. Afterwards, we went to have dinner in Itaewon (the foreign neighborhood), where we dined at a nice Thai restaurant. Some of them had never eaten Thai before. It was a success. After dinner, we went to Namsan Tower, the Korean equivalent of the CN Tower or the tower in Seattle. We took a cab up the mountain and it was all lit up. The lights were changing on the tower and it was absolutely beautiful. We watched the view from the top of this mountain and it was priceless.



All of Seoul was spread out before us and we could see the Han River weaving through the multi-colored lights. Afterwards we walked down to the spot where we were to take the cable car down the mountain and we walked by something quite fascinating. You know the smoke signal system from Lord of the Rings? Well, Korea had the same system in the past. They had a set of smoke signals spread throughout the country for the same reasons. I took a picture of the historical information about that. You can read it if you’d like.

So that was my Solal weekend! Enjoy the pictures on Kodak Gallery!