Gyeongju & Seoul

Hello,

During my last two weeks in Korea I tried to learn as much as possible about the history of the country. I visited the ancient capital of Gyeongju, which contains a 7th century observatory, an 8th century Shilla temple, a grotto housing a granite Buddha masterpiece and hundreds of Tumuli – large boob-shaped grass burial mounds. I learnt about the Japanese occupation of Korea up to World War II at the medieval Seodaemun prison and, most interestingly, I got to feel the full force of the Korean War at the De-Militarised Zone.

The 'DMZ' is the border between North and South Korea. Whoever named it obviously has a sense of irony, as it is the most heavily fortified border in the world. North and South Korean soldiers stand mere metres apart (both wearing shades and adopting 'ready-for-action' Taekwondo stances) and both face into the North – the Southern troops prepared for invasion and the Northern troops wary of deserters. Occasionally the Northerners turn around to have prolonged stare-offs with their Southern counterparts. There are also watchtowers just over the border where North Korean snipers carefully watch all South Korean tour groups, rifles at the ready. The whole situation felt like a strange mixture of the deadly serious and the comically theatrical. The ridiculous spreads from ground level, where the opposing guards often make faces at one another, to a political level, where there are fierce battles for supremacy; when the South built a sizable government building, the North eclipsed it by adding two storeys to their own; when the South put a large flagpole flying a gigantic flag just on the border, the North built the largest flagpole and flag in the world (the pole is 160m high and the flag weighs over 300kgs). Even the 'third tunnel' – dug by North Korea as an invasion point into the South in the 70s – was slightly silly. It could have let over 30,000 troops an hour across the border, and seriously affected the way the political map of the world appears today, but the fact that the North painted the tunnel black so that on discovery they could claim it was a 2km long disused coal mine makes it slightly absurd.

Alongside the history of this fascinating country, the modern life of everyday people is just as interesting. Unsurprisingly there are many significant cultural differences between Korea and the UK, but there are two examples of modern Korean life that appear particularly alien. The first is the concept of family. With very few exceptions, Koreans live with their parents until marriage. Family weddings also have to take place in descending order – so the eldest child must marry first, then the second eldest and so forth. However, this proves to be a big problem as the eldest is also expected to take in and care for his/her parents in old age, so is often undesirable to marry. And if they don’t marry, nor do their younger siblings. The second unusual tradition concerns age. When a child is born he/she is considered to be one year old. The argument for this is that the gestation period should be accounted for – though this doesn't explain why it is a year and not nine months. On top of this, although birthdays are celebrated people do not get a year older on this date – instead the entire population ages at the strike of midnight on New Year's Day. Consequently, a baby born today will be two years old within a week. This also means a Koreans have a dual age - one worked out by their system and one worked out by the Western system - and both are legally accurate. How many people in England wish they could legitimately claim to be eighteen at sixteen, or thirty-eight at forty?

A summary of my final two weeks in Korea. After I last posted I spent a few more days in Busan (including a night in a transvestite bar called 'Don’t Tell Mama'), two days in Gyeongju and six days in Seoul. I spent the first few in a youth hostel (before staying with couchsurfer John) and realised it was the first time I’d slept in a bed since Nagasaki. It was very refreshing to meet lots of fellow travelers – I went sightseeing with a Canadian woman, Christmas shopping with an Australian girl and ice-skating with a bloke from Scunthorpe. As a side note, my introduction to the Aussie wasn’t the classiest; she found me at 7am spread-eagled on the living room floor in nothing but a pair of pants (I had locked myself out of the dorm room). I also met some of the natives; Sojung, the girlfriend of Kenny (see post comments), who was very sweet and an associate of the Orange Guy – I told her to tell him I think his election campaign is awesome – and HyeWon, a girl who contacted me through couchsurfing. We got on really well and ended up spending three evenings together in art galleries, sheesha cafés and live Korean metal bars, where the metal-heads sit on hardback chairs and politely applaud each act. I was also introduced to the delights of Korean porridge and sweet potato tea...the main meal and beverage shared a similar consistency.

Oh, and then I flew to Egypt. But I'll tell you about that in a few days.

Happy holidays,
Joe x