You Can't Go Home Again

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend a very unique and rare show at the Yecheon Cultural center: a performance by a troupe of dissident North Koreans.  Though the show was hardly advertised (if at all, officially), I got word of it less than an hour before it began and was off to see what it was all about.

The entertainers had been a troupe in North Koreas capital, Pyongyang, before they escaped to South Korea.  While their details were vague on their past history or the story of their dissent it was very clear where they were from.  Their manner of speaking was immediately and obviously different.  While I'm not versed enough at Korean to pick out the nuanced variations in their inflection from the general South Korean dialect, the leader of the troupe's speech resonated with the sharp, almost militaristic tone of the North Korean state television news broadcasts picked up by our media sometimes.  This in itself seemed somewhat sad, as the woman opening the show was clearly anything but harsh and militaristic--it was simply the way she had learned to speak the language, at least before an audience, and it's left to mine and anyone else's imagination how she grew up and what kind of life she led.  The thing I was most aware of each time she was on stage, moreso than how she spoke, was that when she smiled it looked like she was about to cry--a tendency I haven't seen on any other Korean's face.  Thinking about it later I realized that when her mouth was pulled into a grin her eyes didn't go along with it, narrowing as they normally would, giving the curious impression of someone who is distraught but ordering themselves to smile anyway.  Whatever it was, I was starkly aware that in some intangible way her features bore her past all too well.  "If you leave during the show, I'll send you to the North Korea," she joked darkly in Korean before the first performance began, and chuckles rippled thoughout the crowd.

I didn't know what to expect from the show, and indeed I suspect few did, besides that there would be singing involved.  The first act was some of the members performing a song which I assume was called Pangapsumnida ("nice to meet you") as this word, repeated, constituted the chorus.  On an enormous projector screen behind the stage video played of elderly Koreans finally being reunited with family members they lost after the border was drawn between the North and South in the destitute days following the Korean war (a reunion organized years ago in a rare joint agreement between the North and South).  I hadn't expected  to get teary during the show but around the auditorium I sensed there were plenty more misty eyes, perhaps none more so than the most elderly members of the audience.

The night featured plenty more songs, some of them North Korean in origin, other ones oldies well known by the audience.  At one point the singer came down into the audience and let some old women sing a few of the lines of the song on the microphone while the crowd intoned the lyrics all around.  As the singer walked down the aisle, women gripped her hand firmly as if they didn't want to let her go.  It was in some way a moment of fascination for all, the first encounter with a North Korean (or at least a former one), but in they way people held and reached for the singers hand with elated smiles on their faces there was also an air of reunion--of a long lost sister and daughter finally returned to them.

Besides singing the snow included plenty of dancing and also a bit of a magic act.  One dance by the troupe's young women was done entirely with pots balanced on their heads, and another was a traditional Korean fan dance.  The entire show was throughly enjoyable and the crowd couldn't have been more receptive.  The time passed quickly and when it was over I found myself still ready to see more.  I wished that I could meet with the performers and talk long with them--there's so much I want to know about their lives and so many stories I wish I could hear them tell, but alas, it wasn't in the cards (and even if I could meet them, I'm nowhere near capable enough with my Korean.)  Of my many questions, I continue to wonder who they left behind in North Korea when they escaped.  Do they have friends there, or family?  Is the troupe a family unto itself, or were they the only friends each other really had?  I suppose I'll never really know, and in a way maybe it's best that I couldn't speak to them and bring such things up.  Returning to the North would almost certainly mean imprisonment or death (the first one quickly leading to the latter, I don't doubt), and without a way to contact those inside I imagine they've had to move on and reconcile whoever they did leave behind in a way that most of us can scarcely imagine; the only option left on the table when you can't go home again.

Kim Jong-Il is Dead; Can We Hope for Something Better?

North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-Il, died today, leaving everyone else unsure of exactly who is running the country at the moment.  Kim Jong-Il, who ruled with an iron fist over an isolated population brainwashed by an elaborate cult of personality, has left his youngest son, Kim Jong-un to succeed him.  While no one knows when exactly Kim Jong-un will take control of the country--or at the very least become a figure head for it's powerful military and propaganda engine--reports suggest that he's already been overseeing domestic affairs for some time now.  The question is this:  can South Korea, East Asia and the world expect something better in the future?
 
I'd like to think there's a glimmer of hope.  Kim Jong-un was educated abroad in Switzerland, which is neutral towards the North/South Korea conflict, at the International School of Berne (an English-language school).  This means that he has to at least have some idea of  the international community and has probably interacted plenty with many different nationalities.  Whether he's adopted an attitude and outlook on his country (and place in it) that is different from his father's remains to be seem.  Any hope I have rests mostly on the idea that he is ready to open North Korea to the world a bit, if only enough to feed the starving and destitute North Korean people whose lives and well being his father sacrificed mercilessly in favor of building nuclear weapons, fortifying his massive army, and providing disgustingly unjust luxury for himself and top elites in Pyongyang.  Perhaps Kim Jong-un has simply been biding his time until his father's death and he is open to the world to some extent.  If not, I suppose North Korea is only headed to more of the same: a starved and miserable future with a deluded population kept purposefully ignorant of the reality beyond their borders.  It's very possible, and unfortunately likely, that Kim Jong-un has been brainwashed beyond repair, in which case his father's inhumanity will live on in him.

Only time will tell.

Flowing With Yecheon

Yecheon is the name of my town, which translates into English as sweet water.  Apparently it's long been known for its clean wells, though my students tell me that the river running through it, the han-cheon, shouldn't be fished anymore as it's "dirty" (people still do it anyway).  In fact, just several minutes walk from my apartment there's what is considered the signature old well in the town, sitting rather inconspicuously just off the street.
   
After nine months here Yecheon is now a true home.  I can't say that impression came to me during my first weekend here.  I arrived in the town after being in Korea only a week and was dropped off at a temporary flat that had belonged to the previous foreign teacher, where I would stay for a few days while my new currently-being-finished apartment was ready to move into.  I was left to explore the town freely for the next few days before my upcoming first day on the job.  At that time I naturally had no idea where anything was (except for a big yellow building I had been told was the grocery store).  I ate some of the food left in the cupboard by the previous tenant and then ventured out to explore, mentally mapping my route of wander carefully in order to make it back to the black iron gate that was the only identification of my building's entrance.  The first thing that struck me was the oldness of the place.  I don't mean this in an ancient sense, I mean it in the sense that everyone on the streets seemed late middle aged to elderly.  Old women (adjumma) squatted on the sidewalk beside baskets and trays of vegetables, fruit and fish.  Old folks hobbled slowly up the street in front of me and towards me.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was on the main street of the town.  It was awash with spring sunlight and on that first stroll everything appeared monochrome and washed out with that sunlight.  The color was all there, I just wasn't seeing it yet.  I wasn't really looking at buildings, just the road and sidewalk, feeling stared at and trying not to trip over or crash into anyone's stalls, boxes or baskets.  I wasn't used to such narrow or narrowed sidewalks.  In front of some building aquariums sat out in full view, displaying their close quartered eels and fish for the world to see.  I couldn't read hangul (the Korean alphabet) yet, and I saw absolutely no English written anywhere on that foray.  Eventually I wound my way back to the grocery store I had been shown earlier.  Here the hangul struck again.  Any time you go to a new grocery store you need to orient yourself to its particular lay out.  In a foreign country, with foreign foods packaged in unfamiliar containers without any English on them this becomes a bit more daunting (fortunately hangul is extremely easy to learn).

Ode to an Old Friend

We've been together quite a while, bud.  I remember the first day you came into my life, and I began to learn how it was you saw the world.  You've been with me on so many adventures, and even when other's have come and gone you've stayed at my side.  You've tagged along to parties even though I knew you might be bored.  We went across the pacific together and you showed me how much our relationship meant to you.  We wandered the streets of Tokyo and a dozen other cities.  You came with me into the heart of Osorezan, and stayed close to me in the mists of Mount Fuji--you didn't shy away even when I thought the clouds beating upon you like billowing wet blankets might finally do you in.  We hiked the Great Wall of China and you looked down fearlessly into the valleys; we walked across Tiananmen square and into the Forbidden City.  You remember the faces of my friends so well that with your help I never have to forget a single detail of their features.  Because of you I won't forget how beautiful a sunset looks over the yard in Nova Scotia.  You accompanied me to Korea, and came out and about with me on that very first week, and even as other people's companions started to look faster, smoother and sharper than you, I knew there was no way I would give you up without due respect and a proper farewell.

This is that farewell.  No, not so much a farewell as an I'll see you around.  I'll keep you close by, but the fact is that we've just aged differently and you're getting a bit old for this.  In truth, I don't think you enjoy it as much as before either.  It's all just part of life, my dear friend, and I know it's time to give you a rest.  My new pal isn't anything special yet, just newer.  He has a rechargeable battery instead of eating double As.  He's got more megapixels (not that it really matters).  These things happen with the passage of time, and it's nothing to mourn about.  We're both just moving on.  Thanks for everything, my dedicated buddy, I wouldn't trade the time we had for anything; the memories will last forever.

Korea: 8 Months In

Today marks my eighth month in Korea, so to acknowledge the this event I'm putting some pictures up here.  To say that I've been lazy and forgetful in terms of photos would be a vast understatement.  Not only do I forget to bring my camera (conveniently placed on a shelf by my door) everywhere, I also often tell myself that there won't be any point lugging it along for particular trips on the assumption that there won't be anything overly photo-worthy.  This assumption proves wrong again and again.  How many mountain hikes I've forgotten to take it on as I dash out the door in the morning to meet my ride, and subsequently how many breathtaking vistas I don't have any photo evidence of, I don't even know anymore (but I also forgot water once, so this ineptitude isn't limited to the camera).  Here are some choice shots that I like anyway.

See-sawing near the temple grounds.

Up to Speed

If you’ve been reading any of the posts previous to this one, I’ll inform you here that although they were written during my years in Japan (save for The Haunted Islands), they’ve all been pre-dated to their appropriate times of completion upon uploading to my blog, which was only established recently this year.  As lengthy as some of them were, I consider them to, for the most part, be somewhat shallow representations of my time in the country as they are concerned mostly with periods of travelling rather than with people, my work, everyday life, etc .  Be that as it may, I felt they remained fitting documents to form a sort of foundation for this blog, effectively bring me up to speed to where I am now.

The Haunted Islands

Japan has a long, delightfully shivery history of hauntings and ghost stories.  Many of these ghosts can be encompassed under the umbrella term obake (お化け), but come in all manner of disposition, from the troubled apparitions, the yuurei (幽霊) to the projected spirit called ikiryo (生霊), in which a severely jealous or angry individual's soul is able to leave the body and haunt the object of that persons suffering (this was popularized in the The Tale of Genji).  The world of Japanese ghosts is rather complex, with many different types and tendencies, so I won't elaborate any further on classifications.  Rather I'd like to share a few tales.

I love a good ghost story, and would often ask Japanese if they had any to tell.  Japan has it's own mix of believers and non-believers are far as ghosts go, but I found that with descriptions of truly strange phenomena, most people didn't seem intent on quickly explaining it away with what it could have been.  For example, one of my adult students who's family owns a hotel (and was therefore well experienced in the general inside nature of hotel management) informed me once that sometimes rooms that have some sort of bad history, for example a suicide, later are reported to experience certain, shall we say, disturbances.  To counteract this, a sort of charm consisting of holy Shinto writings (or Buddhist), can be placed somewhere obscure, commonly behind a picture frame.  She told me that if I ever saw a picture frame sticking out a bit from the wall of my hotel room I should look behind it.  I don't know if I'm a firm believer in ghosts, or even a believer at all, but I can safely say I'd either be getting a new room or not sleeping well that night.

There's no shortage of creepy stories passed around .  There's the couple that couldn't find a parking spot for the event at their child's elementary school one winter evening, forcing them to find one further down the road near a children's cemetery.  When they came back from the event there were small hand prints in the snow all over the car, even on the the roof.

More than one school has its teacher who stayed late at the school, and apparently heard children crying, or laughing, or singing, or the sound of doors slamming in the bathrooms or upper floors late at night, but when they went to check there was of course no one there.

There's that patch of coastline where, at a certain time of the year (I seem to recall it was during obon, the week of the dead) you should never visit or go in the water, but one time someone went anyway to take a picture and there were hundreds of hands reaching out of the sea in the photo.

At any rate, a lack of doubt, even if temporary, at the very least makes a good tale even more enjoyable, and chilling, to listen to.  I had a few haunting experiences of my own in Japan which I can't explain.  I can either chalk these up to extreme coincidence (and on one account peculiar animal behavior), but I'm satisfied with leaving them as they are: mysteries.  Einstein once said that "the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious" and I have to say that in some situations I agree.  Whether you believe in apparitions or not, here are a few of my favorites, paraphrased, all shared with me as first hand accounts:

In Darkest Hour

When I heard that a large earthquake had struck off the coast of Japan on Friday, March 11th, I began furiously searching for updates online. The earliest estimate of a death toll confirmed that afternoon stated that 32 people had been killed. I wrote home that it appeared damage was fairly minimal despite word that a massive tsunami had struck the north east coast of the highly populated northeast coast of Honshu. Since then the news has continued to roll in, with crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima in addition to the homes and lives swept away by a black ocean. By now the death toll has reached 18,000.

While teaching in Shizuoka I began a weekly journal with an adult student who soon became a good friend of mine. One week, on a sad anniversary, she wrote to me about a former friend of hers who had died saving a child in the ocean a year earlier. “I think the sea has mysterious power,” she wrote. It was probably because of this, more than any other, that a peculiar chill ran through me as I saw the first footage of the churned ocean water spilling over the sea walls, crashing through villages and into the city of Sendai, casting ships into bridges and buildings like bath toys. The sea, instead of waiting for victims to come to it—as my fictional heroine had done—had instead come to the Japanese people, bringing death and destruction in a crushing surge of water that has changed millions of lives, if not ended them.

There is a word in Japanese, shouganai, that is used similarly to 'c’est la vie' for English and French speakers. Or, more bluntly, 'that’s life.' The word undoubtedly originates from a history full of natural disasters beyond the control of man, namely earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and typhoons. It points to another aspect of the Japan though, besides the tragedy it has at times endured as a result of sitting on the ring of fire (typhoons notwithstanding): its people’s ability to keep moving and get on with living in spite of any hardship. Anyone with a moderate idea of history knows that this is far from the first time Japan has been devastated. Besides a geologic parade of furious earthquakes that have killed hundreds of thousands in modern history, Japan was also burned to the ground, as it were, during the second world war: her major cities carpet bombed into scorched ruins and twisted metal, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all but ashes and rubble, a lifetime of radiation poisoning for survivors and a swath of mutation or illness for the succeeding generation. It took me a long time to realize that shouganai isn’t always as simple as c’est la vie though: it can be a quiet word of defiance as one pushes on in the face of ruin and hardship, muttered under the breath in a time of incredibly stacked odds.

I am fortunate enough that none of my friends and former students were hurt or killed during the disaster, and that engineers risked, and are risking, their lives and health in order to avert a nuclear meltdown and keep them safe. I am fortunate that I’m still receiving emails from former students excited about beginning university next month, or elated that they passed their high school entrance exams—young people who refuse to let tragedy get the best of them. There is a common thread, however, that runs through the messages coming out of Japan: thankfulness for being okay, and believing that at this time all that can be done to help those less fortunate must be done. If that means donation, it’s a donation, if that means prayers, its prayers. This doesn’t mean that Japan will fall to its knees and clasp its hands together for weeks in immobile mourning though, because it’s a place where things get done. Japan doesn’t stop for anything, and it doesn’t look back into the abyss. It may grind down, perhaps so slow that it appears to come to a halt, but it is always moving, and it is moving because its people know that no one person makes it on their own, not when it all comes down to it.

Japan’s past shaped it to be the place it is today, just like any other nation. For centuries, as civilization continued on the coastal plains and fertile valleys between the mountains, the line between life and starvation was more or less defined by community and the harmony in its dynamics. Villages cooperated as wholes to harvest rice and vegetables—which in most places constituted the bulk of the diet--made clothes and built homes against the cold. Most civilizations had this interdependency amongst its members throughout most of history, the difference here being that when Japan screamed into the latter half the 20th century with the rest of the industrialized world, its citizens didn’t completely flip the game board off the table in the name of personal success at all costs. There’s still an underlying commitment to the nation as a whole and to each other, backed by a deep sense of honor, that trumps actions that would upset social harmony. Children are taught from a young age that, quite simply, everyone’s needs and wants are equivalent to their own. We probably don’t realize the problems that come attached to certain Western ways of thinking until it’s too late, as we can see with the looting, pillaging, violence, rage and finger pointing that erupts in the wake of natural disasters in some other parts of the world. During my time teaching, even as I conveyed many of my own cultural values to students and friends, I was much more starkly aware of what the West could stand to learn from Japan. To look at it one way: Japan has westernized a great deal over the last 70 years, partly in a materialistic sense and partly in culture, but this has been a one way road.

Over the last twelve days I’ve watched as a nation comes together to get through a horrendous natural disaster, displaying the very best of who they are through altruism, kindness and dedication to one another, and I wonder if we still don’t all have something to learn, not necessarily only from Japan, but from some other countries in this part of the world as well. Certainly Japan has its own problems and injustices, but like many other countries this doesn't remove the fact that it might have something very real and very valuable to share with the world that surrounds this once very isolated and still indelibly unique island in the sea. At the same time, I’m hardly surprised at what I’ve seen—I didn’t doubt for a moment how these people, who I’ve come to care about very much over the last few years, would act in the face of tragedy. This is why I know that no matter how many billions of dollars in debt Japan has been cast, no matter how much grief has been brought on by lost lives and homes, and no matter what happens after this, they will rebuild and move on, because the Japanese people will never let themselves drift off into the darkness like that. Sometimes the dark is shouganai—you keep moving, back towards the light.

The first report after the quake I read was that at the moment it struck Tokyo, passengers on a subway train all took each other’s hands. In that moment they had no idea what would happen next—perhaps that was the very end; perhaps the power would snap out and the tunnel collapse. It made me think of a part in Stephen King’s novel The Dome. Near the end of the story a wall of fire sweeps downward towards a mass of villagers trapped behind the barrier of an inescapable prison. A soldier, safe on the other side, reports that in the instant before the fire was upon them, he saw that they had turned to face it together and were holding hands. It reminded me of something that had come to me often and that I still hold true in my thoughts: when the lights go out in Tokyo, and the world—in darkest hour—I hope I might be somewhere in Japan. 

Sometimes I wish we could all be