And she’s off….!!

Yes I have mustered up my courage and settled on a two month break in the Land of Morning Calm. I finally booked my ticket and shall be going during the period of December and be back by mid February. Which does  mean I shall be indulging in a long holiday and have agreed conditions with my current work place.

Having gathered far more information than I had first acquired; I shall definitely be making 2nd trip more worthwhile and be making frequent visits to the KCC. I shall focus on the next coming weeks on the following features; Isabelle Bird, The Korean flag and its meaning; Korea the guides Lonely Planet Vs The Rough Guide.

 I have negleceted the updating part for a while, but I shall be back on track with the above features. So do come back to read more.

Korean Literature

I have documented all the books in my possession in Adventures of Countess in Corea. this week. Have a look. Although that blog diverted to talk about books it is mainly going to be about my adventures of Korea. Of course I have only been once. However I am due to go again and cannot contain my excitement. I am much more knowledgeable about this country than I was on my first visit and there are many things that I want to document and see this time around. I wonder if I can do it during my visit in the winter months. It will be quite cold when I go, but I aim to fit in a lot of travelling especially in the early part of my trip!

Cannot wait.

Books on shelf

The land of morning calm

Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 – 1941 poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, artist

I was overjoyed to find a poem about Korea written by India’s most beloved poet; Rabindranath Tagore. He began writing poetry at the age of eight and published his first collection at the tender age of 16 under a pseudonym.

Its my understanding that this poem came about on one of his many trips to Japan. He met a few Koreans there and promised to visit. However at this time it was not possible, so he wrote this poem instead. It was around 1929 I believe. 

         In the golden age of Asia

Korea was one of its lamp bearers

And that lamp is waiting

to be lighted once again

for the illumiation of the East

- Rabindranath Tagore

 

 

Another blog……

Greetings

I did mention in an earlier post that I had another blog, one that I would cease updating. It seems that the blog has been accepted onto the Korean Blog List.  So after carefully considering some design comments re both the sites, I have decided to keep both. The adventures of Countess in Corea will focus on exactly this, my adventures in the land of the morning calm. This blog shall be mostly about the Korean customs and cultures that I have come to know about.

This week, I shall focus on my adventure and  discovery of the Korean Cultural Centre situated at Trafalgar Sqauare. This is a fairly new place, having just opened in January ’08. A few of my Korean friends living here did not know of its existence until I pointed it out to them.   Of its opening, the ambassador, Dr. Cho, Yoon-Je, says

The Centre represents an opportunity to fuse the rich traditions and contemporary dynaism of Korean Culture into an events programme that we hope will delight and inform UK audiences. We look forward to sharing our cultural past and present in a spirit of gratitude and respect, celebrating our heritage and consolidating a strong and purposeful cultural relationship with Great Britain.

Thanks to the book Meeting Mr Kim by Jennifer Barclay, I only recently came to know of its existence as well. The address; Korean Cultural Centre Uk, Ground Floor, Grand Builings, 1 Northumberland Avenure, WC2N  5EJ. It has a library facility, reference only I am afraid where there are books in English on Korean culture, as well as in Korean. It even boosts translated works of famous Korean authors, which are hard to find in the UK. There is also a multimedia centre, where you can surf the internet and watch Korean films on Samsung TVs and DVD players. Also included; an art gallery, lecture hall, and a theatre cultural lounge. Phew!

I first went there on the 19th August 2008, to hear Lucien Browns lecture on Korean Honorifics. Lucien is a lecturer at SOAS university and is also leading the learners at the Korean classes at KCC! I learned about the classes much later when it had already begun! It was therefore too late to join the class.   It was a fascinating lecture by Lucien, who has a great pronunciation of the Korean language (well much better than I). Not that I am an expert just yet on the language! I visited again,  a few days  after to join the library and the very next day I decided to make use of the multimedia facility and watch the film April Snow.

April Snow

  Starring Bae Yong Joon and Son Ye-jin, its quite a tragic story where two individuals meet under difficult circumstances and develop an attraction and need for each other.  It has echoes of the US movie Random Hearts (1999). Yet it develops its own unique narrative. I was not overtly impressed by the story line, although it did fair much better abroad than Korea when it made its box office debut in 2005. It does have a certain tenderness with the two lead characters. I did wish that the lead characters would lash out in some way against their partners, but they acted quite respectful and dignified. Which I found deeply moving. I would give it an overall 6 star rating (out of ten) Am looking forward to going back and seeking out other films. No more do I have to trace the shelves of HMV or Zavvi looking for something other than Korean horror!

 

 

Welcome to my Korean Wonderland…

Hello fellow bloggers…..!
This is my first blog….. second blog!

I have one at bloggers.com. Though this is still up, I have removed the link! This website might just be a little more user friendly as it is laid out very similarly to a word document. So I will blog here for a while. To those of you new to my blog, this site will mainly be about

• My Journey to Korea
• My Love for the country
• subsequent adventures on the way

Many people have asked me what is my desire to visit such a place when so little is known about it. My fascination with the country started way back in 2001. I was working for company called Starbucks, and acquired a few good Korean friends then. I explored the country through their eyes and became more familiar with its customs when I lived with Koreans and was the only non Korean person in the flat share. This was in 2005. My love for the country flourished and I was hit by a bug that was inescapable… I had to visit. My visit to Korea came about in 2007 April, when I went to see my friend Eunjung in Busan. By this time I had became fascinated by this country. Especially in the following areas

• food
• culture
• language
• and the cinema

So much is known about Japan and China and Thailand to name but a few countries. But little about Korea.   When I walked into book shops expecting to see travel journals or books.. all I could find was a lonely planet guide at best. This still rings true.  Imagine my surprise though when recently browsing in my local books etc in Finchely, I stumbled across ‘Meeting Mr Kim; or how I went to Korea and learned to love Kimchi’ by Jennifer Barclay. (see cover below)

Cover of Mr Kim

 Its about Barclays’ journey to the land of Korea and documenting her 3 months worth of travel around the country. Its a fun and light hearted take on Korea. It certainly gives you a taster and insight into a country shrouded in mystery.  Barclay manages to recount her personal and wacky experiences and infuse it  with snippets of the history. Although there is hardly anything written on Busan; the city I became more acquainted with during my travel to Korea. So I was slightly disappointed.  A more serious and detailed history on the Country comes in the form of Simon Winchesters’s Korea; a walk through the land of miracles. Although slightly dated Winchester attempts to follow the route of members of the Sparrowhawk.

On 16 August 1653 the Dutch ship ” de Sperwer ” ( Sparrowhawk) shipwrecked off the coast of Chejudo. Only 36 sailors survived the tragedy. One of them was the Dutchman Hendrik Hamel from the city Gorinchem.Thirteen years later Hamel together with 7 other sailors managed to escape and finally returned to the Netherlands. Upon his return he wrote a journal about his stay in Korea which soon was translated into several languages. This journal was the first written document on Korea ever published in Europe, and it was also the first time the West learnt more about the Korean society and its culture. Hamel’s arrival also symbolizes the beginning of the Korea-Netherlands relations.  
Taken from http://www.hamelyear.com/home.php

I will write up a more extensive list on books available about Korea for purchase here in the UK; or though the wonderful world wide web that I have read and recommend. I shall also mention books that I have in my possession but have not read completely.

 Many people tend to go to various places to travel. I desire to return to Korea; not to teach English, but to travel around there for a few months and attempt to write my version and view of this country.

I think Alain De Botton tends to summarise it beautifully when he says

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and the struggle for survival.

Alain De Botton; the Art of Travel

We travel to explore to find out to perhaps make meaning of an otherwise senseless meaningless life. I want to  find out what more about this lesser known Country… and  continue to do so. This blog is an unfolding narrative about Korea and my discovery of it.

My main aim was to go to the land of the morning calm and live for a year and teach English, Unfortunately, I have hit a few snags along the way and although have decided against teaching in a public school or private for the time being (for reasons which I won’t document just yet) I will keep you posted of my intended journey where I aim to live for a few months and just travel around.

This so called journey should take place around December January time. Until then I shall keep you posted with various fascinating facts about Korea told in my own quirky style.

Toodles for now. (pic of me in Korea; Starbucks Seoul in Insadong)