Jeonju Traditional Village Tour

After writing this journal entry the first time, I tried to post it on this site but my erratic Internet service was temporarily “unavailable” thus, everything was lost. Here goes my second attempt.

Last weekend my wife and I went on a tour of the traditional Korean village in Jeonju with around 100 international students from the university. I was happy to see that many of the Chinese students in my Korean language class were there so at least I knew a few people.

First we went to the palace grounds…from what information I gathered it was the location of the provincial government in the 1500s. There wasn’t much to see there so we were quickly taken to the traditional wine making shop. On the way there a reporter/photographer from the university newspaper picked my wife and I and another couple out of the crowd as he wanted some people to photograph in the traditional village. He took us to a traditional paper maker who was very patient with the photographer as we all huddled around him posing for a picture. I should correct that and say that we all were very patient with him. He told us to look surprised for the picture. Although paper making is interesting, there’s nothing surprising about it. Unfortunately the photographer wasn’t happy with our faces in the first 5 or so pictures so he made us pose again (and look more surprised this time) and he took another half dozen pictures. The paper maker meanwhile ruined one of his sheets of paper while putting up with us and the rest of us were falling further behind the tour group. Finally the photographer was happy with the pictures and let us go. On Monday one of my classmates in my Korean class gave me a copy of the newspaper. I was the only one in the group who actually had a surprised look on my face. A few of my classmates had a good laugh at me. I wanted to explain to them about the persistent, pose happy photographer but my classmates are Chinese so they didn’t understand me fully. I just hope everyone who reads the university newspaper doesn’t think that Canadians find paper making as shocking as my facial expression suggests.

After that annoying episode we went to learn about traditional wine making. I think we missed some explanations of the wine making process as by the time we got there it was already wine sampling time. They had 2 different kinds, both made from rice – one which was milky and tasted grainy, the other which was stronger and clear. From what I understood from the woman who ladled out the wine the milky wine is from the bottom of the barrel and the clear is from the top. Neither was something I would be terribly interested in drinking. I think the Koreans also think it tastes bad as they gave us snacks which apparently make the wine taste better.

Most of our day was spent waiting for things to happen so we were thinking of leaving early (the whole tour was around 9 hours) but my wife wanted to participate in the traditional cloth dying part of the tour so we stayed for that. We dyed handkerchiefs orange (that’s the color of the mud they use to dye) which was a lot of fun. We took our handkerchiefs and put them in tubs of orange muddy water for about 5 minutes, then rinsed them off in the nearby river. My wife tied hers with 2 knots so when she rinsed off the mud and untied it, there were 2 white lines across it. Everyone was envious of her as the rest of us just had orange cloths but hers was different. About a dozen people came up to her later to ask her how she did it.

After the dying we were going to go home but they were serving dinner which was free so we thought we’d stick around for that too. Unfortunately we had to wait for an hour before the time of our reservations. I was disappointed to find out that dinner was raw crab (although my wife loves it). There were so many side dishes that I was able to fill up on other stuff but I noticed that most of the international students weren’t keen on the crab either so I didn’t feel so bad.

After another period of waiting we watched several university students play traditional instruments and sing traditional songs. The last performance was 15 minutes long which I thought was long enough but traditionally the song (which tells a long story) is 6 hours long. We ended up staying until the end of the tour, ate some cooked but cold sweet potatoes (a traditional treat) and packed into the bus to go home. I’m not sure if I’d go on that tour again but it was interesting to do once.

On to another topic, I’ve been really keen on learning Korean lately. I feel like I’m beginning to understand Korean conversations more and it’s exciting to think that I could actually hold a conversation sometime. Unfortunately the more I learn the more I realize how complex it really is.

My wife is busy studying for her mid-term exams now so I’ve been pretty bored most of the weekend while she studies. There’s not a lot I can do in a studio apartment that doesn’t get in her way or make noise so I’ve spent a good chunk of time in the PC bang (Internet café) in our building.