Paper Flowers
A few weeks ago, one of my younger students presented me with some flowers he’d made. The leaves were scented so it acts as an air freshener.
cute
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Snapping off in Seomun Market (서문시장)
It was Children’s Day and downtown would have simply been too crowded so I headed off to Daegu’s largest market, Seo -Mun (West Gate). It is enormous! The photos are dated April but were in fact taken on May 5th.
Ajummas eating lunch among dried fish
I found these extremely entertaining. Try explaining ‘tacky’ to a Korean!
an array of Kettles
Dried fish and ‘kim’ (김) – dried and toasted seaweed sheets
One of the alleys on the periphery of the market
a store owner who insisted on being photographed. The sheets of seaweed in the background are seen as beneficial for pregnant women.
a box of cinammon
dried ray fish
dried octopus
bags of bar snacks
rice cake
rice cake
and more rice cake…
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
A Feast of Spring
the impressive magnolia (목련)
spring in Daegu
against the sky
forsythia gone crazy (개나리)
cherry blossom
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
My World
Spring was in the air last weekend and in one of the small apartment ‘parks’ near my one room, people were sat in a large group chatting and eating snacks. Nearby, an little old lady was sat where she is everyday, with an assortment of vegetables. Two high school boys are about to pass her – you can just see the light gray colour of their trousers. On the side of the road you can see a stall selling oranges. On a Sunday this area is home to a number of market stalls one of which is under the dark blue tarpaulin near one of the school boys.
Spring is in the air
Within the photo below are three one rooms I have lived in during 2000-2001, 2003-2004 and 2008-2011. All of them are roughly along the center axis of the 3-4 story buildings. My current one room has a green roof and is just beyond (diagonally to the left), the bright yellow, 3 story stairwell. A small tower perched on top of a roof sits between the yellow stairwell and my building further in the distance. An area of 3-4 story buildings contains some small businesses and many one and two room type accommodations.
I live just to the left and diagonally of the small tower – a green topped, flat roof.
In the photo below, on the left and running into the distance, is a small street which on a Monday is occupied by a market. This street will contain large stalls with canopies while the small street behind it (to the right), is packed with little old ladies who at the most have a large umbrella. This is my favourite place to buy vegetables. Stalls will also throng the main road at the front of the photo. Slightly beyond the BYC sign, on the left, is my school with E-mart a little further. BYC is a strange shop selling underwear, pajamas and other clothes. It is a large shop with a lot of space and for years it has looked like it is going out of business. However, it is one of the only surviving business that was here back in 2000.
Ginkgo trees line the main road in the foreground shading it in the summer
Contained within 90% of the photo is most of my weekly life. There is large multi complex cinema, countless restaurants including sashimi and sushi restaurants, pizzerias and a seafood buffet. There are probably 10 coffee shops, a supermarket, 2 ophthalmic surgeons, a nerologist, a urologists, a womens clinic, around 5 opticians, 3 tailors, 2 launderettes and countless other businesses.
my entire world – apart from my favourite bathhouse
The photos were taken from one of my friends apartments and I have taken photos on numerous occasions from this location. At night the view is particularly colourful.
The view in summer and at night (2010)
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Pomegranate
Throughout 2010 I took regular photos of a pomegranate tree near my one-room. Boring! Perhaps, but in the UK I have never seen this tree growing except in my garden. I planted this from a seed I took from a fruit bought in a supermarket some 13 years ago. Although the bush has never fruited, it regularly flowers and I’m told that last summer it was covered in a magnificent display of red flowers.
May 3rd 2010
July 20th 2010
July 20th 2010
August 2010
September 2010
September 24th 2010
September 24th 2010
September 24th 2010
Though the fruits were red and shiny, when I picked one last year and tasted the fruit I immediately spat it back out. As delicious as they look, pomegranates growing on street corners tend to be horridly bitter despite their juicy appearance.
October 23rd 2010
My UK pomegranate, January 2010. (12 years of age)
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Street Vendors
One of the most common sights in Korea are the street vendors who peddle everything from snacks and vegetables, to meat, fish and bicycle repairs. There are many different kids of street vendors from the ones who travel around an area with a street market to people who pull up on the side of the road in small trucks from which goods are sold to the little old ladies who sit around towns with a selection of vegetables strewn on a sheet on the ground.
I’m a total sucker for the old ladies and will often stop to buy something though I’m told they’re not poor. Last week, I saw a woman from whom I regularly buy spinach, unload her groundsheet from the back of a new range rover-type vehicle, probably owned by her son, and then start laying out her cabbages and lettuces.
the crossroad by my school where the Monday Morning market meets E-Mart
the grandmas are always laughing and a bottle of makalli (rice wine) is usually in the background
in the hear of Monday Morning market
This side streets specializes in vegetables, curd, and beansprouts
Late summer
The market directly outside my school
garlic in the Sunday market, the surrounding air was tainted with it’s smell
The street market outside Lavender Sauna, near Dong-Daegu KTX Station
in the rural town of Gor-Yang
cabbages in a more abundant season – winter 2008
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
An Autumn morning in the Rose Garden (장미공원)
blaze of autumn
In Autumn, you can often kick or push a small tree and the leaves fall like snow. Last weekend I noticed several people , mostly couples, kicking trees and then getting all excited as they stood in the brief leaf storm. In England, the air to usually too damp for the leaves to turn crispy and English leaves, sodden, soggy and sloppy, are notorious for sabotaging our rail network. Indeed, in just a few days the trees in one road, golden yellow, have been blown barren by a bitter wind that bites your face. In my UK garden, the defoliation of summer’s leaves is a long and slow process and even late December some leaves will have avoided being blown off.
These photographs were taken on or around 18th of November, which is actually winter rather than autumn, when most of the trees still had leaves and they were at their most dramatic. Most were taken around 7.30 in the morning with a frost over the ground and light mist in the air.
autumn colours
Autumn across the rose garden
contrasts
while I took these photos, suneung was just about to begin
the chong-cha (정자) at the rose garden's center
it's easy to see why the hanja character for autumn, is a combination of tree and fire
another blaze
rose, high rise and mountain
in the background is the boys' high school where the suneung was about to start
rose and high rise
and then home
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
More Crappy Ingrish
Crappy Korean English is great especially when practiced by schools that specialize in teaching English as a foreign language.
Entertaining!
even better with a pint of Cass
one of my student’s shirts
Almost as good as my all time favourite, ‘Milky Boy’
Fantastic! Great advice… if you can actually decipher it
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Village Sentinels – Totems (장승)
a totem (장승) being carved
In more rural Korean areas totems, changseung (장승) often guard the passage to villages. Their design varies from simplistic to elaborate and encompass original and artistic designs as well as ones either explicitly ‘pornographic’ or with ‘pornographic’ elements. At other times they are humorous or simply bizarre. I am fascinated by the manner in which Korean wood is twisted and knotted by the landscape and weather and as I wrote previously, in (Penis Paradise), I see so much of the character of Korean people and their history embodied in wood. In the mountains one often sees the most interesting examples of contorted wood wood that almost seems to have been tortured.
a rather obvious example of ‘releasing’ the qualities inherent in the ‘raw’ material.
A few months ago, when I visited Palgongsan Park in Daegu, I bought a small carving which cost 10000 Won (£10), the nature of the wood is interesting; a section of branch or small stem which on one side, a burr (burl – US English) has caused to ‘explode’ in a fascinating manner. I’m indebted to a reader for identifying this feature and also drawing my attention to the fact it is highly weathered. The wood has been used to carve a totem-like face while the burl, now forming the back of the head, forces one to seek meaning in the combination. From another angle, a second, half face can be imagined.
resembles the face of a totem (chang-seung)
the back reveals some former ‘explosion’ caused by a burl
in profile
a further resemblance of a face
projects in the process
Several months ago, I was visiting Kayasan National Park when in the middle of nowhere, our minibus broke down. We pulled down a slip road next to a basic cheong-cha (정자), to await recovery.
a basic cheong-cha (정자), they harbor breezes and shelter you from the sun.
Stood in a row along the small road, warding away demons and evil, were a number of totems (jang-seung 장승) Totems guard the approaches to villages and scare away evil spirits and were, and in some cases still are worshiped (tutelary deities). Different parts of Korea have different totems and they are closely associated with shamanism.
Broken Down but even stuck in the mountains our mini-bus is picked up and repaired within 2 hours
with a kimchi pot on the head
angry
who’s your dentist?
I was the only one giving them any attention!
looking glum
another kimchi head
and every opportunity to carve a dick
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Kongrish!
'Homemade riceball and beef on the ricel.'
I don’t know if a term has already been coined or if indeed there is a name, for the blending of Konglish with bad English. I am going to call it ‘Kongrish’ and below are some of the examples I’ve collected. I wish I’d had a camera for some of the ‘classics,’ just to have substantiated their validity.
Kongrish Around Song-So, Daegu
‘Hair Deciener Shop’
‘Twin Twon Coffee Shop.’ I assume this is meant to read, ‘Twin Town.’
‘Shitty Pizza.’ This has to be one of my favourites!
There was also a boy in one of my classes who wore a t-shirt on which there was a large ‘20’ under which was written, ‘Sporty, Young and Milky.’
‘Kolon Sports’ – on a hakkwon bus.
‘I’ve got a loaf of strawberries’ – This was on scratch and sniff notebook.
‘Every morning of sun shine glowing warm shafts upon us’ – I wish something ‘sporty, young and milky’ would ‘shaft’ upon me some morning!
The following was from a packet of smoked salmon bought in E Mart:
‘Around June to September, in a something sun, 3-5 year old well-grown salmon that have brilliant gesture and swim through sea and river along the blue and dear coast of the Pacific Ocean have very good quality of flesh and taste so good and have got praised as food of low-calorie. More than one century salmon has got praise of epicures all over the world. Salmon taste from soft to strong with many nutrients and special pink colour flesh create fantastic mood and taste.’ Classic!
And though there’s no errors with this one, it appeals to my childish humour:
'Hotel Venus,' except 'Venus' is pronounced 'Penus--uh'. Also the name of a popular lingerie shop.
This one was taken this year
A bar, not too far from Lotte Cinema, Song-So. 'Skewer is a Speciality?'
This one is from Cheonan – just amusing!
A pork restaurant
Elwood 5566 
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