Oh, Dude.

Please, no.
(My opinion of the likely Mr. Rai's acting is a little higher than Thane's but not much.)

Fall Colors

The first four were taken from the windows of my apartment. The last is the 78 steps. These images (I think we had one earlier) are produced by taping pieces of paper to the fronts of the steps. Today's marriage proposal was a similar deal.

Holy Crap

More than 40,000 died in Russia after drinking fake vodka in 2005

Mawwiage

Someone is using the 78 steps to propose today.

Awwwwwww.

Party

The other day I came home to find a "PARTY FOR FOREIGNER" sign on my door. It promised "FOOD AND BEER!" and "AMUSING EVENTS!" So I went. I had met a couple of Germans over Chuseok, when all the Koreans were home and nearly everything was closed all the time, with the effect that the only people around were the foreigners and we all had to eat at the same time in the same place. Both their names start with B. Ba and Be I guess will do. I met Ba because he came up and asked me "Bist du den anderen Deutscher?" (mistakes mine) that is "are you the other German?" I replied "Nein. Ich bin Amerikaner," and he immediately switched into his perfect Aenglisch. So anyway, at the party for foreigner I sat with Ba, at a table which consisted of, the two of us, three other Germans, two Taiwanese, an Indian, a Pakistani, and a third fellow of South Asian extraction whose precise national origin I'm not sure of. (I had originally put "and three desis," but then learned that Some South Asians feel that Desi is a derogatory term.)

There were two games. The first was: stand in a circle everyone put their hands in the middle and form two links more or less at random. You will usually have thus produced one twisted up circle, though it's not impossible that there will be two or
more circles when everything is untangled. At any rate, the game is to untangle it,
without releasing hands.

Our table was terrible at that game. We were so bad, they let us go again at the end. With the do-over, we lost respectably.

The second game was a guessing game, a bit like the old gameshow "password." One person is seated in a chair with someone standing behind them holding up a card with a word on it. The other people from that table are trying to get them to say the word. Not all at once. Each other person has a turn.

We had a big advantage at that game and won convincingly. Actually, I felt a bit bad. The point is that since the game was played in English, a lot of the things one was supposed to try to guess were American pop culture. I was doing the guessing for my team and ripped through them all with ease. The only thing we didn't get was the first thing, where I thought they were trying to get me to say the name of the small convenience store on the ground floor of Jigok Community center and, since I didn't know the store's name, I made them pass it. Then it turned out that the answer was "convenience store." I think I was the only native English speaker, and in particular, the only American, in the room. I felt particularly bad for the table of middle-aged South Asian families (it's one thing to ask a 20 year old Indian to guess "Terminator" or "Hip Hop." Quite another to ask the same of a 40 year old Indian)
and the table of Southeast Asians. (Maybe they were all Vietnamese?) Still, what can you do? We decided that I would do the guessing before the implications of that decision became clear.

Anyway, we won POSTECH coffee mugs, beautifully wrapped in burberry wrapping paper.

Homigot Photos

The last is not actually from Homigot. It's from after we got back.

R.I.P.

The reason I have not been blogging lately is that last Saturday I received word of something which, on the one hand it doesn't seem right to just carry on like nothing happened, and on the other hand, nothing I can possibly say will seem appropriate. A friend I had in college, a very sweet guy who I unfortunately have not talked to in years, committed suicide. I don't know any more than that. One old friend left a message on another's machine, but did not leave a call-back number, and we don't have it between us. It's a terrible tragedy. He was very sweet, good hearted, and every time I have seen him up to and including the last time, so full of life. My thoughts are with his family.

I will leave this post up for 24 hours and resume regular posting tomorrow night or so.

Homigot

For those who did not click the link from before, Homigot is a point on the coast outside of Pohang which is the Easternmost point in Korea. People come on New Years eve to watch the sunrise. Two giant metal hands have been constructed. They look like they are raised to the sky in ritual sun-worship, or perhaps trying to catch a football. One is in the middle of the plaza with some flames iin glass boxes which I conjecture are sacred and/or eternal, and the other is a few yards offshore in the East Sea. The East Sea is known in most places as the Sea of Japan. This seems to be a little bit of a touchy subject. Actually, based on the way SH got started on Japan in the car, I was almost surprised that the big metal hand which is out in the East Sea has all four of its fingers raised, rather than just the one.

Anyway, it was a nice little trip, but nothing like Kyeongju. We basically drove out there, strolled around for maybe 15 minutes, took a few snaps, and then got in the car and drove back. Or rather J drove. I feel a bit bad about all the chauffeur detail he ends up pulling. Plus, the 15 minutes we weren't in the car he was obviously freezing his rear off. None of these guys seems to own a hat. I don't get it. On the way back we took the road along the coast which is beautiful and surprisingly well-fortified. Signs warning you about mines, barbed wire, machine-gun nests. I couldn't help speculating about whether there was really a point to all that. Right across the bay was Posco, a gigantic steelmaking plant which looks to me like the real strategic target if there is one. But the defenses are all on the reasonably uninhabited side of the bay. Posco is pretty impressive. It looks a bit like something out of Star Wars. And, of course, it also looks a lot like Gary, Indiana, except shiny and new and lit up and active.

More Campus Photos

I took these the day we went to KyeongJu (1 week ago today) when we got back.


Here we see the Korean approach to the crow.

View from my window these days.

I think I have some even better fall colors photos stuck on my camera, along with photos from today's trip to Homigot. But right now we're having battery issues. The ones I charged up before leaving the US are finally completely used up. I plugged my Lebanese charger into the wall overnight and got enough juice to take about two pictures with each pair of batteries.
It's plugged in again now. Hopefully I will at least be able to get the pictures off my camera. Actually, I'm kind of hoping my sometimes-temperamental battery will just decide it likes the batteries ok next time and act normal. If not, I'm not really concerned. There will be someplace to get batteries and a charger in town....

Final KyeongJu Post

I guess this is mostly Gyerim. Not in chronological order.

This first one is a Silla-era poem. The guys had to study it back in the day for University entrance exams. If you look closely you will see it's not in Hangul, but Chinese characters. To my family, I note that with the little feet I think it looks kind of like that egg sculpture by our old house.


This is as we're leaving. I doubt we were supposed to cut across the field with the burial mound in it but never mind.

"He's more machine than man now." Here we have one of the Darth Trees of Gyerim. It's more than half concrete and some of the wood is rotting... but some of it is still producing fresh green shoots. I have to assume that the reason they go to these elaborate lengths to preserve specific trees instead of just tending to forest ecology has to do with the mytho-historical significance.


When we got back to POSTECH the light was still pretty so I kept snapping away. And the leaves have been pretty ever since so I have lots more photos.

And tomorrow, Homigot.

Ohmigod!

We're going here tomorrow.

More KyeongJu

This post is a miscellany. First one is leaving Seokguram. (This is the same pagoda someone (posing as our late family pet) commented looked like it was flying.)

Next we have some burial mounds. One of them was excavated and is now a museum. It is called Cheon-ma tomb or sometimes Cheonmachong or Heavenly Horse Tomb. I didn't get any photos inside, but this guy did.

Next we have the Cheomseongdae, which is believed to be an old observatory. SH thought it looked more like a jail for political prisoners. I thought it looked like one of those glasses from the old 7Up "Uncola" commercials. (But did not attampt explain that bit of Americana to my companions.)

This one I'm not sure what it was, but it looks like an archaeological site to me. Anyway it was also a big open space with the mountains in the background.

This has a name. It is Gyerim. The legend is that a certain king of Silla was found in this forest, suspended from a tree in a golden box. A certain other king of Silla supposedly hatched from an egg.

Did I explain before that Silla is the name of the ancient kingdom that KyeongJu was the capital of? That might be necessary context.

Very short history of Korea as put forth by SH while walking up the path to Seokguram.
Three ancient kingdoms. Silla and two others I forgot.
Silla unifies them. (Which presumably means "conquers the other two.")
Fall of Silla. Name of the next big thing sounds indistinguishable from "Korea." Needless to say I could not cheating and turned to Wikipedia. What I was hearing was "Goryeo," and is where the English word "Korea" comes from.
After Goryeo was Choson, which fell only in 1910, to the Japanese.
Japanese rule lasted until the end of WW2, and then of course the was the Korean War, and what may be termed the "Present Set-up."

Inaccuracies should be attributed to me and not SH. Needless to say there's a lot to be filled in.

Seokguram

Because calling them all KyeongJu [Number] was getting old.





So, what is Seokguram? The signs call it a grotto. I would have called it a rock-cut cave. It's very similar to the Buddhist caves at Ellora. So, there used to be a giant rock. Now there's a kind of temple. antechamber featuring some freizes of guardian dieties and guardian kings, doorway,big Buddha, vaulted ceiling, and it's all one piece. Unlike Ellora, there's a big piece of glass protecting the priceless national treasure. That's probably for the best. (Reminds me of this time in Lebanon when the tour guide told us we were walking on the actual stones laid by the actual Phoenicians and then we all started walking like it was bubble wrap.) But unfortunately it's not special glare-free glass and they don't have the sun effectively blocked. So unfortunately you get a lot of your own reflection obscuring the Buddha. According to J, it's also an excellent place to watch the sunrise, if one wants to get up ridiculously early. For some reason, at Seokguram, there were a lot of soldiers standing about.

China

What's up with that?

Answer, Re: Amitabha

From comments below:
Anonymous said...
Amitabha: Sanskrit word, literally means boundless light and boundless life.

This explains that the Hindu name Amitabha need not be connected with Buddhist parents. It would be interesting to kow how this word became prominent in Buddhism.

I think that the inscription at Bulguksa says "Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Boundless Light." Now I know that's a literal translation. Most of the Buddhas were identified by Indian-looking names likely to be Sanskrit (but written in roman letters, e.g., "Avalokitesvara"), and then the Korean equivalents.

I kind of hate Xcode too

(Xcode is for writing C++ programs on Mac. Like iPhoto it usually just gets in the way.)

KyeongJu V

Finishing Bulguksa and moving on to Seokguram.

Giant bell. They have one of these at the Buddhist temple near Bear Mountain outside of NYC where my ex's mom's ashes are interred. More on the four Buddhist instruments here. We saw the fish-drum earlier.

Needless to say, I took this photo because the one on the left looks like he's in the middle of a blistering speed metal guitar solo and the one on the right looks like Lemmy. But the proper explanation is here.


The photo above is the last one from the Bulguksa area. It was taken from the path back down the hill after we were done at Bulguksa, just after eating a corn dog, if I'm not mistaken, and shortly before eating bundaegi. The photo below is the first one from the Seokguram area.

Random Link

Run across while preparing the post below:

ew.

KyeongJu IV

Photowise, we're still at Bulguksa. One more thing to mention about Bulguksa is the meaning of Bulguksa. "Bul" means "Buddha." "Guk" means "nation." "Sa" means temple. Which probably explains why these folks have "Bulguksa: The Temple of Buddha Land."

With regards to the second syllable, it doesn't take a genius to arrive at a conclusion about the origins of a certain anti-East Asian slur. "Korean," by the way, is "Hanguk," while American is "Migook." (I'm not sure whether I linked to this earlier or not.) "Waygook," I see means "foreigner." I don't know about "Indian" or "Australian."

A propos of "Hanguk" I note that the largest ethnic group in China is also called "Han."

KyeongJu III

Photowise we're still at Bulguksa, but I think, other than letting the photos speak for themselves, I'm about done with Bulguksa. Let me remark though that there will be no photos of the insides of the temples and the beautiful big Buddha statues because I obey "no photo" signs. There are some here. Check out the "panographies" at this site The "VR" view at this site looks promising but is not mac-compatible. Anyway, I encourage people to look around for photos of the insides, and if you find good ones put something in comments. They can't let everybody who comes through take pictures of the Buddha but I bet that people can get a special dispensation to do so somehow... Actually, clearly so since there are photos on the temple's own website. But they ... leave some room for improvement....

Narrative-wise I did think of one more thing I wanted to mention before moving on from Bulguksa which was the religious aspect. SB is a very pious Christian. SH is from a Christian family but doesn't go to church. (I think he's "Church of Saint Mattress," not an atheist.) J is from a Buddhist family, but not observant. I do want to avoid using these guys as "material" but one can't really tell a story about a day spent with them without saying something about them. SB once asked me whether I had heard the Good News about Jesus Christ. (It was a bit oddly timed. I had just finished explaining to him about how my mom is very religious, went to seminary, etc.... ) So I have the impression he might be an evangelical type. At some point someone, I think SH suggested that I could pray to one of the Buddhas and I did so. Well, or rather I put my hands in Namaste position and bowed slightly as demonstrated. Actually, I got it wrong the first time and needed a second demonstration. It occured to me immediately afterward to wonder how SB was going to respond to that. But he just smiled. I don't know. A lot of people are interested in you embracing their country's culture in a way that is seperate from thier personal beliefs. For example, I think it was SH (the lapsed Christian) not J ( the lapsed Buddhist) who suggested this act of idolatry. And also when I visited Lebanon, the friends I have there are Christian, but were as interested in taking me to mosques as churches. I also think of all the times Thane took me to temples. (Thank you, Thane.) But I'm not sure how that fits with the whole asking me if I'd heard the Good News thing.

Another Question for the Indians

Or anyone else who happens to know: what does "Amitabh" mean?

...[added later]... i thought i had deleted this post, but apparently not. Functionally, this is the answer to my question.

Of course, it doesn't really answer the question of why one of the Big Buddhas at Bulguksa has the same name as the Big B of Bollywood, since according to the linked article, the latter's parents are not Buddhist. I don't suppose that rules out naming one's son after a celestial Buddha. (I know a Jewish kid named "Christopher.") But it does suggest the possibility that "Amitabh" is an old Hindu name that predates and was incorporated into Buddhism.

Well, so maybe it's better I didn't delete it. Maybe somebody knows something.

I kind of hate iPhoto

Why can't it just copy the pictures from the camera to the hard drive and the buzz off?

Kyeongju II

More photos:





A bit more narrative:
there were lots of kids around the whole day from the tour busses that we saw unloading and apparently quite a few others as well.

the kids were fairly interested in me. i've dealt with similar phenomena in India (a lot) and Japan (briefly on a two-day trip to Nikko). in Japan, it was little kids running up to point and laugh and then run away. in India one might be mobbed by kids wanting to shake hands. in Korea, it's a more restrained version of the latter. namely, kids shouting "hi!" and then you say "hi" and another shouts "hi!" etc. ad infinitum, it seems, but what's remarkable is how it never seemed like more than one would shout "hi!" at any given time. sometimes it would be "hello!" and sometimes it would be something longer. "welcome to Korea!" a few times, and one little girl said (roughly) "hi!" "hi" "where are you... what is ... fine, thanks ..." and then finally arrived at a phrase she could remember all of at which point she ran back maybe 10 feet on the path (because by this time we had passed each other) to shout "My name is An-Nyeong" (Probably not the actual name. Possibly not an actual name.) and then run away.

Another thing that took a little getting used to in India was how teenage boys will tell you how good looking you are. Well, it turns out you get a bit of that here as well. Actually this one kid was commenting to that effect in Korean, and SH translated it for me. Then like 5 minutes later amidst the cacaphony of a courtyard full of elementary school kids chattering in Korean this faraway disembodied voice calls out "you are so handsome." Kind of un-nerving, actually. The English, amid the ambient Korean, felt a lot like an auditory hallucination. And it's the kind of thing an auditory hallucination would say. The whole situation is a bit hard to know how to respond to anyway, since I know I'm not that pretty, and I figure it has more to do with people having race issues that one wishes they did not have.