Stone, Life, and Friendship.
The aroma infiltrates me, each step drawing me upward. My soul slowly dances, faster, then back again - swaying softly to the sound that surrounds me. Words my mind does not know, but a message my heart hears.
It feels weird not to have a record of this past week in which I made the decision to return to my ho
me and native land, but I think I'm pretty much spent as far as talking and writing about it goes. It's had it's moments in other ways though, from waking up Monday morning, wiht the temperature about 1 degrees C and finding out my gas had been turned off because I never paid the bill I never received. No cooking, no hot water, no heat (but my heat hadn't been working right anyway). There's a silver lining to every cloud though, right? In an effort to mask my hair which really needed washing I discovered a new style I kinda like. Probably as apart of trying to decide about what to do I was in contact with my two of my friends here, Leona and Jovita a lot. Hanging out with Jovita was awesome. We had some good dinners and conversations and last night she came over - it was a blast. ShabbuShabboo, Rum and Coke, Cadbury Chocolates, and a Korean drama (my first Korean film -picked by laying a bunch out on the floor and throwing my glove in the air wiht eyes closed) that made me more involved in it than I've probably ever been involved in a movie, followed by another trip to the movie store for a comedy, interspersed with dancing in the street, lots of laughs and conversation. It's crazy that we've just started to really get to know each other the past two weeks and now I'm leaving. Ah well, I'll try to enjoy the time as much as I can.
Anyway, the intro. As I'm leaving - there's a few things I want to make sure I do before I lose my chance. So Saturday morning I headed up to Gatbawi - a famous stone Buddha on top of Palgong moutain. After hiking up stone steps for around an hour, weary after only ten minutes, and coughing up a strong (stupid lingering illness) I had the first view, and then picked up the scent of wonder. Calmness and contentedness just flew threw me, an
d then I came to the peak. The Buddha was much smaller and simpler than I anticpated. A cold, stone, stern looking statue with a hat. And the people - at first it seemed beautiful, the devotion of these people - the Ajoushis and Ajoumas who climbed all the way up the steps of this mountain to bow, hundreds of times. But the beauty of it quickly left me. Standing on this level, watching the ceremony before, the cold blasting my body seeped in deeper. I know there are many people who only do this once a year and 
it's more of a traditional - gotta make sure thing than an actual devotion, but there are those who truly believe and I'm not sure which is harder to handle. Perhaps it's equal. I don't know a whole lot about Eastern religions and I felt like I was being somewhat close-minded and snobbish (that's not the right word) for the feelings I was having but the sadness was deep. This is a rock, different from the rocks surrounding it only by the fact that a man carved it. And yet it is also a god to people, something to appeal to, to perform rites in front of, putting your body through what I imagine must be some serious pain. It seemed so empty, so hollow. Many thoughts were going through my mind and my heart - too much to write at this hour or work out on here but it was hard to hold back the tears. Carved stone. I know we all make gods out of things just as inanimate ....
To change the direction, haha, I had another 'Chingu' moment. As I was sitting, shivering, trying to hold back the tears, these two University boys, one incredibly good looking with his shaggy black hair, style, and black rimmed glasses (there's just something about Korean boys and black rimmed glasses - whooo) came over to me and asked if the glasses boy could take a picture with me. So I agreed of course, trying to paste on a smile and make sure no stray tears were falling. A few minute
s later though, I went over to them asking what the chants were saying, they had some trouble but came up with 'Hallelujah' and 'Long life'. Then, as I was climbinb back down about a half hour later I crossed their paths again and we started chatting - glasses boy (whose Nickname is Beckam - they were a soccer team) had to have his friend translate a number of times but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway! Haha, a little male attention from attractive guys my age is definitely nice and a somewhat rare thing since in my neighbourhood I pretty much only see little kids and old men. I'll miss that some - I hardly noticed the guys when I first came 'cause my eye for that was just elsewhere - A good looking Asian guy though, there's just this suaveness to the attraction - Jovita and I were definitely enjoying it in our movie night! Ok, ok - for any males reading this and possibly rolling your eyes or something. I'm done.
It feels weird not to have a record of this past week in which I made the decision to return to my ho
me and native land, but I think I'm pretty much spent as far as talking and writing about it goes. It's had it's moments in other ways though, from waking up Monday morning, wiht the temperature about 1 degrees C and finding out my gas had been turned off because I never paid the bill I never received. No cooking, no hot water, no heat (but my heat hadn't been working right anyway). There's a silver lining to every cloud though, right? In an effort to mask my hair which really needed washing I discovered a new style I kinda like. Probably as apart of trying to decide about what to do I was in contact with my two of my friends here, Leona and Jovita a lot. Hanging out with Jovita was awesome. We had some good dinners and conversations and last night she came over - it was a blast. ShabbuShabboo, Rum and Coke, Cadbury Chocolates, and a Korean drama (my first Korean film -picked by laying a bunch out on the floor and throwing my glove in the air wiht eyes closed) that made me more involved in it than I've probably ever been involved in a movie, followed by another trip to the movie store for a comedy, interspersed with dancing in the street, lots of laughs and conversation. It's crazy that we've just started to really get to know each other the past two weeks and now I'm leaving. Ah well, I'll try to enjoy the time as much as I can.
Anyway, the intro. As I'm leaving - there's a few things I want to make sure I do before I lose my chance. So Saturday morning I headed up to Gatbawi - a famous stone Buddha on top of Palgong moutain. After hiking up stone steps for around an hour, weary after only ten minutes, and coughing up a strong (stupid lingering illness) I had the first view, and then picked up the scent of wonder. Calmness and contentedness just flew threw me, an
d then I came to the peak. The Buddha was much smaller and simpler than I anticpated. A cold, stone, stern looking statue with a hat. And the people - at first it seemed beautiful, the devotion of these people - the Ajoushis and Ajoumas who climbed all the way up the steps of this mountain to bow, hundreds of times. But the beauty of it quickly left me. Standing on this level, watching the ceremony before, the cold blasting my body seeped in deeper. I know there are many people who only do this once a year and 
it's more of a traditional - gotta make sure thing than an actual devotion, but there are those who truly believe and I'm not sure which is harder to handle. Perhaps it's equal. I don't know a whole lot about Eastern religions and I felt like I was being somewhat close-minded and snobbish (that's not the right word) for the feelings I was having but the sadness was deep. This is a rock, different from the rocks surrounding it only by the fact that a man carved it. And yet it is also a god to people, something to appeal to, to perform rites in front of, putting your body through what I imagine must be some serious pain. It seemed so empty, so hollow. Many thoughts were going through my mind and my heart - too much to write at this hour or work out on here but it was hard to hold back the tears. Carved stone. I know we all make gods out of things just as inanimate ....
To change the direction, haha, I had another 'Chingu' moment. As I was sitting, shivering, trying to hold back the tears, these two University boys, one incredibly good looking with his shaggy black hair, style, and black rimmed glasses (there's just something about Korean boys and black rimmed glasses - whooo) came over to me and asked if the glasses boy could take a picture with me. So I agreed of course, trying to paste on a smile and make sure no stray tears were falling. A few minute
s later though, I went over to them asking what the chants were saying, they had some trouble but came up with 'Hallelujah' and 'Long life'. Then, as I was climbinb back down about a half hour later I crossed their paths again and we started chatting - glasses boy (whose Nickname is Beckam - they were a soccer team) had to have his friend translate a number of times but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway! Haha, a little male attention from attractive guys my age is definitely nice and a somewhat rare thing since in my neighbourhood I pretty much only see little kids and old men. I'll miss that some - I hardly noticed the guys when I first came 'cause my eye for that was just elsewhere - A good looking Asian guy though, there's just this suaveness to the attraction - Jovita and I were definitely enjoying it in our movie night! Ok, ok - for any males reading this and possibly rolling your eyes or something. I'm done.
posted by Charles at 5:55 AM
1 Comments:
Hmmm! Interesting!
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