Japan Part 4: Osaka

The day after the Kyoto trip, we hopped on the train again – this time for only about 20 minutes – to visit Kobe’s neighbor, Osaka. Believe it or not, Osaka was also the capital once, a heck of a long time ago, even before Kyoto was. We’re talking around the 7th century here. At that time, it was called “Naniwa-kyo,” and was considered a vital seaport for trade, especially with Korea and China.

Yes, as you may be able to tell, we had a very historical day in Osaka, starting with a visit to the infamous Osaka Castle. It was the home of Mr. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, warrior and lord, who unified Japan in the sixteenth century. This is also the crazy guy who had the solid-gold portable tea room built, so that he could have tea in style, anywhere, anytime. Umm, and he might have invaded Korea a couple of times. And killed those Twenty-Six Martyrs in Nagasaki (Christian missionaries and laypeople of various origins) that I didn’t mention when I wrote part 2.

Since the castle got burned down once (or twice), the present-day Osaka Castle is a careful reconstruction of the original. However, we were unable to enjoy the gorgeous insides, unlike we could in Kyoto’s Nijo Castle. The inside has been reborn as a museum, which explains the history of the castle in (excruciating) detail. We followed that up with a trip to the Osaka Museum of History, where we strolled through the eras of Japanese history and glimpsed the many different faces that Osaka wore over the years. And we got to role-play a little, putting on the traditional Japanese kimono, before relaxing downtown and getting some ice cream.

And on the last day of our trip (if I may be allowed to skip ahead a little here), we visited a significant mission site of the P.C. (USA) – the Yodogawa Christian Hospital. We were welcomed to the hospital by some very nice people (they put up “Welcome YAVs” signs in all the hospital hallways!) and got to tour their facilities. Afterwards, we had our own private worship in one of their chapels, with our own private minister, Rev. Choi, presiding. This before being treated to a lovely sushi box lunch (obentou in Japanese; some of you may be familiar with it).

This hospital focuses on “whole-person healing” and the idea that both the body and soul of a sick person need care and nourishment. They are currently ranked number one in the nation out of all private hospitals. Because they are a Christian organization, a large percentage of the staff (13%) is Christian, although the patients are 99% not Christian (a reflection of the general populace). Nonetheless, patients give an overwhelmingly positive response to the hospital chaplains who visit them to pray with/for them. Every morning, they hold worship, which is available on TVs in every patient room. They also have a lunch-hour broadcast for those interested in tuning in. In fact, they just have so much going on and my descriptions really can’t do it justice, so if you want to know more, you can look at their website here.

Click here for more pictures of Osaka. Part 5 to come soon; the topic: Tokyo.

Japan Part 3: Kyoto

The city of Kyoto is one of the most famous in Japan. Its name literally means “capital city,” as it was the capital of Japan during its golden age, the Heian-kyo period, before the unified rule of the emperor was replaced with many warring feudal lords. In addition to being the seat of the government, it was also the birthplace of such literary masterpieces as The Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book, and it is still the home of many Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. During the war, Kyoto was considered as a target for bombing, but was ultimately passed over because of the city’s great beauty and cultural heritage. Naturally, with my background in Japanese language and literature, I was very excited to visit here – it was the number one place on my list, actually – and see the legends that I had so far only imagined come to life for me. So I was glad that we had, more or less, a “free day” to take in as much as we could of the city.

It turns out that Kyoto is a city of fusion, thousand-year-old temples rubbing elbows with very modern skyscrapers and high-end fashion stores.  My favorite place that we visited was Nijo Castle, which was built to house shogunate troops and visiting (i.e., hostage) lords and their families. Everything was lavishly decorated, but in an understated, subtle way. The dark wood was overlaid with gold and green carvings, mainly of animals – tigers, cranes, hawks. The floors were, of course, covered by the traditional tatami (bamboo mats), but the floors in the sleeping rooms had an extra feature: they were designed to squeak obnoxiously whenever someone walked on them, so that it was impossible (well, very difficult) to sneak up and assassinate the castle’s inhabitants. They call these the “nightingale” floors. We also saw the secret doors built into the walls of the meeting rooms. These doors were for the bodyguards to hide behind, and kept the meeting private while still allowing quick and easy access to the lord’s private army should things get ugly, politically speaking.

Another highlight was Kiyomizu Temple, up on a cliff overlooking the city. The temple was founded in the eighth century, when a certain monk had a vision that told him to climb the mountain, bring down a log he found there, and carve it into the likeness of one of the Bodhisattvas. This he did (apparently), and founded a temple on the site. The temple’s chief feature is the water that comes down from the mountain. It is said that this water is holy water, and that drinking it will give you wisdom, good health, and long life. Of course we had to try it for ourselves. I don’t know about wisdom or good health, but as for long life, well . . . After drinking the water, I noticed that my camera (whose battery had been on the verge of dying) found the mysterious strength to carry on – the display showed the battery completely full again. Coincidence? I think not!! (Hey, no one said it had to be long life for humans!)

To see photos of this stuff and more, head here. Stay tuned for Part 4: Osaka (featuring the Yodogawa Christian Hospital)!

Japan Part 2: Nagasaki

After our forum at Kansei University, it was time to head to our next destination: Kassui University in the city of Nagasaki. Now, this name is probably familiar to many of you as the site of a certain memorable WWII event. More on this later.

In order to get from Kobe to Nagasaki, we took the Shinkansen (perhaps better known to some of my readers as the bullet train). The Shinkansen doesn’t go quite all the way there, down to the very western coast of Japan, but it does go most of the way. To me, it’s just amazing how quiet and clean these Japanese trains are. They’re so much nicer to travel in than airplanes. Also interesting: the staff members passing through the car all bow to the passengers (who mostly aren’t paying any attention). All in all, they’re pretty good places to sleep.

After checking in at our hotel in Nagasaki (we had to take a trolley to get there!), we headed out again, walking to Kassui for our discussion on discrimination in different cultures. This time around, we actually had a fourth perspective: in addition to the American, Korean, and Japanese youth, Chinese exchange students also asked to participate, and of course we were happy to have them.

This was an especially enlightening afternoon for me; the presenters brought up many issues that I had no real awareness of. Deogil spoke about the challenges faced by multi-national families in modern Korea. Many Korean men import foreign brides from other Asian nations, women who then face discrimination because they don’t fit in to Korean culture or speak the Korean language well.

The Japanese student spoke about a couple of different groups that Japanese society discriminates against. First, the hidden Christians of the past. For many years, especially while Japan was run by the shogunate and was closed to the outside world, Christianity was considered an unacceptable religion, and people caught practicing it were executed. Suspected believers were ordered to defile Christian images known as humie, the logic being that a faithful Christian would be unable to do it. Second, the hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors. The 1945 attack on Nagasaki claimed over 100,000 lives, but there were those who lived through the experience, scarred both physically and emotionally. More often than not, these survivors were shunned by mainstream society, which found in them a frightening reminder of the horrors of war.

The Chinese presenter told us that there is a lot of discrimination in China against carriers of hepatitis B. About ten percent of the population has this blood-borne disease, and for those who carry it, it is pretty much impossible to get a job or to climb the social ladder. In fact, physical traits seem to be a pretty big deal generally. We were shown one sample advertisement put out by a company looking to fill a secretary/office worker-type position. The ad lists desired height and blood type, among other things. There is also quite a bit of regional discrimination. As you are aware, China is a huge country, and it encompasses many cultures and different ethnic groups – just like the U.S. has its own regional subcultures. Thus, stereotypes often arise about the people from this city or that province: “Oh, they’re all thieves,” “They’re dirty people,” etc.

That evening and the next day we had free time to take in the city and visit whatever we wanted to. So we took the trolley across town to Peace Park and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. Places like this should be required viewing for anyone with the power to make policy. It is impossible to visit here without being strongly moved by our common human condition. Those of us who name ourselves Christians are, I believe, called to look hard at the past – at this event and other acts of violence – and ask ourselves if we really live in a country modeled on Christian values. (Keeping in mind that the U.S. tested a nuclear device as recently as September 15 of last year?) And if the answer is no, what are we first? Americans or Christians?

I took a lot of great photos in Nagasaki, which can be seen here. Part 3 will be about Kyoto!

New Year’s Day, Korean style

So this past week (Thursday, to be precise) marked the beginning of the lunar new year, which Korea, like China, celebrates. Young people usually go to their grandparents’ house, bow, and receive an envelope of money. Not having a Korean family, this didn’t apply to me, but I still managed to get in on the action by cooking with my center.

 

One of the many delicious things we made was buchimge. It’s a great invention where you mix kimchi into pancake batter and then fry it up on the griddle. It has an awesome eye-popping orange color! Now (and this is a secret – don’t tell) I am not really the world’s biggest kimchi fan. It’s OK, I just don’t love it or anything. But when you cook it or fry it – like in a dumpling, or in your fried rice, or in a buchimge – it takes on a whole new dimension and becomes so savory and scrumptious. In fact, this is maybe my favorite Korean food so far. We also fried hobakja (a squash with a buttery texture), made mandu (dumplings), and pretty much ate until we were sick. Good times, good times.

The next day we made snacks. We boiled water, sugar, and rice syrup together, and then used the resulting sticky goodness to make little cakes out of seeds, nuts, and bran flakes. Absolutely delicious (although chewing too many of them gives you something of a sore jaw).

Myung-ju onni also taught me to play go-stop, a Korean card game that is traditional on Chuseok and the lunar new year. There are a lot of rules (and that’s before you get into betting!), but the basic concept is to collect cards fast, by matching the ones in your hand to the ones on the mat, and win control of the game, at which point you can either stop while you’re ahead, or keeping going and take a risk in an attempt to collect more money. Also apparently you can overturn the blanket if things aren’t going well for you. That’s me playing over there on the left – Salgu (onni’s cat) is being the referee and making sure I don’t cheat.

Also, the Chief gave me some really nice socks as a present! Score! (I desperately needed some new ones…)

Look for a Japan update tomorrow!

Japan Part 1: Kobe

So, as promised, here’s the first part of my Japan trip.

On Tuesday the 18th, we flew out of Seoul and, about an hour and a half later, landed at the Osaka Kansai airport. From there, we took the bus to Kobe (yes, the place famous for its beef), where we had the use of a pretty spacious house that would act as our “base” during the time we spent in Japan. Most of us were there, anyway. Simon and Haejung were using an apartment on loan from the church, but the other seven of us were borrowing the house of a (currently absent) family.

Speaking of which, maybe it’s time for a little dramatis personae. Joining me on this journey were not only Simon, Haejung, Katie, and Jenny, but also three Korean volunteers from Hannam University and their chaplain. Soo-min works with me on the Hannam blog project, as she has excellent English (she spent a year in the U.S., at Warren Wilson). Okdeuk (also known as OK) taught with me on Fridays when I was still working at the Youngrak Church. Deogil (a guy) has been working with Jenny at her children’s center, specifically helping out with the soccer class she teaches on Wednesdays. Then there’s Hannam’s chaplain, Rev. Choi, who’s shown us three Americans a lot of kindness since we arrived in Korea in September. He’s in charge of the Korean YAVs who work with us, and has listened to our feedback about the program and taken it very seriously.

When we arrived on Tuesday, it was already getting late, so the day’s agenda consisted mostly of a delicious dinner with Bill and Ann Moore, P.C.(USA) missionaries to Japan for more than 20 years. They live in Kobe now, and as our gracious hosts for the evening, provided us with a scrumptious spread as well as the pleasure of their company.

Then we headed to our home-away-from-home(-away-from-home) to fight over who got which room, and what order people were going to shower in. Our house was an interesting mix of Japanese and western styles: some people got beds, but others (including me) bunked down on the tatami mat floors.

The next morning, we hopped on the local train and headed out to Kansei University in the city. This was to be the site of the first of three international youth forums. Kansei was founded by missionaries and identifies itself as a Christian school; however, only around 1% of the student body is actually Christian. (This is an accurate reflection of the Japanese population generally – 0.8% of Japanese people are practicing Christians.) We were warmly received there by the staff, and treated to both a campus tour and lunch. The campus itself was very interesting, its architecture having been based off of the Spanish mission-style buildings of southern California. And the lunch was amazing! We ate with the university chancellor in very high style indeed – it was the sort of meal where you need to know which fork to use when (I admit, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing; I ended up mistaking my spoon for a butter knife [What? it was totally a weird, angular spoon!]). We enjoyed some very fancy food while being waited on hand and foot, so absolutely no complaints there.

In the afternoon, we moved into the actual purpose of our visit: a discussion of environmental issues. I represented the U.S., giving a brief overview of the current policies we have and the challenges we face. I was followed by Soo-min, who told us about the programs the exist in Korea to try and protect the environment, and one of Kansei’s own students, who talked about Japan’s policies. I have to admit, I was very impressed (although not really surprised) that Korea and Japan both have so many environmentally-friendly policies in place. For example, both countries have programs that award consumers “eco-points” for buying green products. These eco-points can later be exchanged for free stuff. They also do much better at sorting their garbage and recycling. Case in point: you eat at an American McDonald’s, you throw all your trash into one big can afterwards. You eat at a Korean McDonald’s, you throw your food waste here, your leftover drink and ice here, your paper stuff here. It’s like a puzzle, trying to figure out where everything goes! And don’t even get me started on the whole public transportation issue.

Afterwards there was general discussion, and while we hardly came up with a solution to global warming or any such thing, many interesting ideas were shared and there were a lot of opportunities for the us to talk with the Japanese students and bond. Not bad, for our first attempt at this kind of thing!

More pictures of Kobe can be seen here. Next time: We go to Nagasaki!

The long silence broken

Hi, everyone! An update at long last! As you may or may not have heard, I’m recently returned from a 10-day study trip to our neighbor Japan – an exciting and illuminating experience for me. I’m eager to share the details (and pictures), but the amount of information is so monstrously huge that I can’t write about it properly all in one post. I think I’ll do one post, and one photo album, for each city, so expect that series to be in the works over the next few days. I should have plenty of time to work on it, since with the lunar new year coming up, everything will be closed down…

Also: thank you so much, everyone who sent me Christmas cards and letters! It means so much to me to hear from you! I have them all set up on my (increasingly crowded) desk and they brighten my day!

Tales from a children’s center

So I just wanted to check in with everybody back home and let you know how my work has been going. A lot of my posts have been about special occasions -- festivals, field trips, etc. -- and while those are certainly fun, they aren't really representative of my day-to-day life as a YAV in Korea.

As you (hopefully) remember, my main job is working at the Beobdong Area Children's Center, where I teach English classes for elementary and middle school students. The kids come to the center Monday through Friday afternoons and have lessons. Each class has its own teacher, and during the afternoons they study and do homework, getting tutoring in the subjects where they have trouble.

The center has lots of really cool things to offer besides academics, however. For example, on Thursday this week, they were having an art therapy class, where special teachers come in for the afternoon and guide the children through a project. I've seen them other days drawing, painting, pressing leaves, and so forth. Monday and Friday, they have orchestra class, and are learning to read music and play the violin.

Thursday night is soccer night, which is something the kids get really excited about. At 7 o'clock everybody runs to put on their coats and shoes, and we all walk about a block down to a little tiny park squished between two apartment complexes. This is free time for the kids to just run around and play, with each other and with me, and it's one of the things I look forward to most during my week.

The kids also come to the center some Saturdays. (In Korea, school and work are in session every other Saturday, and off every other Saturday. So the kids come on their free day once every two weeks.) It isn't a study day, though. Instead, the center does fun extracurricular activities like field trips, cooking lessons, etc.

In November, I joined the gang for an exciting field trip. They were kind enough to take me with them when they went to Bburi (Root) Park, and also to the Daejeon zoo, O-World. It was a joint trip with a local elementary school, and it was partially funded by local companies.

Bburi Park is so named because it is a heritage park where people can learn about the origins of their families. For example, as you may know, "Kim" is a very common Korean surname. But not all Kims are the same. Because Korean families traditionally keep a chronicle of their ancestors and descendants, they can trace their family back hundreds and sometime thousands of years to a specific time and place. So for example, Kim Mi-ran (the Chief) married a man named Kim, but they are Kims that originated in different places. For me, this was a really cool experience. I think it's amazing that people can know so much about the history behind their families.

O-World is a sort of a combination of zoo, botanical gardens, and amusement park. We had lots of fun seeing the exotic animals on the safari tour, and afterwards got up close to pet and feed the more domestic animals. And later, the fifth-grade boys roped me into a few rounds of the stomach-churning Viking ship ride (because the line was too long for the roller coaster – but don’t worry, we made sure to sit in the bow of the boat for maximum queasiness). To sum up, much fun was had by all.

More recently at the center, we’ve been making Christmas preparations! These include decorating a Christmas tree, making Christmas cards, and singing Christmas songs. The Chief is a great singer and leads all the kids in a hearty chorus. I tried to teach the kids some favorite English-language Christmas songs, only to realize that they are really pretty difficult because they use antiquated vocabulary. How do you explain lines like “Round yon virgin” or “Deck the halls” to kids who struggle with the alphabet? We also spent quite a bit of time cutting out and decorating Christmas cookies (both the chocolate and cheese varieties). Over a couple of days, we easily made thousands of little angels, stars, trees, and yes, the traditional (?) Christmas giraffes.

I am so happy to be getting to know these kids. They are sweet and smart and funny, if sometimes a little on the loud side. I have so much fun with them and I can honestly say I love them all!