A Land of Quirk and Charm

Revolution, War Zone or Vancouver?

2011-06-20T15:08:00.000+09:00

Today...but before.

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000+09:00

1902
The United States ends its occupation of Cuba.

1927
U.S. aviator Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.

1932
Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

1940
Ten days after the start of an offensive, German troops reach the coast of France, cutting the Allied approach in two.

1983
U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s administration lifts nearly yearlong embargo on sale of advanced F-16 fighter planes to Israel, imposed after Israel invaded Lebanon.

1985
Three Israeli soldiers are exchanged for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in a simultaneous swap.

1996
Iraq and the United Nations sign an agreement to let the country sell oil to buy food and medicine for its suffering people.

1997
The Turkish military announces that they have killed 1,300 Kurds in a weeklong offensive into northern Iraq.

1998
Ethiopia and Eritrea amass thousands of troops along their border, ready to fight over a 640-square kilometer (250-square mile) triangle of disputed land.

1999
A NATO air attack on Belgrade leaves a hospital in ruins, kills three patients and damages several ambassadors’ residences.

2000
Taiwan inaugurates President Chen Shui-bian, marking the first time in China’s 5,000 years of history that a democratically elected opposition leader is sworn in as the leader of a Chinese state.

2002
U.S. President George W. Bush in two speeches says his administration would not lift the 40-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba until Fidel Castro’s government makes certain democratic reforms.

2003
Canada’s Department of Agriculture announces that a cow in Alberta had been conclusively diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

2005
Forty-one soldiers lost in a sudden blizzard during a march on the peaks of the Andes are likely dead, the Chilean army’s top commander announces. Commanders of the regiment later face charges including manslaughter and mistreatment of subordinates.

2006
A bomb explodes in an elevator shaft at Palestinian intelligence headquarters in Gaza City, seriously wounding the intelligence chief, a Fatah loyalist, in what security officials call an assassination attempt.

2007
Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta is sworn in as East Timor’s second president, and he vows to unite the desperately poor nation more than a year after violence brought down its first government.

2008
Ma Ying-jeou takes office as president of Taiwan, urging rival China to open a new page of peace and prosperity in their long-strained relationship while rejecting unification with the mainland.

2009
U.S. officials say missile test-fired by Iran is the longest range, solid propellant missile it has launched yet, raising concern about the sophistication of Tehran’s missile progam.

2010
A masked intruder clips a padlock, smashes a window and steals a Picasso, a Matisse and three other masterpieces from a Paris museum, a $123 million haul that is one of the world’s biggest art heists.

Things I want to eat.

2011-05-18T23:14:00.000+09:00

apple pies
fresh baked bread
strong cheddar cheese
branston pickle
pickled onions
pork pies
roasted chicken
legs of lamb
joints of beef
soups and stews
lamb again
roasted winter vegetables
cheese on toast
bacon sandwiches
cups of tea
fried breakfasts
pasties
beer
kippers for breakfast
beans on toast
any sandwich my sister makes
boiled eggs and soldiers
pancake day pancakes
thick toast with loads of salty butter
eton mess
bread and butter pudding
salt and vinegar crisps
scones
banana cake
gravy and chips from the Caspian
a take away from Chan's
an Indian from the Tamarind
cheese and potato pie with pickled beetroot
corned beef hash with beans
curry and chips from the golden gate after a night out in wetherspoons and the Inn!

Is Koo Ja-cheol a switch-hitter?

2011-05-18T18:22:00.000+09:00

An excerpt from an interview with Korean footballer Koo Ja-cheol.

Do you think you can play for both teams?

I never thought about playing for two teams, but if I had to, I could do it. As I said, nothing has been decided yet.

Does that mean you want to play for just one team?

It’s not like that. I’m just tired right now and I’m not in position to make that kind of decision. I think it’s always an honor to play for the national team. Even if you are tired, you need to answer the call proudly.

Things I have learnt from work recently.

2011-05-05T01:28:00.000+09:00

In a new series I have decided to post an entry every week about thigns that I have learnt in work. Well I say every week, I meant to start this a few eeks ago, hence the ‘recently’ in teh title but I am sure I will do it every now and again. So with out further ado I present the first in a series that might last for one post only but what the hell.

Things I learnt from the Korea JoongAng Daily...recently.

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile is the International Furniture Fair of Milan, it’s the largest decoration trade fair in the world and this year Fabio Novembre designed a bookcase that looks like a robot.

Which I now want.

Andre Berto may have recently lost to Victor Ortiz for the WBC welterweight title but he takes a good picture.

British newspaper, The Times ranked Sheikh Mansour as the sixth most powerful person in sport, citing Mansour's approximate £750m investment in every area of Manchester City and a £1 billion investment in the area around the City of Manchester Stadium as contributing factors.

Still Manchester though.

Cho Yong-pil, the “King of Korean pop,” has kept his promise to return to a lonely island.
The 61-year-old singer and songwriter held a concert on Sorok Island, Goheung, South Jeolla, recently for victims of Hansen’s disease, commonly known as leprosy.

Yes folks that’s right Korea has a sort-of-living and sometimes-breathing leper colony! The island had been one of the world’s last remaining leper colonies and was literally cut off from the mainland until a bridge opened there in 2007 so now you can walk there.

“Many brides visit emergency rooms during their honeymoons due to bladder infections, widely known as honeymoon cystitis. Therefore examining your body and being treated beforehand is important and highly recommended,” The follow up research revealed that traumatic cystitis is probably the most common form of cystitis in the female and is due to bruising of the bladder, usually by abnormally forceful sexual intercourse. This is often followed by bacterial cystitis, frequently by coliform bacteria being transferred from the bowel through the urethra into the bladder.

Something about Wales I didn’t know is that we (particularly the North Welsh) used the javelin as one of our main weapons. During the Norman and later English invasions, the primary Welsh tactic was to rain javelins on the tired, hungry and heavily armoured English troops and then retreat into the mountains or woods before the English troops could pursue and attack them! This tactic was very successful since it demoralized and damaged the English armies while the Welsh ranks were barely damaged at all. Up there for thinking and down there for dancing. And back there for chucking javelins, apparently.

Koreans take a cancer report that was recently published too far and apparently start bulk buying makgeolli.

Korea’s production and consumption of makgeolli surged after research by the state-run Korea Food Research Institute found that potent anti-cancer agents in makgeolli are 10 to 25 times higher than beer and wine.

Sounds good so far but how good is it, can you put a figure on it? You can! Great!

The research showed that people would gain anti-cancer benefits if they consumed 5 to 7 milligram of farnesol per liter of makgeolli.

5 to 7 milligrams, that’s not a lot, should be easy to consume that much. What’s that?

A bottle of makgeolli contains between 0.15 and 0.5 miligrams of farnesol per liter.

Oh.

Critics said a person would need to drink 13 bottles of 750 milliliter makgeolli to gain anti-cancer benefits suggested by the research.

“A person’s health condition would be worsened if he tried to prevent cancer [with makgeolli],” said Sung Mi-kyung, a nutrition professor at Sookmyung Women’s University, because it would involve a high ingestion of alcohol, which has many negative side effects.

What, alcohol has negative effects? But I feel great and generous when I’m drunk and I can perform incredible feats of agility. I do often wake up with cuts and bruises all over and vague recollections of this bloke who looks a bit like me turning up every time I get pissed and telling people to “Fuck off” and shouting at taxis for...driving. He usually does something stupid and when I wake up in the morning he is gone. And he has usually taken all of my money with him.

But surely if you tried hard you could come up with a positive slant to drinking that much makgeolli couldn't you?

And there is another benefit.

Phew.

“Makgeolli’s calories are much lower than other drinks,” Kim said. “While 100 milliliters of wine has a heat value between 70 and 74 kcal and 141 kcal for soju, makgeolli has 46 kcal per 100 milliliter.”

Great so you won’t get fat, you could prevent caner but you will likely die from alcohol poisoning. Decisions, decisions.

Peloton, from the French, literally meaning little ball or platoon and also related to the English word pellet, is the large main group in a road bicycle race. Riders in a group save energy by riding close (drafting or slipstreaming) near and, particularly behind, other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; in the middle of a well-developed group it can be as much as 40%.

If only that worked walking down the street in Seoul I would get to work early.

They’re a long way from being the next Spice Girls or Pussycat Dolls but five Asian women are hoping to take the world by storm in what is being billed as the first pan-Asian girl band.

“Blush” is made up of five girls from the Philippines, India, China, Japan and Korea who beat hundreds of other pop star wannabes during a talent search across Asia last year.

Can’t wait for their greatest hits album. Oh wait, I actually can wait 6 months. I meant I can’t wait for them to disappear into obscurity and for the Korean media to proclaim that the Korean one is the best. At everything. Oh and it isn’t right that she should be in a group with an Indian girl.

Britain and the British Empire (including the eastern part of what is now the United States) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, by which time it was necessary to correct by 11 days. Wednesday, 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday, 14 September 1752. Claims that rioters demanded "Give us our eleven days" grew out of a misinterpretation of a painting by William Hogarth. After 1753, the British tax year in Britain continued to operate on the Julian calendar and began on 5 April, which was the "Old Style" new tax year of 25 March. A 12th skipped Julian leap day in 1800 changed its start to 6 April. It was not changed when a 13th Julian leap day was skipped in 1900, so the tax year in the United Kingdom still begins on 6 April.

The Korean national pension fund’s stake in Samsung of 5 percent was larger than that of Chairman Lee’s 3.38 percent stake. The Federation of Korean Industries, the largest industry lobby in Korea, which claimed the move would inevitably lead to increased control of private firms by the government. The FKI described the proposal as “pension fund socialism” that violated market principles.

So the FKI are opposed to nationalising companies for the benefit of the majority, never to God.

Optimizing when you wake up might be the answer to improving the quality of your sleep. The $0.99 Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app is designed to reduce the likelihood that your alarm will go off during a period of deep sleep. It analyzes the different stages of your sleep and begins determining the best time to wake up in the 30 minutes leading up to the time you have set your alarm to wake you. For example, if you set an alarm to go off no later than 8 a.m., the app will monitor your physical movement from 7:30 a.m. using its accelerometer. The alarm will go off when you begin to move during that 30 minutes. The app does not help you to have a deep sleep but if you are feeling tired during the day you can at least confirm a bad night’s sleep by looking at the fluctuating graph of your sleep cycle.

This actually sounds good. Not sarcasm or stupid comments. I just need to be a douche with an iPhone!

Wearing a blue jacket, beige pants and white sneakers, Kim Tae-ho, the lawmaker-elect of Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, was standing in front of Changwon Tunnel and bowing to cars that passed to thak people for voting for him.

“I have bowed 5,000 times every morning for this victory,” Kim said, as he continued his bowing. “This is the greatest asset of my political life and I have earned it during the past 50 days.”

Twat

The ARA General Belgrano was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982. Formerly the USS Phoenix (CL-46), she saw action in the Pacific theater of World War II before being sold to Argentina. After almost 31 years of service, she was sunk during the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror with the loss of 323 lives. Losses from the Belgrano totalled just over half of Argentine deaths in the Falklands War.

The “Formerly the USS Phoenix (CL-46)” was the “What I learned part.”

Yeonggwang is famous for its large production of Small yellow croaker which Korean people choose as one of the best presents to give to other people. It is called Yeonggwang gulbi (meaning dried croaker) among Koreans, and it is nicknamed "rice thief" because of its wide popularity.

They originated from the Goryeo Dynasty. Yellow croaker move northward from the East China Sea, where they spend the winter season, to Yeonpyeongdo Island, to spawn at the start of the thawing season. They spawn at sea in front of Chilsan, near Beopseongpo in Yeonggwang, between April 10 and 30, while moving northward.

Now you know what to buy the Koren that has everything. They also have a nuclear plant so one day you might be able to buy huge, mutant croakers!

Not to be confused with Yonggwang in North Korea. If you go there asking for croakers you will be in deep shit. If you go asking for depleted uranium, however, you might be in luck.

Before the composition of Aegukga, the lyrics of Korea’s national anthem were sung to Old Lang Syne until composer Ahn Eak-tai composed a new melody to the existing lyrics. Like Japan and Taiwan, it is now used in South Korea as a graduation song and a farewell song to friends or at funerals.

Hannover 96 (nickname Die Roten or 'The Reds')

Need I explain this one.

The scorpions are from Hannover! Die Scorpions.

You see what I did there?

Andreas Wolf (Russian: Андрей Андреевич Вольф; born 12 June 1982 in Leninabad, Soviet Union) is a German footballer who plays as a defender for 1. FC Nuremberg. He has played at the club since 2002 and is the team captain.

I wonder how many people ask what the time is and then piss themselves laughing? Not many people in Germany but God help him if he ever plays in England or Wales. Do Scottish and Irish people like to ask wolves the time?

Whanki Kim.

Enough said.

Whanki?

What's the time?

Fear

2011-03-11T16:11:00.000+09:00

A fluttering heart points to love
but pain is waiting in the wings.
Breathless lungs and blinking eyes
Anxiousness.
Rapid breathing, swallowing, frustration and cold shivers.

Time ticks down and breath becomes shallow.
Words spill out and eyes glaze over
as thoughts turn dark.
Too much talking,
not enough listening.
Breathing speeds up and shivers get colder.

Relief creeps up as soft words are spoken.
Assurances made and lumps diminish.
Tears return but it's OK.

Time ends, goodbyes said.
We'll meet again in a better place,
better for me and better for you.

iphone 4G repost!

2011-03-04T19:16:00.000+09:00

Hold on to your hanbok, the iPhone 4G is coming to Korea, soon. Maybe. Eventually. The where and when are yet to be answered officially but the proverbial cat is out if its proverbial bag as far as what to expect from the new phone is concerned.

In their unstoppable plan for complete and utter world domination, Apple have released another version of their iPhone with a few changes. Not nearly enough changes to make you part with a sizable wad of cash of course but many will. Dedicated, techno-savvy consumers who like to live on the cutting edge of all that is deemed cool will be soiling their silk boxers at this one.

The new phone will have both new and improved features but thanks to the techno-nerds at Gizmodo.com Mr Jobs will not have the pleasure of announcing his secret to the world. The Gizmodo team bought (possibly illegally) and dismantled a prototype iPhone 4G that a presumably now sacked employee left in a bar and gave the world a premature rundown on what to expect, so here is an incredibly brief rundown of what they found.

What's new

There is now a front-facing video chat camera, an improved regular camera, a camera flash, a micro-SIM instead of standard SIM, improved display, what looks to be a secondary mic, there are split buttons for volume, power and mute and the volume buttons are all metallic, presumably to give it a glitzy biker feel. Or not.

And what's changed from last year's 3Gs

The back is entirely flat, there is an aluminium border going completely around the outside, it has a slightly smaller screen than the 3Gs, everything is more squared off, 3 grams heavier, 16% Larger battery, internal components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

The big question that remains is when will it be unleashed on the world. Well at the moment nobody actually knows. Apple like to have the full attention of the world's media and so it is a pretty safe bet that the (re)unveiling will take place at their annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June. Steve Jobs will have a difficult time whipping the audience into a frenzy given that everyone who cares about such things will already know all about it!

One of the selling points of the iPhone is the plethora of applications available and we have found 5 of the most utterly useless that you may or may not want to waste your life away with.

5 stupid iPhone apps
1. Birth Buddy - Birth Buddy is a tool to track labor contractions and it will even let you send an email to yourself, your care provider or curious family members.

2. Age Calculators - This app, amongst other things actually calculates your own age and tells you when your next birthday is.

3. Hold The Button - A game in which you...hold a button.

4. Hair Clinic - This app promises to give you "healthy and abundant" hair by generating "various types of inaudible high and low frequencies, promoting blood circulation. A helpful disclaimer adds that the Hair Clinic app is not a cure for alopecia and can, in fact, cause headaches if the iPhone's built-in speaker is held too close to the ears.

5. Proposal "Will you marry me ? " - As if iPhone users have significant others. Ha.

Headlines you are unlikely to see in the UK

2011-03-04T18:53:00.003+09:00

'He is a passive homosexual'

From The Star newspaper of Malaysia on Wednesday 23^rd of February.

Perhaps the title of this post should read stories you are unlikely to read in a British newspaper as the headline is rather tame compared to the content. To keep it as brief as possible the article talks about how a lawyer at a trail claimed a man was a passive homosexual based on DNA evidence. This is the conversation the lawyer had with the DNA expert in court after the expert confirmed mutliple samples of semen were found on the defendant's anus but later admitted one of them to be from the defendant himself.

Lawyer : Which means he was a passive homosexual, or the semen couldn't have gotten onto his anus.

DNA Expert : I wouldn't be able to conclude on that.

L: I put it to you that it is a logical conclusion. Multiple DNA profiles in his anus amounts to him being a passive homosexual.

The defendant, a 63 year old man has been charged with performing carnal intercourse against the order of nature on another man.

I honestly don't know where to begin with this.

Do Flies Feel Shame? And do they have dreams?

2011-03-03T17:55:00.041+09:00

Sounds like a mad question but I swear I recently saw a fly cowering from his fly friends in shame.

The break room in the seed factory I worked in has a fly problem. To call it an infestation would be an exaggeration but even as few as 5 flies, milling around and trying to land on you or your food every 15 seconds is enough to warrant anger, frustration and disgust. No matter how much insect killing spray or energy you expel swinging a rolled up newspaper, they return the next day. I am fully aware that they are unlikely to be the same flies.

As I sit eating my drab lunch of pasta and roughly chopped tinned tomatoes, which incidentally the flies find infinitely more appetising than me, and drinking my 3^rd cup of tea of the day and I observe what I am going to call a family of flies. Much like the gulls in Sydney's Darling Harbour there seems to be some kind of hierarchy and even though they seem to fly around haphazardly there appears to be animosity amongst their group.

Every now and again, when 2 of them get close enough to each other one leaps on the other and they wrestle around for a few seconds.

This particular day was much like any other, flies were buzzing and I was, as I have mentioned on my 3^rd cup of tea when 2 flies began wrestling and a few seconds later. when it was all over (although it may have lasted hours in fly time, I'm not quite sure how it works) one flew away, apparently victorious and the other turned to face the end of the table they were fighting on and stood still, facing away from the table and away from the scene where the other flies were going about their usual, dirty business.

Now this may sound mad but as I looked at this lone fly, humiliated by one of his fly brothers he looked sad and ashamed. Perhaps it was contemplation on his face, perhaps he was deciding if this is what he wants to do with his life, buzzing around all day every day avoiding the wrath of the newspaper and wrestling for scraps of food with other, apparently stronger flies. There should of been some soft music, maybe with a saxophone solo in the background as a camera slowly panned and tilted around his head, showing that he had had enough of this life and then, as the music became more hopeful he would fly off into the sunset leaving behind all this bullshit and off to a new life, to the big city where there were more opportunities for a young fly. Perhaps it was the fact that his behaviour was so strange, the motionless figure had never before been so still that he looked dejected and depressed. I swear he flew off in the direction of the vent in the wall that leads to the outside, to the city and to a better life.

The French

2011-03-02T17:13:00.034+09:00

I initially winced at the openness with which the fat, one armed Australian man we picked up on the way to Corryong from Albury mocked the French boys with calls of “Little Froggies!” Now however I have a slightly different attitude. I have no transformed into a racist, fear not but I do have less sympathy for these particular French people after living with them for 3 weeks.

Sacha Distel, Edith Piaf, Nicholas Sarcozy and Zinedine Zidane. The French. Freedom Fry eating, cheese eating surrender monkeys. Some say. Good wine and even better cheese, arrogance and ignorance. Shrugging shoulders and fine food. All things that have been said about the French many times and things that will be said again.

There are a lot of French people in Australia, too many for my liking actually. That's not to say I haven't found some of them charming, beautiful, sexy, endearing, generous or funny, I have, but I didn't come to Australia to be surrounded by French people, I can board a ferry to Calais to stock up on booze if I wanted to be surrounded by them.

In Sydney I came across a few, as I did with lots and lots of other nationalities and until that point I hadn't met too many in my life. I have not been to France and so the few that I had met up to that point were the tiniest sample and so in Sydney it was in no way overwhelming. I met a very nice French girl in Sydney who has become a friend, one I am sure I will see again if we ever end up back in Europe in the future and the few others I met in my time in Sydney were also fine, as far as my recollection goes.

In Tasmania I met a few more and then a few more and found that aside from the odd individual they travelled in wine slugging packs around the country, speaking French, listening to French music, watching French films, clearing entire supermarket shelves of Brie and Camembert and shrugging their collective shoulders and turning down the corners of their collective mouths to indicate they didn't know or else didn't care about whatever was being talked about at the particular moment.

But Melbourne! Well let's just call it the Paris of Australia. This is the thing about French people, they are drawn irresistibly to each other like Gallic magnets, I'm not sure if they give off a scent that only they can smell (I can actually dispel that rumour that they all smell of garlic and cheese, only some of them do) but they find each other and sometimes, if the weather conditions are right they converge into a Gallic super cell where entire aisles of cheese are swept aside and pallet upon pallet of boxed wine is enveloped as this wave of shrugging passes through. Maybe this is not uncommon to people from say Ireland, who also have whole packs of fellow countrymen to latch onto but for me, from Wales, I don't and am unlikely to ever have anything more than one or 2 fellow Taffs to talk to about things back at home or to lament over the fact that we lost to England in Rugby. Again. Maybe this is my issue but this also happens to be my blog so I will skew it whichever way I see fit.

I thought I had been around enough French people to have become inoculated against their less desirable qualities but I was dropped into an almost entirely French zone when I landed in Corryong or as I have dubbed it, the French hole from hell.

The house I was staying in for, at the time of writing, another 2 and a half days is currently occupied by 4 French 'boys' and I use the term correctly as opposed to 'men' and a guy from Finland, who shares some of my sentiments about the French boys but is on his way to being assimilated into their collective mind as he has started forgoing the tradition of putting things in the bin.

The quartet of Frenchies though are something else. The most disgusting habits and levels of cleanliness I have ever encountered and I have stayed in a shared house in University. Flies have set up camp here and I am sure they are signalling across the vast and empty countryside that maroons Corryong from civilisation to their brothers to come as there is more shit here than in a field full of cows. And they come. They must number in their hundreds throughout the house, especially in the kitchen where none of the filthy bastards, the French that is not the flies, lift a finger to wash a single dish until they want to use it and leave all kinds of food items uncovered to fester.

The living room is worse in a way as the dishes that stay on the table for days at a time attract flies away from the kitchen which makes watching the TV unbearable as every 30 seconds a fly tries to land on you with its filthy feet that have been standing in god knows what all day.

So to sum up French people are disgusting. But not all of them.

Australians

2011-03-01T17:07:00.002+09:00

The people of this very large island are not hamstrung or hog tied by stupid things like etiquette or a sense of formality. From the highest offices of government right through to the common man, Aussies 'tell it like it is.' I'm not saying this is always a good thing, it isn't, it can never be a good thing to tell it like it is all of the time but there are times when it's refreshing to be in a country where the people are not shackled by political correctness.

A good example is the banter on TV breakfast shows. A recent sports news section showed a pretty impressive slam dunk from an all star game and as the news reader acknowledged the prowess of the athlete for jumping over a car whilst catching a ball mid air and dunking it, he finished with “we still don't need to see it 45 times.” A very tame example but one that you would not likely get on a British news bulletin. I often think the same when replays are overdone, every angle at varying speeds is frankly too many.

The police too are quite relaxed and do not have the formality and by extension the unapproachable aura about them that British police officers have. My most recent experience came when my next door neighbour in Corryong, a regular piss head who played music loud and often aggressively attacked the nearest fence with both fists and head, decided, as if there was any sentient thought involved at all, or felt compelled to light a fire very near to the house I was staying in using our own rubbish as fuel. The rubbish was admittedly spilling over the floor from an unsealed bag (see my post about the French) but still a drastic measure I think. Jarkko, my Finnish mate in the house put out the flames with a pan of water and as I poked my head around the corner to have a gentle word with the psycho he appeared in just his boxer shorts carrying what the police later described as a 'tomahawk' which to me and you is a hatchet or a small axe. Suffice it to say the police turned up soon after and had a chat to him. After telling him, let's not forget we are talking about a drunken, axe wielding pyromaniac, to not be a naughty boy police officer 1 came to us and said “I threw the tomahawk in the out house so he probably wont find it for a couple of days and we told him to got bed so if he causes any more trouble just give us a call.”

PROBABLY WONT FIND IT.

What if he does find it and he decides that he wants to use it or he decides that the fire we so rudely put out needs to be started again or that we really shouldn't have called the police and we need to be punished. And what if he decided to punish us at 4 in the morning when we are all in bed? Perhaps he would creep in and slaughter us in our sleep, although I don't think creeping is his style, I imagine he is more of a Jack Torrance type character. Or maybe he would plump for setting the tinderbox Australian house on fire, which I am pretty sure you could do very easily with a piece of flint and a stone. In this case I would have to say the relaxed attitude of the police was maybe a bit too relaxed. At least take the bloody axe away with you.

I have also been slightly surprised by the number of Australians, seemingly normal people who do not look like the have recently escaped from some hospital for the mentally ill, who walk around the streets with no shoes or socks on. Out of the 2 having no shoes on is the bigger deal I think because I would be inclined to think someone was even more of a nutter if they had socks on but no shoes but never the less there are a lot of people here and by here I mean in Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania and Corryong who walk around with no shoes on. Like hobbits. Maybe they are trying to toughen up the skin on their feet in order to become a hobbit, god knows some of the have the rest of the hobbit features but honestly what is the deal with this. If you are walking form the beach to your car or carrying your surfboard and are clearly going to or from the sea and don't want anything you have to leave on the beach that might get stolen, you get a pass but other that that you are just an idiot. And you like like a trampy hobbit.

WELCOME TO CORRYONG!

Where shoes are optional and nutters are free!

Haemil - Korean Food in Sydney

2011-01-20T17:00:00.000+09:00

Clear sky after the rain in Sydney's Circular Quay

Spicy pickled cabbage soup anyone? Understandably not too many hands shoot skyward when faced with such a disgusting prospect but that is exactly what kimchi chigae is. This taste packed dish is one of the best offerings at Haemil, a quaint, charming and surprisingly inexpensive restaurant located in the relatively glamorous surrounds of Circular Quay.

Outside Korea the cuisine of this divided peninsula usually falls into a very narrow category for most people, barbecue. As delicious as pieces of grilled meat, snipped into bite size morsels, dipped in an equally delicious sauce and wrapped in a piece of lush, green lettuce are (and they are very) Korean food is being done something of a disservice, an injustice even, if a broader range isn’t sampled. And that is where Haemil comes in. It is the perfect place to expand your culinary range and treat those taste buds as the menu offers a good range of slightly more traditional Korean dishes in a relaxed atmosphere without leaving you wondering where all your hard earned cash went.

Before even entering the restaurant and being seated in one of the 30ish seats inside (there is room for about another 30 outside) the glass wall that forms the restaurant front shows a small crowd of Korean diners (which is of course a great sign) and a small but grand piano, taking pride of place in the center of the small but spacious dining room. The aforementioned glass wall that runs along the entire side of the restaurant makes it feel open and airy so that even if there are 30 people squeezed inside you wouldn’t feel cramped.

The menu offers a wide range of dishes from the kimchi stew mentioned earlier to dumplings, pancakes, spicy pork dishes and a chicken and ginseng soup that would satisfy any soul. The menu highlights a different, more traditionally Korean perspective on this relatively unknown food. The kimchi stew is dark and rich and with rice and the obligatory and delicious side dishes is filling and hearty. Yuk gae jang, the spicy beef and leek soup is another stew with kimchi and is equally delicious. The time and effort that has gone into preparing it is evident from the first mouthful as the intense but not overpowering beef flavour envelops your mouth and delights your taste buds as a subtle heat follows through and gently warms you. The bibimbap is another hearty bowl, this time of rice and vegetables, which may not seem particularly restaurant worthy but the individually prepared and cooked ingredients , seasonings and ‘hand taste’, a Korean term that signifies the the unique taste that can only be added by and expert hand, make for a delicious and healthy meal.

Joshua Kwak provides a great room to eat in and wanders around, frequently checking everything is up to spec, he is funny and welcoming and he plays the piano on request. He arrived from Korea 10 years ago and took over Haemil 4 years ago in Circular Quay’s Gateway Building. He offered our party a free shot of soju and even rounded down the bill a dollar or 2. Whether you are a Korean food virgin or an experienced eater of all things kimchi, Haemil is a great place for a meal.

Who - Haemil/Joshua Kwak
What - Affordable Korean cuisine
Where - Circular Quay's Gateway building,
Why - Why not, the food is great, authentic and affordable.
When - Lunch 12pm-3pm and dinner 6pm-9pm, Monday to Friday.

Being Tall

2011-01-13T19:46:00.001+09:00

According to Wikipedia, which I know completely invalidates anything I am about to say but nevertheless, I am taller than the average man. According to the aforementioned website men in the Dinaric Alps or Dinarides ( a mountain chain in Southern Europe, spanning areas of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro) are, on average 1.846m or 6ft 1/2 in and are the biggest, followed closely by the Netherlands. Welsh men rank alongside the French and Kiwis at 1.770cm or 5ft 91/2in.

I like being tall, towering over most people it gives me a sense of grandeur and of masculinity and I suppose superiority. Not in any meaningful way or in any way that I would exploit but I would rather be tall than not. Women find it attractive don't they? it is supposed to have something to do with being able to protect them and wanting to feel feminine and according to one random piece of Google advice "The sheer feminine feeling of dancing with or being held by a man who stands a full head taller than her is irreplaceable."

According to an article some years ago in the Guardian by Zoe Williams it is more to do with "Who can overpower whom?" where she talks about Tom and Nicole and how even though she is considerably taller he looks like he could take her if he needed to and that makes it OK. In the article Williams claims that the relationship between Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullem would be much less talked about (there are 7 inches between them) if she were a bit less Amazonian and he were a bit less slight. In essence she could overpower him if. They are now married with a bay due soon so it just goes to show that for some people it doesn't matter.

The reason I mention this is because in the hostel I am currently writing this from in Tasmania there is a Canadian man who has the distinct look of a surfer, toned and good looking, but he is probably 5 inches shorter than me and that made me feel better.

The average Korean man is, again according to Wikipedia, 1.739 m (5 ft 8 1⁄2 in)

Hobart

2011-01-12T11:18:00.000+09:00

Tasmania!

2011-01-02T14:41:00.000+09:00

Sydney

2010-12-05T20:46:00.000+09:00

Halloween

2010-10-29T14:34:00.000+09:00

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, October 29th 2010 'Halloween'

Rob McGovern, 전북일보 2010년 10월 29일 ‘할로윈!’

Halloween was always a big, big day as a child, a night when we would go out into our local community and cause havoc and mischief. Sweets and money were gathered from the community and there were usually eggs and flour thrown at friends as we roamed the streets looking for victims. I have very fond memories of Halloween including one year, now a long time ago when my sister used her passion for not doing things by halves to dress me as Dracula, complete with outfit and fangs dripping with blood. On the grand scale of things it doesn’t seem like that long ago, maybe 20 years, but Halloween has changed considerably in my time and it has, and continues to become more and more commercial and more and more popular around the world. This October 31st there will be parties and ghoulish gatherings in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Jeonju and towns and cities of all sizes up and down the country celebrating the end of the summer and the start of the 'dark half of the year' although most of the party goers won't know what they are celebrating.

Halloween, previously known as All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve, has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) when the ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Other world became thin, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. In order to ward of these evil spirits frightening and contorted faces were carved into turnips, which later became pumpkins due to them being more available and easier to carve. Arguably the most popular part of Halloween is dressing up in costumes, sometimes designed to strike fear into unsuspecting members of the public and sometimes not scary at all. This is also said to have derived from the need to frighten off evil spirits.

The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America particularly where pumpkins are both readily available due to it being pumpkin harvest season and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips. The harvest season and the descent into winter plays a significant par of Halloween and gives us a lot of the imagery we associate with this time of the year. Popular culture too has played it part and novels like Frankenstein and Dracula have had a big impact on what we dress up as, as have films The Mummy.
Another, if not the biggest part of Halloween for me when I was a child was Trick-or-treating, the one time of the year you are allowed to go to strangers houses and ask for treats, usually leaving you with a bag of sweets and a pocket full of money although in Wales knocking randomly at houses n your community seems to be dying off as communities become increasingly closed and people become more and more fearful and less trusting towards one another, in no small part to scare mongerng from the mass media. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2).

The most popular game that has survived history is bobbing for apples in which a person must retrieve an apple that is bobbing in water without using their hands but in my community I am not sure how popular such a simple game is in the age of the PlayStation and the Nintendo Wii. Games that seem to have pretty much died out include ways for unmarried women to determine if they will ever marry and even who it might be. Carving an apple in one long strip, then tossing the peel over one's shoulder is said to reveal the initial of the future spouse and unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. If they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear.

As with many celebrations the United States, and to a smaller extent Canada, have had a significant impact on how the holiday is observed in other nations. They have gone bigger and bolder and spread it around the world with more gusto, so much so that many people around the world, including Korea assume that Halloween is an American holiday and this is the scariest part of Halloween for me. Halloween is a big part of my culture and a part of my childhood and although trick or treating or guising has been practised in the USA since as far back as 1911 and the first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in shops in the USA in the 1930s, Halloween is and will always be a festival that has its roots in the Celtic tribes of Europe and as a European, a Celtic European I think it is important for people to know that.

할로윈은 어린 시절 우리들에게 특별한 날이었다. 우리는 할로윈날 밤에 마을로 나가 이곳 저곳을 엉망으로 만들거나 소동을 일으키곤 했다. 마을 사람들은 사탕과 돈을 모았고, 아이들은 거리에서 희생자를 찾아 소리를 지르면서 친구들에게 달걀과 밀가루를 던지기도 했다. 나는 지금으로부터 오래 전 나의 누나가 온 열정을 다해 나에게 드라큘라 옷을 입히고, 그 복장과 피 흘리는 송곳니로 완벽하게 분장시켜주었던 그 해를 포함하여 할로윈에 대해 매우 좋은 기억들을 가지고 있다. 할로윈을 크게 치러서인지 아마 한 20년 전 쯤이려나, 별로 오랜 일 같지가 않다. 하지만 할로윈은 그 동안 상당히 변화해왔고, 오늘날 그리고 계속해서 전세계적으로 점점 더 상업적이고 인기 있는 날이 되어가고 있다. 이번 10월 31일에 서울, 부산, 대구, 전주 그리고 여러 크고 작은 도시와 마을에서 여름의 마지막과 어두운 한 해의 절반이 시작됨을 축하하는(아일랜드, 웨일즈, 알래스카 등 지역의 특성상) 파티와 유령들의 모임이 있을 것이다. 아마 대부분 파티에 가는 사람들은 실제로 자신들이 무엇을 축하하러 가는지도 잘 모를 테지만 말이다.

이전에는 ‘모든 성인들의 전야제, 모든 천사들의 전야제’(All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Eve)라고 알려진 할로윈은 켈트인(인도 유럽 어족의 한 어파로서 Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Breton의 여러 언어를 포함)의 Samhain을 기리던 축제에 그 뿌리를 두고 있다. Samhain(Sow-in이라 발음)은 고대의 켈트인들이 해롭고 이로운 모든 정신들이 서로 교차하면서 이 세계와 또 다른 세계의 경계가 느슨해졌다고 믿던 때를 의미한다. 이러한 악마의 영혼들로부터 자신들을 보호하기 위해 그들은 무시무시하고 일그러진 얼굴을 순무에 조각했고, 이것이 나중에는 좀 더 많이 통용되고 조각하기 쉬운 호박으로 바뀌었다. 할로윈의 가장 인기있는 부분은 역시나 공공장소에서 사람들을 까무러치게 놀라게 하거나 그 반대로 가끔은 전혀 무섭지 않기도 한 코스튬을 입는 것이다. 이 또한 악마의 영혼을 놀래 달아나게 하기 위한 생각에서 유래되었다고 전해진다.

호박을 조각하는 것은 할로윈이 호박 수확기라서 다른 곳 보다 훨씬 큰 호박을 언제든지 이용할 수 있는 북아메리카와 특히 연관이 있다. 추수기와 겨울의 문턱에 들어서는 계절은 할로윈에서 매우 중요한 부분을 차지하는데, 이는 우리에게 이 시기와 연상되는 많은 심상들을 가져다 준다. 인기 있는 문화적 요소나 프랑켄슈타인과 드라큘라 같은 소설들, 영화 ‘미이라’같은 것들도 우리가 어떤 것으로 분장할지에 대해 큰 영향을 미친다.

할로윈에 관한 또 다른 것은, 나에게는 어릴 적 가장 큰 부분을 차지했던 것은 아니지만, Trick-or treating이라는 것으로 한 해 동안 단 한 번 우리는 모르는 사람들의 집에 찾아가서 사탕 봉지와 주머니에 가득 찰만한 돈을 요구할 수 있었다. 비록 웨일즈에서는 사회가 점점 서로 마음의 문을 닫고 서로를 두려워하며 믿지 않게 되고, 사람들이 대중언론매체로부터의 잡상인들을 피하려고 해서 아무 집에나 찾아가서 문을 두드리면 모른체하는 경우가 많지만 말이다. Trick-or-treating은 중세 말기의 영혼을 나누는(souling) 관습과 비슷한데, 이 시기에 가난한 사람들은 Hallowmas(11월 1일)에 집집마다 돌아다니며 그 다음날인 11월 2일인 ‘모든 영혼을 위한 날(All Souls Day)’에 기도를 해주는 조건으로 음식을 얻곤 했다.

역사상 전해지는 가장 인기 있는 게임은 물을 채운 통에 사과를 띄워놓고, 그 사과를 손을 대지 않고 건져내는 게임이다. 하지만 오늘날 플레이 스테이션과 닌텐도가 난무하는 이 시대에 이런 간단한 게임이 얼마나 인기를 끌지는 오리무중이다. 오늘날 거의 사라진 것으로 보이는 게임들 중 하나는 결혼하지 않은 여성이 만약 그들이 결혼을 하게 되는지 심지어 누구와 하게 될지를 점치는 게임이다. 이 게임은 사과를 긴 끈처럼 깎은 다음, 그 껍질을 그 사람의 어깨 너머로 던지면 미래 배우자의 이니셜을 알 수 있으며, 만약 할로윈 밤에 어두운 방안에서 거울을 응시하고 앉아있으면 거울 속에 미래의 남편의 얼굴이 나타난다고 한다. 만약 그들이 결혼하기 전에 죽을 운명이라면 해골이 나타날 것이다.

이런 많은 기념 행사들과 함께, 미국 그리고 캐나다의 일부 지역은 다른 나라들에서 이 날을 어떻게 인식하는가에 대해 매우 중요한 영향을 끼쳐왔다. 이렇게 알려진 할로윈은 열정적으로 전세계에 걸쳐 그 규모가 더욱 더 크고 대담해져서 한국을 포함한 세계의 많은 사람들은 할로윈이 미국인들의 기념일이라고 생각하고 있는데, 이는 나를 가장 ‘무섭게’ 하는 부분이다. 비록 trick-or treating이나 분장이 1911년 이후로 미국에서 관습화 되어왔고, 대중 생산된 할로윈 코스튬 상점이 1930년대에 미국에서 처음으로 출현하긴 했지만, 할로윈은 내 문화와 어린 시절의 가장 큰 일부분이며, 지금 그리고 앞으로도 유럽의 켈트족에 뿌리를 둔 축제라는 사실은 변하지 않을 것이다. 유럽인으로서, 또한 켈트족 유럽인으로서 나는 사람들이 이 사실에 대해 아는 것이 중요하다고 생각한다.

Originally published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo on Friday October 29th and translated by Bobin Jung

Art and About

2010-10-28T15:21:00.003+09:00

We non-Koreans come and live in Korea for various reason, some because they are fully fledged teachers, some to experience life in another country, some to experience life in Korea specifically and some regrettably for the money but for whatever reason we come we bring with us our talents.

And sometimes we share them with the Korean public, as Jeonju’s Artist Coalition will until the 7th of November.

The group of artists have put together a one month exhibition that they have called an ‘Art Crawl’ as ti takes place in 10 coffee shops around the city and you are invited to crawl around the city, stopping off at each gallery to sample the fruits of the artistic labourers that lie within.

Each coffee shop will have a different theme and will investigate a different kind of intelligence. in 1983 psychologist Howard Gardner had a theory that every one of us is “smart”, just in different ways. This lead to the development of the theory of multiple intelligences and that is what this exhibition hopes to look at. The themes are NATURE, COMMUNITY, SELF, LOGIC, SOUND, SPACE, SPIRIT, LIFE, LANGUAGE and MOTION.

The exhibition looks at 10 different kinds of intelligence but you will also be able to see the artists in their work, how each artist has been influenced by what they see around them and hopefully there will be plenty of Jeonju and Korea in the work. The exhibition will also give locals an insight into what we expats do with our time in Korea. There is a lot of negativity around expats in Korea and I hope that through projects like this, that not only involve Korean artists but actively interact with the Korean public, people can see that grouping all ‘foreigners’ together, in any way positive or negative, is a very crude way to look at us.

The exhibition will run until the 7th of November in the following cafes.

THE STORY
STARBUCKS
COFFEE HOUSE (formerly Panini)
BROWN CITY
THE DIARY BOOK CAFE
HARUILGI
THE ALLEY
MOI
TEATTRI
THE CAFFE

More information can be found on their website or on their Facebook group.

http://www.jeonjuartists.com/index.php

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=59915532258

Originally published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo on Friday October 15th

Don’t Assume

2010-10-28T15:12:00.015+09:00

Living in Korea is hard for most of us non-Koreans. Some of us have problems adapting to the food (not me obviously), some have difficulty with the language and some just find it impossible to live away from home as for those people it may be their first time living away from their friends and family. Some people have problems with all 3 and have to return home, which is fine as Korea and/or teaching doesn't suit everyone.

These 3 problems, along with a few other, slightly minor ones are aspects of Korean life that make living here a great experience for the rest of us. I personally love Korean food and quite the opposite of making me want to go home, it makes me want to stay forever! I am not so adept at the language and I am missing my friends and family more and more, even though I try to go home as regularly as I can. But there are some things about Korea that almost the entire expat population hates and that is when some Korean people assume we are stupid.

Now before you, the loyal Jeonbuk Ilbo readers jump up and say "We don't think that" let me explain.
Very often I find myself in a position where somebody has assumed something about me with no real reason and most of the time they are wrong. Korean people often assume that we, the expat community, cannot speak or understand Korean. This may be the case with some, most or even a lot of expats but we are not all the same, we are all different people, from different countries and different areas within those countries. I like to think I can read body language quite well, put things into context and when combined with the Korean language that I do know, I feel I can judge most situations I find myself in in Korea. That is not to say I understand every word of what is being said or that I can easily communicate a response but I can get the gist of what is being said.

Understanding what is being said, both to you and around you, can be very helpful but occasionally this talent can relay information that is not so nice. Sadly there have been many instances when I have understood what is being said about me right in front of my face and worse is when the things that are being said are not complimentary. As a way to highlight what I am saying I will give an example. I love the culture of 'service' in Korea, the generous nature of adding a few extra leaves of lettuce to the bag or adding a small tub of cream to an order in the bakery for no other reason than excellent customer service. On one occasion one such freebie was accompanied by a proclamation to the rest of the shop and the customers that 'foreigners really like this bread' or 'foreigners really like this cake.' Referring to people who aren't Korean as foreigners never has a positive angle, not to us. These kind of comments make us feel degraded and embarrassed, as if our feelings don't matter. In many countries, including mine it is considered the height of bad manners to talk about somebody right in front of them as if they are not there. These kind of silly things can easily be forgotten or laughed off after they have been said several times, especially when the bread or the cake that 'foreigners' like is from our own country and not something Korean at all! But when the comments turn more personal, like commenting on somebody’s appearance or their weight or anything that might be hurtful, then it cannot be so easily laughed off. Remember we are the ones who came to a country with a different language to teach children who do not understand us at first, we are experts at communicating without words.

I think it is accurate to say that all 7 of the nationalities that are able to teach English in Korea: British, Irish, American, Canadian, South African, Australian and New Zealand consider these kinds of comments highly offensive and even if the comment itself isn't so terrible the act of talking about somebody right in front of them because you think that they cannot understand is considered incredibly rude. I am not asking Korea to change its culture, your culture is the reason many people wanted to come here, but is this really a Korean cultural trait anyway?

I love Korea but I am concerned about Korea's reputation. Almost all of the people who come to Korea eventually leave and go back home. Friends and family want to know about our experiences and we will surely tell them about the delicious food, the great festivals and the generous, warm and kind people but some people may also mention bad experiences they had and while all bad experiences cannot be avoided, these can.

When we are treated like this it makes us feel stupid and embarrassed. Don't assume we don't understand anything and please, if you absolutely have to gossip and comment on us at least wait until we have left your presence.

한국에서 사는 것은 대부분의 외국인에게 힘든 일이다. 우리 중 몇몇은 (분명 나는 아니지만) 음식에 적응하는데 고생하기도 하고, 의사소통 하는데 있어서 어려움을 겪기도 한다. 어떤 사람들은 그냥 자신의 나라를 떠나 타지에서 사는 것 자체가 불가능한 일이라고 생각하기도 하는데, 이런 사람들은 대부분 처음으로 그들의 친구나 가족을 떠나온 사람들일 것이다. 또 어떤 사람들은 이 세 가지 문제를 다 가지고 있어, 집으로 돌아가기를 선택하는 사람도 있다. 한국이나 가르치는 일이 모두에게 잘 맞는 것은 아닌가 보다.

몇 가지 안 되는 다른 소수의 문제를 포함한 이 세 가지 문제는, 나머지 외국인들에게 이 곳에 사는 것을 멋진 경험으로 만들어주는 한국에서의 삶의 양상이라고 할 수 있다. 나는 개인적으로 한국음식을 너무나도 좋아하는데, 이는 내가 집에 돌아가길 원하기는커녕 한국에 영원히 머무르고 싶게 만든다. 나의 한국어는 그렇게 뛰어나지 않다. 또 내가 최대한 정기적으로 고국에 돌아가긴 하지만, 나의 고국에 있는 친구들과 가족들이 점점 더 그리워짐에도 한국에서 계속 머물고 싶은 마음은 어쩔 수가 없다. 그러나 한국에는 거의 모든 외국인들이 싫어하는 몇 가지가 있는데, 이는 몇몇 한국 사람들이 멋대로 우리를 멍청하다고 생각할 때이다.

이 시점에서 의리 있는 전북일보 독자 분들은 벌떡 일어서 “우리는 그렇게 생각하지 않아요”라며 반대 할지도 모르겠다. 잠시 내가 이것에 대해 설명하게 해 줄 수 있겠는가.

나는 어떤 사람이 아무런 근거 없이 나에 대해 어떠할 것이라고 제멋대로 생각하고서 후에 자신이 틀렸다는 것을 알게 되는 경우를 자주 맞닥뜨린다. 한국 사람들은 종종 이 곳에 사는 외국인들이 한국어를 할 줄 모르거나 한국어를 알아듣지 못한다고 생각한다. 아마 대부분의 혹은 심지어 꽤나 많은 외국인들이 실제로 이런 경우에 속할지도 모르지만, 우리는 외국인이라고 해서 다 똑같은 사람이 아니다. 우리는 모두 다른 국가 그리고 그 국가에서도 다른 지역에서 온 각각 다른 사람들이다. 나는 내가 바디랭귀지를 알아듣고, 알아들은 내용을 내가 아는 한국어와 합쳐서 문맥상 뜻을 꽤나 잘 유추해내며, 한국에서 대부분의 상황에 대해서 내 나름대로 판단을 내릴 수 있다고 생각한다. 이것이 내가 들은 모든 한국어를 다 알아듣는다거나 쉽게 그 상황에 대해 대답하며 의사소통 할 수 있다는 것은 아니지만, 적어도 대략적으로 요점은 알 수 있다는 것이다.

나에게 또는 내 주변에서 듣는 말들에 대해 대략적으로나마 이해할 수 있다는 것은 매우 유용한 재능이기는 하지만, 때때로 이를 통해 그다지 좋지 않는 말들을 듣게 되기도 한다. 불운하게도 나는 내 바로 앞에서 나에 대해서 얘기하는 말들을 곧바로 알아들은 적이 많은데, 이보다 더 심한 것은 그 말들이 나에 대한 칭찬은 아닐 때도 있었다는 것이다. 이것이 어떤 느낌인지 좀 더 제대로 느낄 수 있도록 예를 하나 들어보겠다. 나는 너그러운 인심으로 상추 몇 장을 덤으로 더 넣어준다 던지, 빵집에서 훌륭한 고객 서비스의 일환으로 크림을 더 얹어준다 던지 하는 한국의 ‘서비스’를 매우 좋아한다. 언젠가 한 번은 주인이 이런 덤과 함께 그 가게에 있던 모든 사람들에게 큰 소리로 ‘외국인들은 이런 빵을 좋아하고 이런 케이크를 좋아한다’고 이러쿵저러쿵 말하기 시작했다. 이런 행동은 한국인이 아닌 외국인들에게 절대 긍정적인 시각으로 보여지지 않는다. 마치 우리의 감정 따위는 상관 없다는 듯한 이런 종류의 말들은 우리가 저평가 되어지고 있다고 느끼게 하며, 매우 당황스럽다. 내 나라를 포함한 많은 다른 나라들에서, 누군가의 면전에서 그 사람이 그 곳에 없는 것처럼 이야기하는 것은 상당히 무례한 행동으로 여겨진다. 특히 이런 ‘외국인’이 좋아하는 빵이네 케익이네 하는 것들이 실제로 우리 고국으로부터 온 것이라면, 몇 번 정도 이런 사소한 어이없는 일을 경험한 후에는 쉽게 잊어버리거나 웃어넘길 수 있다. 그러나 이런 말들이 어떤 사람의 외모나 체중과 같이 좀 더 민감하고 개인적인 것들에 관한 것이라면 그다지 쉽게 웃고 넘어가지지 않는다. 우리가 다른 언어를 사용하는 나라에서 온 사람들이며 처음에는 우리가 하는 말을 알아듣지도 못하는 아이들을 가르치기 위해 이 나라에 왔고, 따라서 우리는 꼭 말을 하지 않고도 충분히 의사소통 하는데 익숙한 사람들이라는 것을 기억해줬으면 좋겠다.

내 생각에 한국에서 영어를 가르칠 수 있는 7개 국가(영국, 아일랜드, 미국, 캐나다, 남아프리카, 호주 그리고 뉴질랜드) 국적의 모든 사람들에게 있어, 이런 류의 비평이 굉장히 공격적이라 것은 틀림없는 사실이다. 비록 그 말 자체가 엄청나게 심한 말은 아니라고 할지라도 다른 사람 앞에서 그 사람이 알아듣지 못할 것이라고 생각하며 그 사람에 대해 면전에 대고 이런 저런 말을 하는 것은 굉장히 무례한 일이다. 나는 한국의 문화를 바꾸라고 말하고 있는 것이 아니다. 한국 문화는 많은 사람들이 이곳에 오고 싶어하는 이유이다. 하지만 이런 행동들이 정말 어쩔 수 없는 한국 문화의 특성인가?

나는 한국을 사랑한다 그러나 동시에 나는 한국에 대한 평판이 걱정된다. 한국에 온 거의 모든 사람들이 결국에는 자신의 나라로 돌아간다. 친구들이나 가족들이 우리에게 한국에서의 경험을 물어보면 우리는 당연히 한국의 맛있는 음식과 멋진 축제들 그리고 관대하고 따뜻한 마음을 가진 사람들에 대해 얘기할 것이다. 그러나 몇몇 사람들은 아마 그들이 겪었던 그다지 좋지 않은 경험들에 대해서도 언급할지 모른다. 아마 내가 위에서 언급한 이런 경험을 제외한 모든 나쁜 경험들은 굳이 말하지 않을지도 모르지만, 내가 말한 이 경험은 분명 입에 오르게 될 것이다.

우리가 이런 취급을 당하면 우린 정말 바보가 된 것 같고 난처하다. 부디 우리가 아무 것도 알아듣지 못한다고 생각하지 말길 바라며, 만약 당신이 정말로 우리에 대해 한 두 마디 해야겠다면 적어도 우리가 당신 앞에서 자취를 감출 때까지 기다려주길 바란다.

Originally published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo on Friday 8th October 2010 and translated by Bobin Jung

Overheard in Sydney

2010-10-24T12:22:00.002+09:00

"Honestly I thought you were gay until recently."

"Don't believe the lies she tells, my Monther is a liar."

"I know heaps of stuff"

"It's like walking on paradise"

"The tit to gut ratio is all out of whack."

"You know I beleive in all that gypsy curse stuff."

"Which clan do you like in the grime scene."

The prickly relationship with Japan

2010-09-25T11:01:00.000+09:00

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, September 24th 2010 ‘ Japan’

There are many great things about living in Korea, many of which I have mentioned in these very pages but Korea’s geographical location in the heart of East Asia makes it the perfect base for exploring the rest of this wonderful continent and the closest country is one of Korea’s longest and fiercest foes, Japan.

Many expatriates in Korea, myself included learn may things bout Korea and the Korean people very soon after arriving here and maybe chief amongst them is Korea’s dislike of Japan. That is not to say that all Koreans dislike Japan, the many many Koreans I have overheard in super markets and restaurants in Japan testify to that but as a generalisation and if we were to sum up our experiences in Korea many expats would mention that Korea has some problems with Japan.

Many more of us expats know why this relationship exists but for me personally that does not fully explain why the attitude is still so prevalent in 2010, especially amongst the youngest Koreans.

As the roads were getting clogged with people travelling around Korea to meet up with family members to celebrate Chuseok I was on a bus bound for Busan with the intention of getting on the Beetle ferry to Fukuoka in Japan. I have been to Japan on 5 different occasions now and I have loved every single minute of it.

After World War 2 the attitude to Germany was understandably hostile but now, over 60 years later Germany is only regarded as the home of the Nazi party by the most ignorant and insular people. I understand that wounds inflicted by that period on people who are still around today will never fully heal, much like Koreans who suffered at the hands of the Japanese these feelings and prejudices should not be passed on to future generations. I have been to Germany and I love it, a wonderful and beautiful country with great food and beer and some of the most delightful people I have ever met.

The attitude in Japan to Korea was similar with previous generations but that is changing too and the owner of the hostel in Fukuoka I talked to about this told me that his parents’ generation were no great fans of Korea but he likes Korea, has been to Seoul and Busan and like lots of Japanese people he really enjoys Korean barbecue. He mentioned he likes the spicy aspect of Korean food and likes kimchi too (which incidentally I saw was on sale in lots of convenience stores.)

There are a few things that Korea and Japan could learn from each other especially from my perspective as a tourist, albeit a long term tourist in Korea. Japan is the cleanest country in the world, it is certainly the cleanest country I have ever visited and it really does make for a much more pleasant experience and being British I very much enjoy the Japanese attitude to queuing. Small queues form at the doors to every subway or bus stop and people patiently wait for people to disembark before calmly walking onto the subway, bus, train or boat. In Korea there is more of an ‘every man for themselves’ attitude. This was hard to come to terms with when I first arrived because as a British man, I would always allow older people and those with children to go in front of me, but in Korea before I get the chance to be a gentleman people are usually pushing me out of their way.

The Japanese could learn a thing or two from Korea too, particularly when it comes to eating and communicating. Eating and drinking out in Korea is a very pleasurable experience and more often than not the food is delicious and inexpensive. It is for this reason that Korean food has formed the cornerstone of my love affair with Korea. In Japan the food is also delicious but it is more expensive to go to restaurants with a carefree attitude, especially as the menu is almost impossible to decipher if you cannot read Japanese. Which brings me to my next point about Korea and Japan, the language. As I have mentioned before Hangeul is a great creation and has made my time in Korea much better as I am now able to read, particularly menus and therefore understand what I have ordered and how much the bill is likely to come to (my mother instilled a sense of economical responsibility in me from an early age!) in Japan this is not really possible and it makes me sad to think I have missed out on so many wonderful dishes.

If you have any reservations about Japan go and see for yourself just like the tour groups that were on the boat going to Japan and the different one that was on the boat back.

__________________________________________________________________________________

한국에서 살면서 나는 여러 멋진 경험들을 할 수 있었다. 한국은 동아시아의 중심에 자리잡고 있어 주변 나라로의 여행이 용이한데, 그 중에서도 한국에서 가장 가까운 나라이자 길고 긴 숙적 관계인 일본을 자유자재로 여행할 수 있는 완벽한 기반을 제공한다. 한국 사람들이 가족을 만나기 위해 고향으로 떠난 이번 추석에 나는 일본 후쿠오카로 가는 배를 타기 위해 부산으로 향하는 버스에 올랐다.

나를 포함한 한국에 있는 많은 외국인들은 한국이 가지고 있는 일본에 대한 반감을 잘 알고 있다. 물론, 모든 한국인들이 일본을 싫어하는 것은 아니지만 일반적으로 우리가 한국에서 겪었던 경험들을 종합해 봤을 때 많은 외국인들이 한국이 분명 일본과 문제가 있다고 말할 것이다.

우리 외국인들은 한국과 일본이 왜 이런 관계에 놓였는지 알고 있지만, 나는 개인적으로 2010년 현재까지 특히 한국의 가장 어린 층에서도 일본에 대한 이런 감정이 널리 퍼져있는 것을 완전히 이해하지는 못하겠다.

세계 2차대전 후 세상의 독일에 대한 태도는 적개심에 불타올랐고, 이는 충분히 수긍할만한 것이었다. 그러나 60여 년 후인 지금, 독일은 대부분의 무관심하거나 편협한 사람들에 의해 나치당의 근원지로서 여겨지고 있을 뿐이다. 일본의 손 아래 수모를 겪은 한국인들처럼, 오늘날 아직도 살아있는 그 시기에 고통 받은 사람들의 상처가 절대 완전히 치유될 수 없다는 것은 안다. 그러나 이런 감정이나 편견이 미래의 세대에까지 전해져서는 안 된다. 나는 독일에 가본 적이 있는데, 나는 그 때 맛있는 음식들과 맥주, 그리고 내가 이제껏 만나본 가장 유쾌한 사람들이 있는 아름다운 그 나라를 좋아하지 않을 수 없었다.

일본의 한국에 대한 태도도 이전의 세대와 비슷하긴 하지만, 이 또한 바뀌는 중이다. 후쿠오카의 한 호텔 주인은 그의 부모세대에는 한국을 좋아하는 사람이 없지만 자기는 한국을 좋아한다고 말했다. 또한 서울과 부산에 가본 적이 있으며 다른 일본인들처럼 한국의 매운 음식과 김치, 불고기를 즐겨먹는다고 했다.

나는 관광객이라는 입장의 관점에서, 한국과 일본은 서로 배울 수 있는 점들이 있다고 생각한다. 일본은 세계에서 가장 깨끗한 나라이며, 일본인들의 줄서기 문화는 훌륭하다. 모든 지하철이나 버스 정류장의 문 앞에서 사람들은 침착하게 지하철, 버스, 기차, 또는 보트에 타기 전에 참을성 있게 다른 사람들이 내리는 것을 기다린다.

한국에서는 '자신이 최우선'이라는 경향이 있는 듯 하다. 내가 처음 한국에 도착했을 때, 나는 이런 태도를 받아들이기가 힘들었다. 나는 언제라도 연장자나 아이들과 함께 있는 사람에게 나의 앞자리를 양보하려 했지만, 내가 신사가 될 수 있는 기회를 얻기도 전에 사람들은 보통 나를 밀치고 가버리곤 했다.

일본 또한 한국으로부터 몇 가지 배울 점이 있다. 특히 먹는 것이나 의사소통을 하는 것에 대한 것을 들 수 있다. 한국에서 먹고 마시는 것은 매우 즐거운 경험이며, 대부분의 경우 음식은 맛있고 비싸지도 않다. 이는 내가 한국의 음식과 사랑에 빠지게 된 이유이기도 하다. 일본의 음식도 맛있긴 하지만, 너무 비싸서 편한 마음으로 식당에 가는 것이 어렵다. 특히 일본어를 읽지 못한다면 메뉴에 써 있는 것이 무슨 뜻인지 알 수 조차 없다. 그 다음으로 내가 꼽은 점은 한국과 일본의 언어에 관한 것이다. 내가 이전에 언급했듯이, 한글은 위대한 창조물이며, 읽는 것을 쉽게 배울 수 있어서 특히나 메뉴 같은 것을 읽을 수 있게 되어, 내가 한국에서 훨씬 나은 시간을 보낼 수 있도록 해주었다. 따라서 나는 내가 무엇을 주문 했는지 알 수 있고, 어느 정도 계산해야 할지도 대충 알 수 있다. 일본에서는 이런 일은 거의 불가능해서 내가 먹을 기회가 있었던 많은 맛있는 음식들을 놓친 것 같은 느낌에 뭔가 아쉬울 때가 많다.

한국과 일본이 안좋은 감정으로 서로를 부정적으로 바라보기 보다는 이제는 서로의 좋은 점을 배워가며 발전해 가는 동반자적 입장이 되길 바란다.

번역 정보빈

Rob McGovern, 전북일보, 2010년 9월 24일 ‘ 한국과 일본’

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Japan!

2010-09-23T22:22:00.000+09:00

Japan!

2010-09-16T18:05:00.000+09:00

In honour of my most recent trip to Japan I have decided to post a few links to things Japanese!

Transportation in Korea

2010-09-16T16:35:00.006+09:00

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, September 17th 2010 ‘Transportation’

I love trains, I love the way they smoothly make their way through the countryside rarely making unscheduled stops and with enough room to walk around. I especially love the trains in Korea as they are good value and offer more walking and standing room than UK trains. They also often have other attractions including Internet terminals. But I love the buses here too, especially the express buses that can transport you in comfort similar to a business class airplane seat (although I have never flown business class I have passed by the seats on my way to the economy seats in the depths of many planes) to Seoul or Busan, stopping halfway so everyone can stretch their legs and buy some potatoes from the well equipped rest stops or see the 엿 men! In fact the buses are so good, cheap, comfortable and plentiful that I rarely use the trains, especially as getting to Busan, or anywhere in that general direction requires several changes from Jeonju. I will happily admit that inter-city travelling in Korea is nothing short of a pleasure.

Travelling within cities however is usually less fun.

I love the city buses in Jeonju as they are incredibly cheap, for British people at least. They are fairly frequent but like city buses all over the world they aren’t always available when you need them. Also many expatriates in Korea, at least in my experience in Jeonju, don’t use the buses because the schedules are only available in Korean (which is another reason to learn to read a bit!)
So the most popular way of being conveyed around the city is by taxi. Again by British standards taxis are cheap in Korea and sometimes the cars are very luxurious but I am not a fan of taxis because sadly they are very often unsafe.

British people and our government are very strict when it comes to road safety and every Christmas in particular TV ads showing the horrors and consequences of drinking alcohol and driving are replayed again and again. Another grusome advert shows a brother and sister in the back of a car with their mother driving. The driver is wearing a seat belt but her children are not and when another car appears from nowhere and crashes into them the teenage son is thrust forward and into the back of his mother’s seat, killing her. Yet another ad, this time on the dangers of speeding tells us that at just 10 miles per hour over the 30 mph speed limit in residential areas increases the chances of a child being killed up to 80%. And it is these things that have made me often uneasy about getting into taxis in Korea.

I often find that seat belts are not available in the back of taxis. I am not sure if it is a law in Korea to use seat belts in the back of cars but even if it isn’t a law why would you make them inaccessible? When I am with another person I check if seat belts are available in the back seats of a taxi and if they aren’t I close the door and get another one. Seat belts are designed to save lives and they do just that so why would anyone not use them? Taxis sometimes go straight though red lights and on many occasions I have been in a taxi where the driver is talking on the phone and watching TV, which to my mind is not only ludicrous but incredibly dangerous. Friends in the UK could not believe me when I told them that in Korea some taxis have TVs and although they are supposed to be for sat-nav at least half of the taxis I get in have some kind of program on.

I am not comparing Korea to the UK or any other country I am just writing about my experiences in Korea and this is a big thing for me. Even if you are the best diver in the world you cannot control other people and so if you wear a seat belt, don’t watch TV or answer your mobile phone, other people do and I am only a little less worried when I get into a taxi with seat belts and a responsible driver because I know that there are plenty of careless drivers out there.

And my final though must be to parents, especially parents who drive with their babies sitting on the lap of either the driver or a passenger. Just think what would happen to your fragile, tiny baby if a car, bus or truck crashed into you.

I love Korea and Jeonju and one day I will stop living here (but never stop visiting) and I hate to think that all my friends here, both Korean and non-Korean take so many chances every day when it is so easy to make things safer. A slogan from a popular ad about driving safety has become very well know in the UK and reminds us to fasten our safety belt every time by thinking about the sound it makes when we fasten it.

“Clunk, Click every trip.”

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, September 17th 2010

Some videos to highlight these issues can be found at the end of this post.

_________________________________________________________________

나는 기차를 좋아한다. 나는 안에서 걸어 다닐 수 있는 정도의 여유공간과 함께 기차가 거의 예정되지 않은 역에서 멈추는 일 따위 없이 부드럽게 시골길을 가로 질러 지나가는 그런 점이 너무 좋다. 나는 특히 영국보다 내부 공간도 더 넓고, 더 고급스러운 한국의 기차를 좋아한다. 게다가 한국 기차에서는 인터넷을 할 수 있는 기차 칸과 같은 많은 매력적인 요소들도 찾아볼 수 있다. 하지만 나는 한국의 버스 또한 좋아한다. 특히 (비스니스 석은 비록 내가 비행기 안쪽에 있는 이코노미 석으로 가는 길에 지나쳐 본 적 밖에 없지만) 비행기의 비즈니스 석을 탄 것과 같은 편안함과 함께 서울이나 부산으로 데려다 주는 고속버스가 있는데, 이 버스는 중간쯤 한 번 멈춰서, 승객들이 스트레칭도 하고 휴게실에서 알감자를 사먹거나 엿장수를 구경할 수도 있다. 사실 한국의 버스들은 너무나도 좋고, 싸고 안락하며, 서비스 또한 풍부해서 나는 거의 기차를 이용하지 않는다. 특히 부산이나 그 정도 거리에 있으면서 전주에서부터 몇 번이나 갈아타야 하는 곳에 갈 때는 꼭 버스를 이용한다. 나는 한국에서 국내 여행을 하는 것은 분명 크나 큰 즐거움이다.

하지만 어떤 도시들 안에서만 여행하는 것은 보통 덜 재미있다.

나는 적어도 영연방 사람들에게는 매우 싼 편이기 때문에 전주 시내버스가 매우 맘에 든다. 전주 시내버스는 다음 버스들이 꽤 자주 오는 편이지만, 세계의 다른 곳들과 마찬가지로 사람들이 원하는 때에 항상 버스를 이용할 수 있는 경우는 많지 않다. 또한 한국에 있는 많은 외국인들은(적어도 전주에 있는 내 경험에 한해서는) 시내버스를 잘 이용하지 않는데, 그 이유는 버스 노선표가 한국어로만 되어있기 때문이다. (이것이 그들이 한국어를 읽는 정도는 배워야 한다는 또 다른 이유라고도 할 수 있다.) 그래서 우리에게 전주 시내에서 돌아다니기 위한 가장 인기 있는 교통 수단은 택시이다. 다시 한 번 말하지만 영연방 사람들의 기준에 의해서 한국 택시는 싼 데다가 가끔은 차들이 매우 고급스럽기까지 하다. 하지만 나는 안타깝게도 보통 택시들이 별로 안전하지 않기 때문에 택시를 별로 애용하지는 않는다.

영연방 사람들과 웨일즈 정부는 도로 교통에 대해 매우 엄격하다. 특히 크리스마스에는 끔찍한 음주운전의 결말에 대한 TV광고를 계속해서 내보낸다. 다른 섬뜩한 광고는 엄마가 운전하는 차 뒤에 앉아있는 한 남매에 관한 것인데, 엄마는 안전벨트를 하고 있지만 아이들은 안전벨트를 하지 않는 상태에서, 돌연 갑자기 나타난 차가 그들의 차를 들이받는다. 이 때 남자아이가 앞으로 튕겨져 나갔다가 다시 엄마 쪽 좌석으로 내던져 지면서 엄마 또한 사망하게 되는 내용을 담고 있다. 또 다른 광고는 과속의 위험에 대한 것인데, 단지 30mph가 넘는 시간당 10마일의 속도로 주거 지역에서 달리는 것이 유아 교통사고를 일으킬 수 있는 가능성이 80%나 된다는 점을 시사하고 있다. 그리고 내가 전에 봤던 이런 광고들이 내가 한국에서 택시를 타는 것을 종종 어렵게 만든다.

나는 택시의 뒷좌석에서 안전벨트를 이용할 수 없다는 점을 자주 발견하곤 한다. 뒷좌석에서 꼭 안전벨트를 해야 한다는 것이 한국에서 법으로 제정되어 있는지는 잘 모르겠지만, 만약 그게 법으로 제정 되어 있지 않다고 하더라도 왜 그것을 사용할 수 없게 까지 놔두어야 하는 것일까? 나는 택시를 탈 때 뒷좌석에 안전벨트가 이용가능한지 항상 확인하고 만약 그렇지 않다면, 그 차의 문을 도로 닫고 다른 택시를 잡는다. 안전벨트는 생명을 구하기 위해 만들어진 것이고 그 기능을 충실히 하고 있다. 그런데 왜 아무도 안전벨트를 이용하지 않는 걸까? 택시들은 때때로 빨간 불을 그냥 지나쳐가기도 하고, 내가 경험한 바에 의하면, 택시 운전사들은 전화를 받고 TV를 보면서 운전을 하기도 한다. 이 것은 나에게 바보 같을 뿐만 아니라 매우 위험한 행동으로 여겨진다. UK에 있는 친구들은 내가 한국의 몇몇 택시들에 TV가 있다는 것을 얘기하면 아무도 믿지 않는다. 비록 그것들이 네비게이션으로 이용될 목적으로 설치된 것이겠지만, 적어도 내가 탄 택시들 중 반은 그것으로 TV 프로그램을 보고 있었다.

나는 한국을 UK나 다른 어떤 나라와 비교하자는 것이 아니다. 나에게 이 경험은 매우 큰 것이었기 때문에 그저 한국에서의 나의 경험을 쓰고 있는 것일 뿐이다. 당신이 세상에서 최고의 운전사라도 할지라도, 다른 사람의 안전을 완전히 통제할 수는 없다. 나는 여기저기에 부주의한 많은 운전사들이 있다는 것을 알기 때문에, 단지 책임감 있는 운전사가 운전하는 안전벨트가 있는 택시에 탔을 때 조금 덜 걱정되는 것뿐이다.

그리고 내가 마지막으로 고려하는 것은 부모님들이다. 특히 무릎에 아이를 앉히고 운전하거나 대중교통을 이용하는 부모님들은 더욱 주의해야 한다. 그저 만약 어떤 차, 버스 혹은 트럭이 당신에게 돌진한다면 당신의 연약하고 작은 아이에게 어떤 일이 생길 지 생각해 보아라.

나는 한국 그리고 전주를 사랑한다. 언젠가 나는 더 이상 이곳에서 살지 않을 테지만(물론 절대로 방문하는 것을 멈추지는 않을 것이다.), 나는 한국인이든 한국인이 아니든 이 곳에 있는 모든 나의 친구들이 더 안전해 질 수 있는 쉬운 방법을 내버려 두고 매일 위험을 감수하며 살고 있다고 생각하고 싶지 않다.

한 유명한 광고에서 나온 안전 운전에 관한 슬로건이 최근 UK에서 널리 알려지게 되었는데, 이 슬로건은 안전벨트를 맬 때 나는 소리를 생각함으로써 항상 우리가 안전벨트를 매야 한다는 것을 상기시킨다.

“찰칵, 성공적인 여행의 약속”(항상 성공적인 여행을 약속합니다.)

Rob McGovern, 전북일보, 2010년 9월 17일 ‘교통’

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Language

2010-09-12T22:32:00.001+09:00

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, September 10th 2010 ‘Language’

Most of the expatriates in Jeonju came here as native English teachers to teach a generation of Korean children English. Language has and continues to play a large part in the lives of many expats, it seems to dominate the schedules of many young Koreans and for some it may play a big part in their future. Other than English however the Korean language plays a huge part of the life of expatriates in Korea too, either by its presence or by its absence.

Somebody told me once that they weren’t going to bother learning to read Korean because even if you could read the words that doesn’t mean you would be able to understand them, which may be true in most cases but if you spend the time to learn you soon realise that there are words that have been borrowed from English everywhere you look. So even if you only learn to read hangeul the country becomes a little bit less mysterious and living here becomes a bit more enjoyable.

Learning any language is a chore and Korean is no different but the benefits of learning even a few sentences can greatly improve life here. Getting around the city by talking directly to taxi drivers or reading bus route maps can give a great feeling of independence, being able to read restaurant menus means you can try new and exciting food and being able to ask simple questions means that you can get around the country and navigate different cities.

Too many people who come to Korea refuse, for one reason or another to learn to either read or speak Korean and while I do not in any way feel that anybody should be compelled to learn any language I am certain that you cannot fully understand or enjoy a new culture without learning at least a bit of the native language.

Learning a little bit of Korean has also helped me to enjoy taekwondo more fully as well as helping me obtain a deeper understanding of Korean taekwondo. So deep in fact that I have no real idea what many of the kicks, blocks and other techniques are called in English and I will be interested to go into a taekwondo class in any country other than Korea and find that I have no idea with anybody is talking about!

I am very far from being fluent at Korean, in fact my listening skills are less than desirable and my vocabulary is limited to words I have had to learn to help me accomplish certain tasks but I can follow conversations and have no trouble getting around the city. I also know how to speak politely to people and most importantly I can thank any restaurateur for a delicious meal!

Rob McGovern, September 10th 2010

전주에 있는 대부분은 외국인들은 한국의 아이들에게 영어를 가르치기 위해 현지영어선생님으로서 한국에 왔다. 언어는 예전부터 지금까지 줄곧 많은 외국인들의 삶에서 중요한 역할을 하고 있다. 또한 이는 많은 어린 한국인들의 스케줄을 장악하고 있으며, 그들 중 몇몇에게는 이렇게 배워둔 언어가 아마 미래에 매우 중요한 역할을 할지도 모른다. 그러나 영어 이외에, 한국어 또한 한국에 있는 외국인들의 삶에서 그 존재 혹은 그 부재로 인해 매우 큰 부분을 차지하고 있다.

언젠가 누군가가 한국어는 어떤 단어를 읽을 줄 알아도 그것이 어떤 의미인지는 알 수 없기 때문에 자신은 한국어를 어떻게 읽는지 배우는 것에 대해 신경 쓰지 않을 것이라고 나에게 말한 적이 있다. 아마 이는 대부분의 경우 사실일지도 모르지만 만약 당신이 조금만 배우려 노력한다면, 곧 사방에 있는 많은 단어들이 영어에서 빌려온 것이라는 것을 알게 될 것이다. 따라서 당신이 어떻게 한글을 읽는지 배우면, 이 나라가 조금은 덜 생소해지고 여기서 사는 것이 조금은 더 즐거워질 것이다.

언어를 배운다는 것은 힘든 일이다. 한국어도 마찬가지이다. 하지만 몇 문장이라도 배워둔다면 이는 이곳에서의 당신의 삶을 크게 향상시켜줄 것이다. 택시운전사에게 직접 갈 곳을 말하고 시내 여기저기를 돌아다니거나 버스 노선표를 읽을 줄 아는 것만으로도 당신은 이곳에서 매우 독립적이라고 느낄 수 있으며, 음식점에서 메뉴를 읽을 줄 안다는 것은 당신이 새롭고 흥미로운 음식들을 먹는 것을 시도할 수 있다는 뜻이고, 간단한 질문을 할 수 있다는 것은 당신이 스스로 이 나라를 돌아다니면서 다른 도시들을 찾아다닐 수도 있음을 의미한다.

한국을 찾는 많은 사람들은 어떤 이유에서인지 한국어를 읽거나 말하는 것을 거부한다. 나는 어떤 언어를 배우는 데 있어서 누구든 강요를 받아서는 안 된다고 생각하지만, 만약 아주 최소한의 한국어도 알지 못한다면, 나는 당신이 분명 이 새로운 문화를 완전히 이해하고 즐길 수 없다고 확신한다.

한국어를 조금 배운 것은 나에게도 태권도를 좀 더 완전하게 즐기고 한국의 태권도에 대해 좀 더 깊이 이해하는데 많은 도움이 되었다. 그 의미를 너무 깊이 이해해서 사실 나는 그 많은 차기, 막기 그리고 다른 기술들을 영어로 뭐라고 하는지 알지 못한다. 그래서 아마 지금 내가 한국 이외에 다른 나라에서 태권도 수업을 받는다면, 아마 그들이 그들의 언어로 태권도에 대해서 하는 말들을 하나도 이해할 수 없을 것이다.

나는 한국어를 유창하게 말하지는 못한다. 사실 내 듣기 수준은 그다지 좋지 못하고, 내 어휘 수준도 내가 어떤 일을 하는데 도움을 얻기 위해 배워야 했던 단어들에 국한되어 있긴 하지만, 사람들의 대화를 알아듣고 여기저기 시내를 돌아다니는데 있어서는 전혀 문제가 없다. 또한 나는 사람들에게 어떻게 예의바르게 말하는지도 알 뿐더러 더 중요한 것은 내가 어떤 음식점에서든 그곳의 맛있는 식사에 대해 감사를 표할 수 있다는 것이다.

Rob McGovern, 전북일보, 2010년 9월 10일 ‘언어’

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Wales

2010-09-03T22:35:00.001+09:00

Robert McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, September 2nd 2010 ‘Wales’

I first came to Korea over 4 years ago and in all my time there have been very few people who have even heard of my country. I am British but when people ask me where I am from I tell them Wales. There is a very common error made in Korea on a daily basis and it is made throughout society, from street vendors, through students and right to the top, to government websites and publications.

Korean people think that ‘영국’ means England, which it doesn’t. This may be difficult for some people to accept, that something they have thought all of their lives is wrong but the fact is that 영국 means the United Kingdom, which is very different from England. Great Britain is the name of the Island, which further confuses matters. Many English people don’t mind or don’t care about this mistake, in lots of English teachers in Jeonju actually think that 영국 means England.

Why is this important?

Firstly it is just wrong, it is incorrect and that should never really be OK. Secondly and much more importantly it can and does offend people and it can lead to people thinking badly about people who make that mistake. I am from Wales and we have our own culture, our own language and our own long, long history. Wales has been inhabited by people for almost 30,000 years and the Romans have come and gone again. A long period of colonisation began in the 13th Century and for over 700 years the traditions, the culture and the language of Wales have been under threat of extinction and it is only through the hard work of dedicated and patriotic people that they have survived. All this hard work in preserving our culture means that we are very fierce when it comes to defending it. The same is true of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Wales has similarities to Korea in that sense, both countries have been the subjugated and to this day both countries are very proud of their history and traditions which is why it is very hard for me when I have the same conversation over and over again in which people refer to me as English. Imagine how you would feel if, for example you were a Korean abroad and somebody kept calling you Japanese. I would imagine all over Korea there are quite a few Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish people and while we are all British we certainly aren’t English!

Rob McGovern, September 3rd 2010

한국에 온 지 4년이 넘었다. 한국에서의 모든 생활은 낯선 사람들과의 낯선 경험이었다. 그러던 중 내가 한국인과 묘한 공감대를 느낀 일이 있었다. 어떤 한국인이 외국에 나갔는데, 외국인들 대부분이 "일본인이세요?" "중국인이세요?"라고 물었다고 했다. 나 역시 그렇다. 나는 영국인이지만, 사람들이 나의 출신을 물을 때면 "Wales!(웨일즈)"라고 말한다. 거기에는 한국 사회 전반적으로, 학생들을 비롯한 일반 시민들은 물론, 정부 웹사이트나 출판물에까지 오류가 있기 때문이다.

한국인들은 '영국'이 'England'를 의미한다고 생각하지만, 그렇지 않다. 어떤 사람들은 그동안 자신들이 알고 왔던 것이 틀렸다는 사실을 받아들이기 어려울 것이다. 하지만 사실 '영국'은 'England'와는 매우 다른, 'United Kingdom(왕국 연합)'이라는 의미다. 더 혼란스러운 것은 'Great Britiain'이 섬 이름이라는 것이다. 많은 영국 사람들은 이러한 오류에 대해 마음에 두거나 신경 쓰지 않는다. 사실 전주의 많은 영국인 교사들은 '영국'이 'England'를 의미한다고 생각한다.

그렇다면 이것이 무슨 문제가 되느냐고 물어올 것이다. 하지만 이는 중요한 문제다. 먼저 엄밀하게 말해 틀린 정보를 가지고 있는 것이며, 절대 괜찮을 수 없는 문제이기 때문이다. 둘째, 더욱 중요한 것은 이러한 오류가 사람들의 심기를 불편하게 할 수 있으며, 실제로 그렇다는 것이다. 또한 그런 오류를 범할 경우 사람들이 단순한 실수로 생각하지 않고, 실수한 사람에 대해 나쁜 인상을 가질 수 있기 때문이다. 나는 웨일즈에서 왔고, 우리는 아주 오래된 역사를 가지고 있다. 웨일즈에는 대략 3만 년이 넘게 사람들이 살고 있고, 우리 고유의 문화가 있으며 언어가 있다. 13세기부터 700년이 넘는 긴 시간 동안 웨일즈는 로마인들에 의해 자신들의 전통과 문화, 언어가 소멸될 위협을 겪었다. 하지만 애국심과 헌신적인 노력으로 살아남아 오늘에 이르게 됐다. 웨일즈 사람들이 자신들의 역사와 문화를 보호하기 위해 어떠한 일들을 겪었으며 이겨냈는 지를 알게 된다면 웨일즈가 얼마나 강한 곳인지 알게 될 것이다.

웨일즈는 그러한 점에서 일본에 주권을 침탈당했던 한국과 유사하다. 웨일즈와 한국은 다른 민족에 의해 억눌려 왔고, 그것을 이겨냈다. 그리고 오늘날 웨일즈와 한국은 자신들의 역사와 전통을 매우 자랑스러워 한다는 것이다. 이 정도면 웨일즈가 나를 비롯해 웨일즈 사람들에게 얼마나 자랑스럽고 소중한 이름인 지 알게 될 것이다. 만약 예를 들어 당신이 해외에 나가 있는 한국인이고 누군가가 당신을 일본인이라고 계속 부른다면, 당신은 어떤 느낌이겠는지 생각해 보라. 나는 한국에도 매우 적은 수의 웨일즈인과 스코틀랜드인, 북부 아일랜드인이 있을 것이라고 생각한다. 우리는 모두 'British'인 반면, 분명 'English'는 아닌 것이다!

Rob McGovern, 전북일보, 2010년 9월 3일

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Jae-min Sung

Eating Fido

2010-08-27T16:39:00.000+09:00

Eating dog meat is part of Korean culture, according to some sources it may not be an ancient cultural tradition but it is part of Korea’s history all the same and as such it should be preserved along with all other cultural traditions.

There seem to be 2 main reasons that people debate it and they are the fact that dogs are pets and have been for many hundreds of years in many different parts of the world, including Korea and to eat something that you could possibly keep as a pet is somehow barbaric. But who is to say what can be a pet and what can’t be? An old neighbour of mine used to have a pet duck. It was such a novelty for me to see this funny animal waddling around my neighbour’s garden but does that suddenly mean that my neighbour has a right to tell me that I cant eat duck? No, it doesn’t and by the same token dog lovers have no right to demand that Korean people (and Chinese, Vietnamese and every other culture that eats or has eaten dog) stop doing it. To me there is no acceptable argument for not eating dog. Dog’s are animals that are below people on the food chain, just like pigs, goats, cows, chickens and frankly every other animal on the planet. I agree that we shouldn’t eat endangered species because as much as I love eating animals I love looking at them too and to eat a species to extinction would be a terrible thing to do but the fact remains that we are at the top of the food chain and we are therefore able to eat whatever we like.

There is a different argument that more sensible people make and it is one that I agree with and that concerns the humane treatment of animals. Chickens are apparently electrocuted in large factories so they are unconscious and then killed so that the blood drains from their bodies with their hearts still beating and I believe it is true that they more than likely do not feel a thing and it is this not feeling pain that is considered humane. The slightly more informed protesters against the consumption of dog meat might have better luck if they said that they are not necessarily protesting against the consumption of dog meat but more against the treatment of these dogs and the way in which it is reported they are killed. It is said that dogs are hung and beaten before being killed in order to improve the flavour of the meat and I agree that this is indeed barbaric and I in no way condone the mistreatment of any animal, cultural tradition or not. If dogs were to be bred to be eaten and killed in a humane way a lot of the controversy around eating dog would disappear. There would be dog lovers who would continue to protest outside Korean embassies all over the world but as long as the system was open and the humane nature of breeding and killing the dogs could be verified these people’s protests would be null and void.

I have tried dog meat a few times and it was OK. It tasted like low quality lamb, a bit fatty. Would I eat it again? Probably not but that is mostly because it is expensive and it does not taste as good as say dak dori tang or bulgogi. I am not against eating dog meat and no carnivore should be against the practice of eating any kind of meat but the way in which animals are treated is something that I do care about and while I will defend (and I have many times to many people) the right of Korean people to eat dog ( or any people to eat anything) I will only do so if those animals are treated humanely, as the suffering of animals does not leave a good taste in my mouth.

Eating dog meat is something that many visitors to Korea want to try but are put off by stories of cruelty. It is a complete misconception that people who are not from Korea are against eating dog, I’m not and I know hundreds of other people who are not. Try to remember that we are the open minded travellers who came to Korea to live to begin with and many of us have travelled all over the world and seen many things that are as strange to us as anything in Korea.

Rob McGovern, Jeonbuk Ilbo, August 27th ' Eating Dog’

__________________________________________________________________________________

개고기를 먹는 것은 한국 문화의 한 일부분이다. 몇몇 정보에 따르면 이것이 고대 전통문화는 아닐 것이라고 하기도 하지만, 이는 한국 역사의일부이며 다른 전통문화들과 마찬가지로 보존되어야함이 마땅하다.
개고기를 먹는 것에 반대하여 사람들은 주로 두가지 이유를 든다. 개는 오늘날 사람들에게 애완동물로 인식되며 한국을 포함한 세계의 많은 나라에서도 수백 년간 그래 왔고, 따라서 우리가 애완동물로서 기를 수 있는 동물을 먹는다는 것은 뭔가 야만적이라는 것이다. 하지만 누가 어떤 것은 애완동물이 될 수 있고 어떤 것은 그럴 수 없다고 단정 지을 수 있는가? 나의 한 오랜 이웃은 오리를 애완동물로 기르곤 했었다. 그 웃긴 동물들이 나의 이웃의 정원 주변을 떼 지어 다니는 것을 보는 것은 참 신기하고 재밌는 일이었다. 하지만 이것이 돌연 나의 이웃이 나에게 오리를 먹지 말라고 말할 수 있는 권리를 가진다고 할 수 있을까? 그렇지 않다. 이와 마찬가지로, 개를 사랑하는 사람들 또한 한국 사람들(그리고 중국인, 베트남인, 또한 개고기를 먹거나 먹어 본 적 있는 모든 다른 사람들)에게 개고기 먹는 것을 그만두라고 요구할 수 있는 권리를 가질 수 없다.
개는 돼지, 염소, 소, 닭, 그리고 솔직히 말해 지구상에 있는 모든 다른 동물들과 마찬가지로 먹이사슬상, 인간의 아래에 있는 동물이다. 나는 내가 그 동물들을 먹는 것을 좋아하는 만큼 그것들을 관상하는 것도 좋아하기 때문에, 멸종 위기에 처한 동물들을 먹어서는 안 된다는 것에는 동의한다. 멸종 위기에 처한 동물을 먹는 것은 매우 끔찍한 일일 것이다. 그러나 우리가 먹이사슬에서 우위에 있다는 사실은 변하지 않기 때문에 여전히 우리는 어떤 것이든 우리가 좋아하는 것을 먹을 수 있는 권리가 있다.
이 문제에 대해 또다른 주장이 있다. 그것은 동물에 대한 인도주의적 차원의 관리가 고려되어야 한다는 것이며, 나는 이에 동의한다. 닭들은 분명히 큰 공장에서 무의식 상태에서 죽임을 당할 수 있도록 감전사된다. 그 후에 그것들의 심장이 아직 뛰고 있는 몸속에서 피를 뽑아낸다. 나는 닭들이 아무것도 느끼지 않는 편이 좋을 것이라고 생각하고, 이렇게 고통을 느끼지 않도록 하는 것이 인도적 차원의 배려라고 생각한다.
개고기의 소비에 반하여 좀 더 많은 정보를 가진 항의자들이 만약 꼭 개고기 소비에 반대하는 것이 아니라 개들이 죽임을 당하는 방법에 대해 반대한다고 주장한다면 아마 좀 더 유리한 입장에 설 수 있을 것이다. 알려진 바에 의하면, 개들은 그 고기의 맛을 더 좋게 하기 위해서, 도살되기 전에 매달려진 채로 두들겨 맞는다고 한다. 나는 이것이야말로 진짜 야만적이라는 것에 동의한다. 어떠한 방법으로든지 동물에 대한 학대는 그것이 전통문화이든 아니든, 용납될 수 없다. 만약 개들이 식용으로 사육되고 인도적인 방법으로 죽임을 당한다면, 개고기를 먹는 것에 대한 많은 논쟁들은 자취를 감출 것이다.
아직도 전 세계에 있는 한국의 대사관 바깥에는 개를 사랑하는 사람들이 항의를 계속하고 있다. 그러나 개고기의 생산체계가 개방되고, 인도적이고 자연적으로 개들을 사육하고 죽인다는 것이 입증된다면, 이런 사람들의 항의들 또한 그 효력을 잃을 것이다.
나는 개고기를 몇 번 먹어본 적이 있는데, 아무렇지도 않았다. 그것은 질이 떨어지는 양고기 맛이 났고, 조금 기름졌었다. 내가 개고기를 다시 먹게 될까? 아마 다시 먹지는 않을 것 같다. 그 이유는 개고기가 보통 비싸고, 닭도리탕이나 불고기만큼 맛이 좋지도 않기 때문일 뿐 개고기를 먹는 것에 반대하진 않는다. 어떠한 육식동물도 어떠한 종류의 고기를 먹는 음식 문화에 반대되어져서는 안된다. 그러나 동물들이 취급되는 방법은 내가 정말로 관심을 갖는 부분이다. 내가 이제껏 몇 번이나 많은 사람들에게 그랬던 것처럼 나는 한국인들(혹은 어떤 음식을 먹는 어떤 사람들이든)이 개고기를 먹는 것에 대해 앞으로도 옹호할 것이지만, 고통 받은 동물들의 고기는 나에게 전혀 맛있지 않기 때문에, 오직 그 동물들이 인도적으로 취급된다는 전제하에 그렇게 할 것이다.
한국을 찾는 많은 사람들이 개고기를 먹는 것을 시도해 보고자 하지만 그 잔인함에 대한 이야기 때문에 결국은 마음을 접는다. 이는 한국 출신이 아닌 사람들이 개고기를 먹는 것에 무조건 반대한다는 것은 완전한 오해이다. 나는 개고기에 반대하지 않으며, 또한 나와 같은 수백 명의 사람들을 알고 있다. 우리는 처음부터 한국에 살기 위해 이곳에 온 개방적인 사고를 가진 여행자들이며, 우리 중 많은 이들은 전 세계를 여행하며, 한국에서 우리가 낯설다고 느낄 수 있는 어떤 것만큼이나 생소한 것들을 본 적이 있는 사람들이라는 것을 기억해 주었으면 한다. (번역 정보빈)

Rob McGovern, August 27th 2010

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

The Best Food on Earth

2010-08-13T16:22:00.000+09:00

I like eating. In fact eating is one of my favourite past times. I think about tomorrow’s breakfast as I get into bed, discuss lunch over a cup of tea in the morning and from the second the last mouthful of lunch is making its way down my esophagus I begin thinking about dinner.

I live for 명성옥’s bibimbap, I drool over the merest thought of a mouthful of melting 김치찜 and the thought of grilled pig (cheek, belly, neck, 갈매기 or ribs) makes me quiver with excitement. But of every dish in Korea, of every dish on the planet there is one dish in one particular restaurant that is the centre of my food universe, a food so good that when I eventually leave Korea it will be one of 2 reasons that I come back for holidays every year or two for the rest of my life (the other reason is of course Ajung Sang Mu taekwondo and my Kwan Jang Nim.) That food is 닭도리탕 and the restaurant is 길손네 in the Jeonbuk university area of Jeonju.

There is a lot of talk about 닭도리탕 and its name. Lots of younger Koreans insist on calling the dish 닭매운탕 or 닭볶음탕 and seems to stem from the idea that the word ‘dori’ is from Japanese and means chicken or bird and although I understand the history of Japan and Korea I refuse to pander to nationalism. Other explanations that have been put forward is that the 도리 part of the name derives from the Korean 도려내다 which makes sense seeing as 닭도리탕 is chicken cut up into pieces. Another idea I found on the Internet was that 닭도리 is a possible corruption of 닭다리 and this makes sense seeing as 닭도리탕 should always be cooked with chicken on the bone. Whatever the origin I have come to know the dish as 닭도리탕 and will not change now and besides the restaurant call it 닭도리탕 and that is good enough for me. And as William Shakespeare would have said if he were in my position “A bowl of bubbling, delicious 닭도리탕 by any other name would taste just as delicious.”

닭도리탕 is especially good in the winter as the pieces of chicken, soaked in the spicy and savoury soup fall apart at the touch of a chopstick and the soup itself is like nectar that when mixed with the rice forms a Korean style risotto, spicy and delicious. But now, in the height of summer when traditionalists are trying to beat the heat with 삼계탕, 팥빙수 and 냉면 I can still be found at the small wooden tables of 길손네 scraping every last drop from the bowl. I have been going to 길손네 ever since a friend introduced me to it almost 4 years ago and I have not found another 닭도리탕 that comes even close.

In fact this is the first time I have written about 닭도리탕 and revealed the restaurant because I have been concerned that people may discover it and it would be busier than ever. I am even glad that the Jeonbuk Ilbo doesn’t publish in English as I have also been concerned that the place would overrun with tourists! If I had it my way the restaurant would be my own personal kitchen, producing the finest food Korea has to offer just for me. The best food Korean food in the world can of course be found in Korea an the best food in Korea is in Jeonju which makes 길손네 the best producer of 닭도리탕 in the entire world.

Several times I have found the restaurant full and have either waited or came back but once and only once I arrived not long before the restaurant was due to close and to my horror found that they had actually run out of 닭도리탕. Instead, and with a heavy heart I ordered 김치찌개 only to find it was one of the best versions I had ever eaten!

Rob McGovern, August 13th 2010

_________________________________________________________________

나는 먹는 것을 좋아한다. 사실 먹는 것은 내가 가장 좋아하는 여가생활 중 하나이다. 나는 내일의 아침밥을 생각하며 잠에 들고, 아침에 차 한 잔을 마시며 점심에 무엇을 먹을 지에 대해 이야기하고, 점심의 마지막 한 숟가락이 나의 식도를 내려가는 순간에 저녁을 먹을 것에 대해서 생각하기 시작한다.

명성옥의 비빔밥은 내 삶의 보람이다. 녹아내리는 김치찜 한 입을 먹는 그런 지극히 단순한 생각만으로도 침이 고이고, 구운 돼지고기(볼살, 삼겹살, 목살, 갈매기살, 혹은 갈비살)는 나를 신나서 어쩔 줄 모르게 만든다. 하지만 한국의 모든 음식들, 우주 행성들의 모든 음식들 중에, 나의 음식 세계의 중심에는 어떤 특정한 음식점에서 파는 단 하나의 음식이 있다. 그 음식은 내가 나중에 한국을 떠나게 될 때, 내가 나의 남은 인생동안 거의 매 해 휴가를 이용해 한국을 다시 찾아오게 만들 2가지 이유 중에 하나일 정도로 맛있다. (또 다른 하나의 이유는 물론 아중상무태권도와 나의 관장님이다.) 그 음식은 바로 전주 전북대 부근의 ‘길손네’에서 파는 닭도리탕이다.

닭도리탕과 그 이름에 대해서는 여러 가지 말이 많다. 많은 젊은 한국인들은 이 음식을 두고 ‘닭매운탕’이나 ‘닭볶음탕’이라고 부르기를 주장한다. 이는 ‘도리’라는 단어가 닭이나 새를 의미하는 일본어에서 나왔다는 생각에서 나온 것이다. 비록 나는 일본과 한국의 역사를 알고 있긴 하지만, 국가주의에 영합하고 싶지는 않다. 또 다른 설은 ‘도리’가 한국어의 ‘도려내다’라는 단어에서 유래했다는 것이다. 닭을 토막내어 요리한 닭도리탕을 보면 이 주장이 맞는 것도 같다. 내가 인터넷에서 찾아낸 또 다른 주장은 ‘닭도리’가 ‘닭다리’라는 단어의 왜곡된 형태일 수 있다는 것이다. 이는 닭도리탕이 항상 뼈와 함께 요리된다는 점으로 미루어보아 설득력이 있는 것도 같다. 내가 ‘닭도리탕’이라고 알게 된 음식의 기원이 무엇이든지 간에 나는 지금으로서는 다른 이름으로 부르지 않을 것이고 게다가 그 음식점에서도 닭도리탕이라고 부르기 때문에 나로서는 이걸로 만족한다. 윌리엄 셰익스피어가 내 입장에 있었다면 아마 이렇게 말했을 것이다. “어떤 이름으로 불리든지 보글거리는 한 그릇의 닭도리탕의 맛은 언제나 그 맛 그대로 훌륭할 것이다.”

매콤짭짤한 국물에 잠긴 닭고기 덩어리를 젓가락으로 찢어먹고, 한국식 리조또와 같은 형태로 밥을 걸쭉한 국물에 비벼 맵고 맛있게 먹기에는 특히 겨울이 좋다. 그러나 요즘 같은 한여름에 모두가 삼계탕, 팥빙수 그리고 냉면 같은 음식들로 열을 이겨 내려하고 있을 때, 당신은 여전히 길손네의 작은 나무탁자에서 그릇의 마지막 한 방울까지 깨끗이 긁어먹고 있는 나를 발견할 수 있을 것이다. 나는 거의 4년 전에 한 친구가 그 곳을 소개해준 이후로 줄곧 ‘길손네’에 발걸음을 끊지 않고 있다. 나는 이곳의 닭도리탕 맛과 심지어 조금이라도 비슷한 곳을 본 적이 없다.

사실 내가 닭도리탕에 대해 쓰고 그 음식점을 밝히는 것은 이번이 처음이다. 왜냐하면 사람들이 이 음식점을 발견해서 이곳이 이전보다 바빠지게 될까봐 걱정이 됐기 때문이다. 나는 심지어 이곳이 외국인 관광객으로 넘쳐나게 될까봐 전북일보가 영어로 이 글을 출간하지 않아서 다행이라는 생각까지 든다. 만약 내가 내 뜻대로 했더라면 아마 이 음식점은 한국이 나만을 위해 한국의 가장 훌륭한 음식을 제공해야하는 개인 주방이 되었을지도 모른다. 이 세상에서 최고의 한국 음식은 당연히 한국에 있고, 한국에서 최고의 음식은 전주에 있다. 따라서 ‘길손네’가 만드는 닭도리탕은 세계 최고라고 할 수 있다.

나는 몇 번이나 그 음식점에 자리가 없어서 기다리거나 다시 집에 돌아온 적이 있다. 언젠가 딱 한 번 나는 끔찍하게도 그 음식점이 닭도리탕이 다 떨어져서 문을 닫으려는 찰나에 도착한 적이 있는데, 그 때 나는 안타까운 마음으로 어쩔 수 없이 김치찌개를 주문했고, 역시나 그 김치찌개는 내가 먹어본 것 중 최고라는 것을 발견했다.

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung Rob McGovern, August 13th 2010

Volunteering

2010-08-09T10:59:00.002+09:00

I’ve lived in South Korea, on and off for about 4 years and I have always wanted to volunteer. Soup kitchen, orphanage, cleaning up oil stained beaches, anything really. I am very fortunate and have a great life and I have long had a sense of obligation, a sense that I have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than me, a sense that I can do something that will make somebody else’s life easier or better. But I never found the time. I often found excuses but I never really made the effort needed to get involved. The city I live in doesn't have any obvious volunteering opportunities and the language barrier makes finding somewhere that much more difficult. See what I mean about excuses?

Other people in the city however do make a difference, notably organising charity events in the build up to Christmas to help the poor wretches that find themselves waking up on Christmas morning without parents or presents. 2009 was to be different for me. I had participated in the charity events, the bowling and quiz nights but little sacrifice is really involved in drinking a few beers, throwing a few balls down a lane or showing off just how much TV I watch or how many hours I spend aimlessly floating in cyberspace by answering questions in a bar, with more beers.

2009 was to be the year that changed my life forever and as dramatic as it sounds it is completely true. As Christmas approached, money had been raised and most people had played their part but as everyone sat back with a smile of accomplishment on their faces at the generous amount of money raised, smiles that are fully deserved I hasten to add, Santa was lamenting a lack of elves, elves who would go around town with the jar of money raised looking for bargain basement toys and sweets for the orphans to open on Christmas morning. My girlfriend and I heard about the vacancy and stepped up. We trudged around town with a paltry budget per kid, eventually managing to find a few little gifts for every one of the 200 kids.

Twas the night before Christmas that Santa, with real beard, dyed an unnatural white, pulled up outside our apartment and collected the toys in his ‘Christmas suit red’ Hyundai. A real 21st century twist on the classic sleigh / workshop version of the story if there ever was one.

The following morning we made it to the first of 3 orphanages and helped dole out the presents to the kids. From the moment I saw that first orphan on Christmas morning my life was to change forever. The production line of kids moved along choosing which colour toothbrush they wanted, what style of gloves they would prefer from the styles the 1,000 KRW shop had (the Korean $1 store) had when the we descended upon them and seemingly bought the entire stock. They also received a cup of noodles, some sweets and a notebook and pen.

Fast forward to today, Saturday 11th July 2010 and I have just returned home from one of the now 4 orphanages (we found out that there was another orphanage) in Jeonju, South Korea that the group my girlfriend Christina started makes regular visits to. We, a mixture of expats and locals visit these kids to help provide them with a bit of human contact aside from the orphanage staff, who do a wonderful and never ending (and I'm sure at times thankless) job. Since the group began in January this year we have been arranging visits once a month to each orphanage on a rotation basis.

but a plan to play games, to make origami cranes, let th talk and generally follow the lead of the kids and just spend time interacting with these kids, some of whom lead such sheltered lives that on more than one occasion I have been asked if I am Korean, which might not sound so crazy unless you know that I am a 6ft 2in Welshman and frankly couldn’t look less Korean.

Volunteering at these orphanages gives you a different outlook on life and all of the volunteers will hopefully take something something slightly more meaningful away with their time in this strange and wonderful country inevitably comes to an end.

Having lived in Korea for 4 years my time is almost up and where ever I am in the world I will no longer sit on the sidelines looking and waiting for opportunities to volunteer and then back out because something else came up, not now I know how good it feels. At the same time I can’t help but worry about the future of our little group and for the children who seem to have so much fun when we are there. We, that is to say my girlfriend and I are currently looking for people who might be able to take over the administrative role that she so fabulously and tirelessly fulfills in order for the group to survive.

If you want to hear more about the group or if you are in the city or the region and want to get involved you can find the group on Facebook by searching for ‘Neighbourly, Neighborly, 이웃 사람답게 Jeonju’ or by clicking here

Rob McGovern
robguv@gmail.com

Cafes of Jeonju

2010-08-06T07:00:00.001+09:00

I have never really been a coffee drinker but in September 2003 whilst I was in London I sat in Selfridges department store with a newspaper and ordered a caffe mocha, I initially liked the idea of sitting with a newspaper and a coffee in a London department store, tea doesn't have the same retro, Parisian lifestyle feel to it. That caffe mocha changed my coffee future and since arriving in Korea I have fallen well and truly in love with coffee.

The first major western style coffee houses appeared in the late 90's in Seoul and other major cities but it took a while for the trend to catch on in Jeonju but when it did, it caught on big.

When I first arrived in Korea in 2006 most of my favourite coffee shops in the city were still just ideas on paper and it would be almost 2 years before my favourite coffee shop would open its doors for its first time. Now in 2010 Jeonju has lots of fantastic coffee shops that offer beans from all over the world that are freshly roasted and crushed in house to produce a cup of coffee that would appease the palette of any coffee connoisseur. So if you want to enjoy a delicious cup of coffee, served by expert hands in a fantastic location give one of the following places a try. All of these places can be found on www.insidejeonju.com

El Cafe/엘 까페
Since arriving in Korea I have lived in the Ajungli area of Jeonju and even though we now have several good cafes it wasn't until El Cafe opened around the corner from my apartment that I was able to get superb coffee whenever I wanted. The cafe is very spacious and comfortable and the owner is very knowledgeable and is often found roasting beans in his own little roasting room. El Cafe is easily the best cafe in this part of the city.

The Caffe
Outside Ajungli The Caffe would more than likely get my vote for best coffee shop in Jeonju. On a small alley not far from Gaeksa The Caffe has been well and truly designed instead of being thrown together like so many coffee shops in Korea have. A very open space that sells easily the best hot chocolate I have ever had. In fact it is so good that I have no idea what their coffee is like although I have it on good authority that it also very good. Artfully presented waffles with either berries or bananas are delicious too. The Caffe isn't the cheapest cafe but it is pretty much in line with the rest of these kind of high end coffee shops. They also serve a small selection of bottled beers as well as teas and smoothies. http://the-caffe.com

Cafe Moi
Cafe Moi is another great cafe downtown, just around the corner from The Caffe. It is inside a hanok style building with a beautiful courtyard and even a small annex with a single reasonably large table, making it great for private meetings. Inside the main building the roof has exposed beams and the walls are painted white, giving it a very clean and bright feel. There is quite a large table in front of the counter as well as several other smaller tables, all in all being able to accommodate around 30-40 people. They have funky music playing, wi-fi access and of course good coffee.

O's Square
To call O's Square simply a cafe would be unfair as it is obvious before you even set foot inside the building that a lot of time has been spent on designing it to be very pleasing to the eye. They have succeeded and the cafe is more like a haven from the squalor that the area around Jeonbuk university can be. It is solely a cafe however as the food options stretch to bagels and slices of cake and the drink menu runs to a few bottled beers but surprisingly no wine. For a cafe this classy you would expect the prices to be over inflated but the owners have understood that when they opened this place it was in the heart of student town and the prices reflect this.http://www.osart.co.kr/

There are many more fabulous coffee shops in Jeonju run by artisans who take coffee very seriously and it is for this reason that I will never go into a Starbucks or any other coffee franchise again and I suggest you do that same!

Rob McGovern August 6th 2010
_________________________________________________________________________

나는 이전에 그다지 커피를 즐기는 사람이 아니었다. 하지만 2003년 9월, 내가 런던에 있었을 때, Selfridges 백화점에서 신문을 읽으며 카페모카 한 잔을 주문해 마셨던 일이 있다. 나는 처음으로 런던의 백화점에서 신문을 읽으며 커피를 마신다는 그 느낌이 참 좋다고 생각했다. 차는 파리지엔 스타일의 느낌과 같은 분위기가 나지 않는다. 그 카페모카는 내가 미래에 커피를 즐길 수 있도록 나를 바꾸어 놓았고, 한국에 도착한 이후로 나는 진심으로 커피와 사랑에 빠져버렸다.

처음으로 제대로 된 서양식 카페가 서울과 다른 주요 도시들에 등장한 것은 90년대 후반이었다. 전주가 그 추세를 따라가는데는 시간이 조금 걸렸지만, 일단 그 추세에 따르기 시작한 후에는 이를 아주 제대로 해냈다.

내가 2006년 처음 한국에 도착했을 때, 내가 가장 좋아한다고 말할 수 있는 대부분의 카페는 여전히 읽을거리에서나 볼 수 있는 단순한 개념에 불과했다. 그리고 거의 2년 전에 내가 가장 좋아하는 카페가 처음으로 진짜 문을 열었다. 2010년인 오늘날 전주에는 전 세계에서 공급되어 어느 커피 전문가의 팔레트라도 만족시킬 수 있을 만한 한 잔의 커피를 만들기 위해 갓 볶아서 간 커피콩을 제공하고 있는 많은 환상적인 카페들이 있다. 그러므로 만약 당신이 환상적인 장소에서, 전문가의 손에 의해 만들어진 맛좋은 한 잔의 커피를 즐기고 싶다면, 아래에 나와 있는 장소들 중 한 곳을 시도해 보는 것은 어떠한가. 아래의 모든 곳들에 대한 정보는 www.insidejeonju.com 에서 찾아볼 수 있다.

El Cafe/엘 까페
한국에 도착한 이래로 나는 전주 아중리에 살았다. 비록 지금은 여러 곳의 좋은 카페들이 있지만 내가 사는 아파트 주변 모퉁이에, 언제나 내가 원할 때면 최고의 커피를 마실 수 있는 El Cafe가 생기기 전까지는 그렇지 않았다. 이 카페는 매우 널찍하고 편안하며 주인이 매우 박학다식하고, 그 곳에 가면 종종 작은 콩 볶는 방에서 콩을 볶고 있는 그를 발견할 수 있다. El Cafe는 쉽게 말해서 이 구역의 최고의 카페이다.

The Caffe

아중리 외부에서 전주 최고의 카페를 찾는다면, 나는 기꺼이 The Caffe에 한 표를 던지겠다. 객사에서 그리 멀지 않는 작은 골목길에 위치한 The Caffe는 한국에 있는 그저 아무렇게나 한데 섞여 있는 카페들과는 달리 매우 잘 설계되어 있다. 이곳은 한마디로 내가 마셔본 중에 최고의 핫쵸코를 파는 매우 개방적인 공간이다. 비록 내 마음대로 생각하기에 분명 그 곳의 커피맛 또한 훌륭하겠지만, 정말로 핫쵸코의 맛이 너무 좋아서 그 곳의 커피 맛이 어떤지 전혀 모를 정도이다. 베리류의 과일 또는 바나나로 장식된 예술 작품을 연상케 하는 와플 또한 매우 맛있다. The Caffe는 가장 가격이 저렴한 카페는 아니다. 대신 비교적 고급스러운 카페들과 그 어깨를 나란히 하고 있다 할 수 있다. 이곳은 차와 스무디와 함께 몇 가지 병맥주 또한 제공하고 있다. http://the-caffe.com/

Cafe Moi
Cafe Moi는 시내에 있는 또 다른 훌륭한 카페로, The Caffe 주변의 골목에서 바로 찾을 수 있다. 이곳은 한옥식 건물로 이루어져 있고 아름다운 안뜰이 있으며, 심지어 적당히 큰 탁자가 있어 사적인 회의를 하기에 안성맞춤인 작은 별채도 있다. 본관 안에는 지붕의 대들보가 드러나 있고, 벽은 하얀색으로 페인트칠 되어져 매우 깔끔하고 밝은 느낌을 준다. 카운터 앞에는 꽤나 큰 탁자가 있고 그 주위에 여러 개의 작은 탁자들이 있어, 대략 30~40명의 사람들을 수용하기에 충분하다. 보통 소박한 블루스풍의 음악이 흐르고, wi-fi 접근이 가능하며, 물론 좋은 커피도 함께 한다.

O's Square
O's Square는 간단히 카페라고 하기에는 무언가 부당한 점이 있다. 왜냐하면 건물 안에 발을 들여놓기도 전에 우리는 우리의 눈을 즐겁게 하기 위해 이곳을 설계하는데 많은 시간이 걸렸을 것이 분명하다는 것을 한 눈에 알 수 있기 때문이다. 그들의 이 계획은 성공했고, 카페는 지저분한 전북대 주변지역에서 천국과 같은 곳이다. 이곳은 전적으로 ‘카페’이지만 음식 메뉴에 베이글과 케익 조각들이 있고, 음료 메뉴에서는 몇몇의 병맥주도 찾아볼 수 있다. 하지만 놀랍게도 와인은 없다. 아마 당신은 이런 고급스러운 카페에서는 그 가격 또한 매우 높을 것이라고 생각하겠지만, 이 카페의 소유주는 애초에 영업을 시작할 때, 그 장소가 학생들이 많이 다니는 지역의 중심부라는 점을 고려하고 있었고, 가격 또한 이를 반영하고 있다. http://www.osart.co.kr

전주에는 이외에도 커피에 대해 매우 진지하게 생각하는 커피 예술가들에 의한 멋진 카페들이 많이 있다. 따라서 나는 절대 스타벅스나 다른 카페 체인점들에 다시는 가지 않을 것이다. 당신도 나와 함께 하는 것이 어떠한가!

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Rob McGovern, August 6th 2010

A Day In The Life

2010-08-05T10:30:00.000+09:00

I have lived in South Korea since August 2006. I have travelled around the region and spent some time at home between contracts during that time but when people ask me how long I have been in Korea I usually say around 4 years.

When I came here in 2006 it was as an English teacher but now I’m here as a freelance writer. Until March 2010 I had worked for the same employer and had a great time but eventually and for me, inevitably, the Sunday night blues started to set in and I began counting the days until I could collect my final wage and travel somewhere where I wouldn’t have to leave my dignity a the door. I’m here for another 3 months to try and kick start a career in the world of writing before hopefully moving into full-time employment.

7am - The alarm sounds and I turn it straight off. Well I press the snooze button (4 or 5 times), which is both my lifelong friend and mortal enemy. Now we are in the post- World Cup period, I get out of bed after the 5th time of asking instead of around 10am (after getting up at 3.30am to watch the games).

10am - On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, after a cup of tea and some breakfast, my girlfriend and I go to our taekwondo class. It’s harder to get motivated in the winter and the Korean summers aren’t exactly conducive to exercising but generally it is a fantastic way to keep fit. We arrive just after 10am, the class starts at 10.30am and lasts around an hour. With no classes on Monday and Thursday we might go a little bit further afield for lunch.

11.45am - After leaving the gym we decide where to have lunch. My girlfriend has to start work at 2pm so we usually stay local, in fact more often than not we go to one of several regular places on the main road from our apartment to the gym. Sometimes it’s bibimbap, sometimes bulgogi or sometimes kimchi chigae.

1.45pm - I walk with my girlfriend to work, avoiding the piles of rubbish that materialise like mole hills during the night, getting a cup of coffee on the way from a local bakery. Korean bakeries are not to be trusted for baked goods but their baguettes are good. The vast majority of their other products are koreanised versions of western pastries and cakes. Red beans are concealed in donuts, green tea lends it colour to some of the loaves of bread, giving them a moldy hue, and a fairly large percentage of the goods on sale are deep fried in some way. Their coffee however is usually OK as it is almost always made from freshly ground beans.

2pm - As my girlfriend starts her working day so do I. The computer is switched back on and Google Chrome fired up. All my tabs open and I start signing into things, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Matador (of course.) I open a notepad on which I have scribbled all manner of things to do and then I sit. I usually open iTunes and put some music on to try and motivate myself. I eventually open a Google document and write a few lines of something. Maybe a blog post, sometimes an article for a Korean magazine (in English but some things are translated into Korean for a local newspaper), sometimes for a magazine back home in Wales, sometimes nothing.

I interrupt my “work” to put a load of washing in the machine, to take out a load of washing, to wash the dishes, to make a cup of tea. I try and stay at the computer, even if it is watching a film as I feel that if I sit on front of the TV in another room I have lost the battle that day and that doesn’t make me feel very good.

The best days, or at least the most productive are ones when I have to go somewhere for an article. It might be another city to work on a blueberry farm or to Seoul to walk around a few art galleries. I try to take the train when I can as I am not the biggest fan of buses even though in Korea they are fast, cheap, comfortable and reliable. There is just something about trains, the freedom to move around them maybe. In Korea you have the freedom to even sit in a massage chair or go into a private singing booth on the train.

8.45pm - If I am in town, which is often the case I will meet my girlfriend from work at 9pm and more often than not we go for dinner somewhere. Buying fruit and vegetables in Korea can be an expensive habit and it sometimes works out cheaper to eat out.

10.30pm - We get home and as my girlfriend has been in work all day and access to the Internet is restricted to the brief periods in between classes she catches up with emails and I browse the Internet, maybe scribbling a few things on my notepad for the next day before logging off the information superhighway for the night around midnight.

Rob McGovern
robguv@gmail.com
July 2010

Rock and Roll

2010-08-03T14:37:00.000+09:00

Jeonju is well known around Korea for its culture. Hanji culture, food culture, culture, culture, culture. Jeonju is steeped, and sometimes overloaded, with culture and history. I love the hanok village with its open air craft market, the tea shops, the art galleries and the families of local Koreans and visitors from other cities doing exactly the same as me. I especially love strolling around the streets of the village on a Sunday afternoon, stopping to have a coffee, looking at the beautiful buildings and marvelling at what little treasures are hidden away in the back alleys of the village. Jeonju certainly is a city of history and culture but with so many young people and young visitors sometimes all that history and culture can leave you with a feeling that Jeonju is somehow stuck in the past. Thankfully that isn’t the case.

One of the art forms that constantly keeps updating itself is music and Jeonju has the Sori arts festival which celebrates both contemporary and traditional art forms (of course) but there are several venues all over the city that showcase the best young, amateur talent in the city.

Radio Star is a rock ‘n’ roll club in Junghwasan-dong and is my favourite live music venue in the city, probably the entire country. Radio Star has been ‘an independent music club’ since 1998 when owner and drummer extraordinaire 박인렬re-branded his former music venue into the new and improved Radio Star. The club has live music most weekends but also hosts all kinds of other events. Whatever the people want 인렬will do his best to provide.

인렬has quickly become, as we say in English ‘part of the furniture’ in the expat scene in Jeonju but that is not to say that Radio Star is anything like an expat venue, far from it. Radio Star is first and foremost a music venue, not a Korean or expat venue, it is all about the music. Being in Korea and being owned by a Korean of course the majority of the bands are Korean but that is just circumstantial as anybody is welcome to play there. 휴먼스 and 딜리탕스 are 2 of the practically resident bands in Radio Star and both are fantastic representations of modern, youthful Jeonju.

인렬 himself is in a band that maybe best represents Radio Star’s philosophy as it is made up of 2 Koreans and 2 expats. Rocketfire are the house band and being a mix of locals and native English speakers really sums up the spirit of Radio Star.

There are other live music venues in the city too including Jobim, Jaco and Art Space Led-Zeppelin as well as places like Samsara, a coffee shop / wine bar near Jeonbukdae that has a very eclectic feel while at the same time being neither explicitly Korean nor for the sole use of expats.

Music truly is an international art and should always remain free from nationalism. Even unadventurous people around the world who may refuse to eat any food other than their native cuisine or are afraid to travel to new and interesting places, or even if they do, stay within the safety of the tour bus are not afraid to be bold with their musical choices. Everything from classical music to Rock and Roll can be enjoyed openly and freely by everyone.

Music is without borders, even with lyrics in a language you don’t know the music itself talks to you and and as much enjoyment can be had just from the sound. I personally love the music of Okinawa, certain African music and since being in Korea I have grown to love 김광석 as well as enjoying a wailing, almost emotional guitar solo from 안태상 from the Humans and all without fully understanding exactly what the lyrics mean.

Radio Star (and the other places mentioned) is 21st century Korea and while the past is important so is the future. Any visit to Jeonju would not be complete with out a trip to the hanok village or without eating bibimbap but just as important and so Jeonju doesn’t get labelled solely as a city for history and traditional culture, seeing some live music, created and performed by the vibrant artists of Jeonju is just as important.

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Rob McGovern, July 30th 2010

_________________________________________________________________

전주는 한국에서 한지, 한식 그리고 다른 여러가지로 구성된 이 곳만의 문화로 잘 알려져 있다. 전주는 넘쳐 흐를 정도로 많은 문화와 역사적인 사건들로 가득 차있다. 나는 한옥마을에 있는 길거리의 수공예품 상점들과, 찻집, 예술 갤러리 그리고 현지의 한국인 가족들과 나와 같이 다른 도시에서 온 관광객들을 둘러 보는 것을 좋아하고, 특히 일요일 오후에 느긋하게 한옥 마을 거리를 거닐면서 가끔 카페에 들러 커피를 마시기도 하고, 골목길에 숨겨져 있는 작은 보물과 같은 것들을 발견하고 즐거워하거나 아름다운 건물들을 감상하는 것을 즐기기도한다. 전주는 분명 역사와 문화의 도시이지만 많은 젊은이들과 관광객들을 보고 있으면, 이 모든 역사와 문화들은 전주가 어쩐지 과거에 갇혀 있다는 느낌이 들게 하기도 한다. 그러나 감사하게도 실제로 전주는 그렇지 않다.

전주에서 계속 해서 끊임없이 발전해가고 있는 예술 분야 중 하나는 음악이다. 전주는 현시대와 전통적 예술 형태로 이루어진 소리문화축제를 열고 있으며, 최고의 젊은 아마추어들이 그들의 재능을 선보일 수 있는 곳들이 있다.

‘라디오스타’는 중화산동에 있는 라이브음악을 즐길 수 있는 락앤롤 클럽으로, 전주에서 아니 한국에서 내가 가장 좋아하는 곳이다. 라디오 스타는 1998년 이래로 소유주이자 탁월한 드러머인 박인렬씨가 그의 이전의 음악 공연 장소를 새롭게 향상시켜 다시 밴드를 꾸리면서 ‘독립적인 음악 클럽’으로 자리 잡았다. 사람들은 대부분의 주말에 이 곳에서 라이브 음악을 즐길 수 있으며, 가끔은 다른 다양한 종류의 행사들에 참여할 수도 있다. 사람들이 무엇을 원하든지, 인렬씨는 이를 제공하기 위해 최선을 다한다.

인렬씨는 전주의 외국인들이 있는 장소에서 우리가 소위 영어로 말하는 ‘(너무 익숙해져서)가구의 일부처럼 여겨지는 사람-part of the furniture’이 되었다. 그러나 이 말이 라디오스타가 오직 외국인만을위한 공간이라는 뜻은 아니다. 이 곳은 어느 곳보다도 처음으로 생긴 음악 공간으로써 ‘음악’을 위한 곳이며 한국인이나 외국인, 둘 중 한 집단만을 위한 공간이 아니다. 한국에 위치하며 한국인이 소유한 공간이기에 대다수의 밴드 멤버들은 한국인이지만 누구든지 이 곳와서 연주하고 즐길 수 있다. ‘휴먼스’와 ‘딜리탕스’는 라디오스타의 전속 밴드로, 둘 다 현대적이고 생기 넘치는 전주의 환상적인 대표밴드들이라 할 수 있다.

인렬씨 또한 2명의 한국인과 2명의 외국인으로 구성된, 라디오스타의 철학을 가장 잘 나타낸다고 할 수 있는 밴드에 속해 있다. ‘로켓파이어(Rockektfire)’는 현지인들과 외국인들이 함께 어우러져 라디오 스타의 정신을 제대로 보여주는 메인 밴드이다.

이 외에도 Jobim, Jaco 그리고 Art Space Led-Zeppelin과 같은 라이브 음악 공연 장소들이있으며, 카페와 와인바를 섞어놓은 듯한 ‘삼사라’는 전북대 근처에 있는 다양한 문화가 조화롭게 절충되어 있는 곳으로, 단지 한국인만을 위한 곳도 아니고, 외국인들만을 위한 전용공간도 아니다.

음악은 진실로 국제적인 예술의 한 형태이며 언제나 국가주의에서 배제되어 있어야 한다. 심지어 오직 자신들 나라의 음식만 먹고, 새로운 곳을 여행하기를 두려워하며, 비록 여행을 하긴 하더라도 관광버스 안에만 있으려는 모험심 없는 사람들도 음악을 듣는데 있어서는 대담해질 수 있지 않은가. 고전음악에서부터 락앤롤까지 음악은 어떤 장르이건 모든 이들이 자유롭게 즐길 수 있다.

음악에는 국경이 없다. 비록 우리가 알지 못하는 언어로 된 가사라도, 음악 그 자체는 우리에게 말을 걸고. 우리는 그 음악소리로부터 얼마든지 즐거움을 느낄 수 있다. 개인적으로 나는 오키나와(Okinawa)와 몇몇의 아프리카 음악을 좋아하며, 한국에 있게된 후로는 그의 슬피 우는 듯한 창법과 함께 김광석의 음악과, 가사가 정확히 어떤 의미인지는 완전히 알지 못하지만 매우 감성적인 ‘휴먼’의 안태상씨의 솔로 기타를 좋아하게 되었다.

함께 언급한 여러 곳들과 라디오 스타는 21세기의 한국이다. 과거가 중요한 것처럼 미래 또한 그러하다. 전주를 방문하면서 한옥마을을 둘러보지 않거나 비빔밥을 맛보지 않는 것도 완벽한 여행이라 할 수는 없겠지만, 전주를 단지 역사와 전통문화의 도시라고만 단정짓지 않고, 이곳의 활기찬 예술가들에 의해 창조되고 연주된 라이브 음악을 경험해보는 것도 전주를 방문함에 있어서 그만큼 중요하다고 할 수 있을 것이다.

Rob McGovern, July 30th 2010

Giving Something Back

2010-07-23T12:00:00.028+09:00

In my time in Korea I have been fortunate enough to experience many wonderful things, I have been taken to great places, eaten great meals and been introduced to great people. While I have done my best to live up to the ‘Gentleman’ tag that Korean people sometimes have for the British, by changing my plans at the last minute so I can attend events in order to show gratitude or by politely eating things that I may not otherwise eat, I wanted to do more.

I am also fortunate to have been born in a relatively rich country, to have had the most fantastic parents and family members who have helped me through difficult times. I have never in my life been short of the most basic needs, I have always had food (and not just any food but my mother’s home cooked food which has yet to be surpassed), I have always had a roof over my head and I have always had somebody I can talk to about my life. My parents were there to listen to me talk on about football matches I played, to help me with my homework and to encourage me when I talked about my dreams and ambitions.

Not everyone is so lucky.

There are thousands of orphans in Jeonbuk province and at least 4 different orphanages in Jeonju. Expatriates in Jeonju have, for years organised events to raise money and since I have been here annual events have raised large amounts that have been donated to the orphanages and individuals where children have not had access to the things they need to survive.

In December 2009 and my girlfriend, Christina Murphy, and I decided to try and do more than just donate money and so went along to 호성보육원 on Christmas day with Santa Claus to distribute our presents to the children. As children all over Korea, and the world, sat with their families opening all kinds of wondrous toys, their faces covered in smiles from ear to ear, the children of the Jeonju orphanages we visited had similar smiles but it was because of the simple gifts they were given, a small toy, a pair of gloves, a notebook, stickers, a toothbrush and some sweets and noodles. It was those smiling faces that made me want to do even more and a comment I made about not wanting to wait until next Christmas gave Christina the idea to set up a group to help arrange visits to these orphanages all year round.

‘Neighbourly, Neighborly, 이웃 사람답게 Jeonju’ arranges a monthly visit to one of 4 orphanages (삼성보육원, 호성보육원, 선덕보육원, 전주영아원) to play games with the children and to try and give them a change to their routine once in a while. On the 10th of July we visited 삼성보육원 for a sports day with 10 volunteers and we are arranging to visit 전주영아원 to put on a puppet show. Christina and Charlotte Pecknold, a Canadian who has recently moved to Jeonju produced puppets and a set for the visit and other volunteers will memorise a script which is all in Korean.

‘Neighbourly, Neighborly, 이웃 사람답게 Jeonju’ currently has volunteers from Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, USA, South Africa and Korea.

If anybody is interested in volunteering you can email neighbourlyjeonju@gmail.com or join the facebook group here

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper here and translated by Bobin Jung

Rob McGovern, July 2010
_________________________________________________________________

되돌려준다는 것에 대하여

한국에 있으면서 나는 운이 좋게도, 많은 놀란 만한 일들을 경험해왔다. 나는 멋진 곳들을 가보고, 훌륭한 음식들도 맛보았으며, 좋은 사람들을 소개받기도 했다. 내가 일종의 감사를 표현하기 위해 마지막 순간에 원래의 나의 계획을 바꾸어 어떤 행사에 참여한다거나, 이런 이유가 아니라면 먹지 않았을지도 모르는 음식들을 점잖게 먹는 등, 몇몇 한국인들이 가지고 있는 영국인은 ‘신사’라는 인상을 지키기 위해 최선을 다해 노력하면서, 나는 이런 것들이 더 하고 싶어졌다.

또한, 나는 운 좋게도 비교적 부유한 나라에서 태어났고, 내가 어려운 일들이 있을 때마다 항상 나를 도와주었던 가장 멋진 부모님과 가족들이 있었다. 나는 내 인생에서 한 번도 살면서 가장 기초적으로 필요한 것이 부족했던 적이 없었다. 나는 항상 그냥 먹을 것이 아닌, 아직 누구도 능가할 수 없는 어머니의 정성이 듬뿍 담긴 음식들을 먹을 수 있었고, 지붕 밑에 머무를수 있는 곳이 있었으며, 나의 인생에 대해 이야기할 수 있는 사람이 있었다. 나의 부모님은 항상 내가 뛰었던 축구 경기에 대해서 얘기하는 것을 들어주시고, 내 숙제를 도와주시며, 내가 나의 꿈과 야망에 대해 얘기할 때 나를 격려해주시기 위해 항상 내 곁에 계셨다.

물론, 모두가 다 이렇게 운이 좋은 것은 아닐 것이다.

전라북도에는 몇 천명의 고아들이 있고, 전주에는 적어도 4개의 다른 고아원들이 있다. 전주에 거주하고 있는 외국인들은 수년간 사람들로 부터 후원금을 올리기 위해 여러 행사들을 편성하고 실행해왔으며, 내가 이 곳에 머문이래로 이런 연간 행사들은 여러 고아원들과 생필품을 얻을 방법이 없는 여러 개개인의 아이들에 대한 후원금을 크게 끌어올렸다.(증가시켰다.)

2009년 12월, 내 여자친구 크리스티나 머피와 나는 단지 돈을 기부하는 것 그 이상을 시도하기로 결심했고, 우리는 크리스마스에 아이들에게 선물을 나눠 줄 산타클로스와 함께 호성 보육원에 찾아갔다. 가족들과 함께 온갖 종류의 신기한 장난감을 열어보는 모든 한국의 그리고 세계의 아이들의 입이 귀에 걸릴 정도로 가득 미소지은 얼굴들과 같이, 우리가 방문한 전주 고아원 아이들의 얼굴에도 그와 비슷한 미소가 피어 올랐다. 이는 단지 그들이 받은 작은 장난감, 장갑 한 켤레, 노트, 스티커, 칫솔 그리고 사탕과 라면들과 같은 간소한 선물들이 만들어낸 것이었다. 이런 미소지은 얼굴들은 나로 하여금 이런 일들을 더 하고 싶도록 만들었고, 다음 크리스마스까지 기다리고 싶지 않다는 내 말은, 크리스티나에 의해 한 해에 걸쳐 정기적으로 고아원을 방문하는 모임의 결성으로 이어졌다.

‘이웃 같은 전주’는 아이들과 함께 놀아주고, 이따금 그들의 일상에 변화를 주기위해, 한달에 한 번씩 삼성보육원, 호성보육원, 선덕보육원, 그리고 전주영아원 네 곳 중 한 곳을 방문하기로 했다. 7월 10일, 우리는 삼성보육원 운동회날에 10명의 자원봉사자들과 함께 그 곳을 방문했고, 조만간 전주영아원을 방문에서 아이들에게 인형극을 보여줄 계획을 준비중이다. 크리스티나와 최근에 전주에 살게된 캐나다인인 샬롯 페크놀드는 방문을 위한 인형극과 그 세트를 준비했고, 다른 지원자들은 한국어로 된 대본을 외웠다. 이번 인형극은 이제까지 우리가 해왔던 모든 최고의 방문 중 하나였다.

현재 ‘이웃 같은 전주’에는 웨일스, 잉글랜드, 스코틀랜드, 아일랜드, 캐나다, 미국 , 뉴질랜드, 남아공, 그리고 한국 사람들로 이루어진 자원자들이 있다.

만약 누구든 이 자원봉사에 관심이있다면, neighbourlyjeonju@Gmail.com로 연락해주길 바란다. Facebook

Rob McGovern, July 2010

Articles on Yudu

2010-07-19T16:07:00.003+09:00

I have posted a selection of articles on Yudu, a great platform for publishing e-magazines. Just click on the link to open an e-mag of the articles.

Groove Korea articles here

The Korea Herald here

Buzz Magazine here

And SEOUL travel and culture magazine here

Or click on the Yudu logo below to be taken to the library with all the articles in.

Bibimbap!

2010-07-17T11:53:00.007+09:00

I first came to Korea in August 2006 and almost immediately fell in love with Korean food. Living in Jeonju I quickly discovered Jeonju Bibimbap and have enjoyed it regularly ever since. Having lived here for almost 4 years I have eaten in quite a few restaurants in the city and here I am going to choose some of my favourites and explain why.

I have chosen the restaurants based on a few factors but they are mainly quality, taste and value for money. Customer service and authenticity have also been considered but overall taste and value for money have taken priority. Finally, there are plenty of places that serve a very enjoyable bibimbap in Jeonju but the places I have chosen you are guaranteed a good bowl of the good stuff.

So without further ado here they are, in no particular order.

Starting with Gogung (고궁) is a safe bet. Gogung is possibly the most famous place in Jeonju to eat bibimbap. Served in the most traditional manner I have come across, the bibimbap is delicious and is served with care and ambiance. This place offers more of a bibimbap experience than a simple eating opportunity. The restaurant is probably the most famous in the city and has been so successful that the company have opened other branches in Seoul. www.gogung.co.kr

A close second is Gajok Hwegwan (가족회관.) Endorsed by the city Gajok Hwegwan is very conveniently located in the heart of the downtown area near the city's hanok village, making it a very popular place with tourists. The bibimbap here is very nice and the side dishes are plentiful. Whether the taste is as good as Gogung will come down to the subtitles of your taste buds but the difference is negligible. Even though it is a little bit smaller than Gogung, you can however watch the whole assembly process as the kitchen is open plan, just don't stand in the same place too long or you might get shoved out of the way! http://www.jeonjubibimbap.com

After 2 very good but slightly grandiose and ever so slightly pricey places we go to Myeong Seong Ok (명성옥.) Although part of a chain of restaurants the place I like is in Ajungli. It is located amongst apartment blocks and is far from the wandering eyes of tourists. Frequented by taxi drivers (a sure sign of authenticity and quality) and locals Myeong Seong Ok has a simple menu but most appropriately for this place they serve both bibimbap and dolsot bibimbap. Their kimchi is particularly good and forms the basis of their utterly unbeatable kimchi jjim. There is another branch near Lotte department store but I haven't tried it.

Seong Mi Dang (성미당) came out quite near the top when I asked several Korean friends where they thought the best bibimbap restaurant in Jeonju was. Located around the corner from Gajok Hwegwan, Seong Mi Dang is equally as good. Less well known however doesn't mean inferior quality. The dish itself was superb, fresh and healthy tasting but with a moreish quality which makes Seong Mi Dang a great place. www.sungmidang.com

To finish with there are two restaurants, both in Ajungli that are at the opposite end of the financial scale. Traditional Jeonju bibimbap takes a lot of work and this is why it is more expensive. If you want a cheaper bibimbap Yang Poon Jip and Kim Woo Dong however are 2 places that provide cheap and cheerful bowls of mixed rice.

Yang Poon Jip serves a hearty bowl of rice and plenty of vegetables along with lots of side dishes and a generous doenjang chigae. Similarly, Kim Woo Dong serve their bibimbap using 흑미밥, which dyes the rice a very pleasing purple colour.

All of these places have one more thing in common, you can eat great food, prepared by expert hands from fresh, local ingredients and if that is special.

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung
Rob McGovern, July 2010

__________________________________________________________________________________

2006년 8월 한국에 처음 온 나는 오자마자 한국 음식에 빠져버렸다. 전주에 살면서 전주비빔밥에 대해 알게되었고, 줄곧 그 맛을 즐겨오고 있다. 전주에서 거의 4년을 살면서 나는 여러 음식점에서 비빔밥을 먹어보았고, 지금부터 내가 가장 좋아하는 몇 곳을 그 이유와 함께 소개해 보려고 한다.

기본적인 몇 가지 요소 중에 주로 질과 맛, 그리고 그에 따른 가격의 가치를 기준으로 선정하였으며, 고객에 대한 서비스와 신뢰성 또한 고려하였다. 그러나 전반적으로 맛과 가격에 대한 가치를 우선으로 평가하였다.

전주에는 비빔밥의 맛을 누릴 수 있는 많은 음식점들이 있는데, 지금부터 내가 소개할 곳들에서 좋은 재료를 사용한 비빔밥을 보장받을 수 있을 것이라고 확신한다. 더 말 할 것 없이 지금 바로 이 음식점들을 만나보도록 하자.(소개되는 순서에 특별한 의미는 없다.)

가장 먼저 소개할 곳은 '고궁(www.gogung.co.kr)'이다. 고궁은 전주에서 비빔밥을 먹을수 있는 가장 유명한 곳이다. 이 곳은 내가 가본 곳 중에 가장 전통적인 방식으로, 고급스러운 환경과 정성이 가득한 맛 좋은 비빔밥을 제공한다. 이 곳에서 당신은 단순히 '비빔밥을 먹는다는 것', 그 이상의 경험을 할 수 있을 것이다. 이 음식점은 아마 전주에서 가장 유명한 곳일 것이며, 서울에 그 지점을 두고 있을 정도로 성공적인 사업을 하고 있다.

두번째는 '가족회관(http://www.jeonjubibimbap.com)'이다. 전주시의 추천 음식점인 가족회관은 시내 중심부 근처인 한옥마을에 위치하고 있어 매우 편리하고, 따라서 많은 관광객들이 찾는 인기있는 곳이다. 고궁보다 규모가 조금 작긴 하지만, 주방이 개방형으로 되어 있어서 비빔밥을 만드는 전체적인 과정을 직접 볼 수 있다는 특징이 있다. 다만, 바쁜 종업원들에게 밀쳐지고 싶지 않다면 한 곳에 너무 오래 서있지는 않는 것이 좋을 것이다.

위에 소개한 곳들도 훌륭하지만 아주 조금 더 고급스럽고 가격이 있는 곳을 찾는다면, '명성옥'이 있다. 대부분 아파트 단지 사이에 있어 관광객들 눈에는 그다지 띄지 않지만, 택시 기사들과 현지 사람들이 자주 가는 것으로 보아 신뢰성과 그 질이 매우 좋은 것을 알 수 있다. 메뉴는 간단하지만, 비빔밥과 돌솥비빔밥을 모두 즐길 수 있다는 특징이 있다. 이 곳의 김치는 특히 맛이 좋고, 그 김치로 만든 김치찜 또한 다른 곳과 비교가 안될 정도로 일품이다.

'성미당(www.sungmidang.com)'은 내가 한국 친구들에게 가장 맛있는 비빔밥 음식점을 물었을 때, 거의 첫번째로 소개해 주던 곳이다. 가족회관 근처에서 코너를 돌아가면 있는 곳으로, 그 맛은 가족회관과 거의 같다. 이 곳 비빔밥은 신선하며 왠지 건강에 좋을 것만 같은 맛이다. 때문에 이 곳은 자연스레 명소가 됐다.

'양푼집' 또한 다양한 반찬들과 된장찌개와 함께, 푸짐한 밥과 야채를 듬뿍 제공한다. 또한 '김우동'에서는 흑미를 섞어 밥을 지어, 예쁜(기분 좋은) 보라색으로 물든 비빔밥을 맛 볼 수 있다.

이 모든 곳들은 공통점이 있는데, 그것은 바로 현지의 신선한 재료로 전문가의 손을 거쳐 준비된 훌륭한 음식을 맛볼 수 있다는 것이다.

First published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper here and translated by 정보빈.

Rob McGovern July 2010

Taekwondo

2010-07-16T18:20:00.006+09:00

When I first came to Korea, in the autumn of 2006 I was excited about the prospect of learning all about a new culture. I was excited about the language, the food, the people and while I knew a little bit about Korea I was also excited about all the things I didn’t know. One of things I knew something about was martial arts and whilst I hadn’t heard of 씨름 or 택견 at that time I had heard about taekwondo.

Taekwondo is practised all around the world and no matter what country you live in, what race you are, the colour of your skin or what religion you practise, practitioners of taekwondo can be found nearby. Korea however is the home of taekwondo and it is here that the art is at its purest.

My school, 아중상무, focuses more on poomse, the patterns of movements that form not only the basis of taekwondo grading but a more controlled application of the myriad kicks, punches and blocks that form the foundation of taekwondo. In Korea poomse is important, maybe some schools prioritise sparring but poomse still features heavily. In countries outside Korea, including the UK, sparring seems to dominate the majority of class time and poomse seems to be an after thought. Maybe this has a lot to do with the Olympics and the fame and fortune that seems to come with an Olympic gold but whatever the reason I think people are missing out a vital part of taekwondo if they overlook poomse. A simple way to address this would be for the International Olympic Committee to include poomse in the Olympics!

My girlfriend and I were introduced to our teacher and his school by a mutual acquaintance and ever since that first day I have been well and truly hooked but not only because of the reasons so many millions of others also get hooked. Taekwondo is more than just a martial art, it is more than kicking and punching, more than blocking and breaking boards. It is more than poomse and sparring. This may sound like a cliche but taekwondo is a way of life, it teaches humility, tolerance, dedication and it encourages an indomitable spirit, all of which are qualities that can help in other areas of your life.

Along with these qualities, taekwondo has also opened the door on Korean culture, a door that for many visitors stays well and truly shut. My master, 전정술 관장님has been, and continues to be inspirational and educational, from the class room to the restaurant. A few days ago he introduced Christina and I to 바지락 갈국수 at a new restaurant after our class. We often eat lunch together and we are also invited to attend all kinds of events with him. It is these acts of generosity and kindness that for me at least are the essence of taekwondo. The learning and the teacher / student relationship doesn’t end when the class finishes, or at least it shouldn’t.

The 4th World Taekwondo Culture Expo will have just finished by the time you read this but it was here that we, Christina and I were invited by our teacher to participate in a poomse competition with people from all over the world. We have been invited to all 4 Expos so far and even if we aren’t living in Korea when the next one comes around I am sure I will make the trip back to Korea for it.

If I were to give advice to newcomers to Korea I would, amongst other things, advise them to get involved with something traditionally Korean, ideally taekwondo. A whole new Korea can be unlocked and opened up to you if you do. But I must also add a world of caution, you are unlikely to get a teacher of the calibre of 전정술 관장님 but there are plenty of great teachers out there and being a non-Korean will only get you so far, you must show dedication and commitment to stand a chance of being invited into the Korea that I know.

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung

Rob McGovern, July 2010

__________________________________________________________________________________

2006년 가을, 내가 처음 한국에 왔을 때 나는 새로운 문화를 배운다는 기대에 굉장히 들떠있었다. 당시 나는 한국에 대해 조금밖에 알지 못했기 때문에 언어나 음식, 사람들을 포함한 모든 것들이 나를 흥미롭게 했다. 내가 알고 있던 것 중 하나는 한국의 전통 무술이었는데, 그 당시 씨름이나 택견은 들어보지 못했지만 태권도에 대해서는 들어본 적이 있었다.

태권도는 오늘날 전 세계에서 행해지고 있다. 어느 나라에 살고 있든지, 어떤 인종이든지, 어떤 색의 피부와 종교를 갖고 있든지간에, 태권도를 수련하는 사람을 주위에서 쉽게 찾을 수 있을 것이다. 한국은 태권도의 고향이며, 그 기술이 가장 완전한 곳이다.

내가 다니는 도장인 '아중상무'에서는 특히 품새를 중시여긴다. 품새는 태권도의 기초를 형성하는 절제된 수많은 발차기와 주먹 지르기, 막기의 적용이 함께 이루어내는 움직임의 양식을 말하는데 태권도의 등급을 매기는 데 있어서 기본 토대다. 몇몇 학원에서는 대련하는 것을 우선시 하기도 하지만, 한국의 태권도에서 품새는 중요하다.

그러나 영국을 포함한 다른 나라에서는, 대련하는 것이 수련시간의 대부분을 차지하고, 품새는 그 다음인 듯하다. 아마 이는 올림픽과 올림픽 금메달이 가져다주는 명성과 부와 많은 관련이 있는 듯 하지만, 그 이유가 무엇이던지간에 만약 그들이 품새를 간과한다면, 그들은 태권도에서 결정적으로 중요한 부분을 놓치고 있는 것이라고 생각한다. 품새의 중요성을 알리는 간단한 방법은 아마 국제올림픽위원회가 올림픽에서 품새를 포함한다고 선언하는 것일 것이다.

여자친구와 내가 지인의 소개로 태권도를 배우기 시작한 첫 날 이래로 나는 진심으로 태권도에 빠져버렸다. 태권도는 단순한 무술, 그저 차고 주먹을 지르고 막고 판자를 격파하는 것, 그 이상이다.

나의 스승인 전정술 관장은 수련시간 이외에도 나에게 감동을 준다. 며칠 전, 그는 수련이 끝난 후 나에게 새로운 바지락 칼국수 음식점을 소개시켜주기도 했다. 우리는 종종 같이 점심을 먹거나 그와 함께 각종 행사들에 참가하기도 한다. 최소한 나는 이런 관용과 친절함을 실천하는 것들이 태권도의 본질이라고 생각한다.

최근 '제4회 세계 태권도 문화엑스포'가 전주와 무주에서 열린 열렸다. 나는 관장님의 초대로 엑스포에 참가, 전 세계에서 온 사람들과 함께 품새 겨루기에 참가했다. 나는 지금까지 4번의 엑스포에 전부 초대받았다. 혹시 다음 번 엑스포가 열릴 때에 내가 한국에 살고 있지 않더라도 그 시기에는 꼭 다시 한국에 돌아올 예정이다.

내가 만약 한국에 처음 오는 사람들에게 조언을 해준다면, 다른 것들 보다도, 전통적이고 한국적인 것을 수반하는 것, 한마디로 이에 제 격인 태권도를 배워보라고 말해주고 싶다. 태권도를 배우면 완전히 새로운 한국이 당신 앞에 나타날 것이다. 그렇지만 한가지 주의사항을 덧붙이자면, 태권도를 배울 때 당신이 '외국인'임을 고집해서는 안된다는 것이다. 당신이 진심으로 내가 알고 있는 진짜 한국에 대해 느끼고 싶다면, 당신 역시 한국에 대해 당신의 헌신을 보여줘야 할 것이다.

* 롭 맥거번(Rob McGovern)은 웨일즈에서 온 프리랜서 작가다. 2006년 처음 한국에 와 현재 전주에 살고 있는데, 한국음식과 문화를 사랑해 태권도도 열심히 배우고 있다. '롭 맥거번의 전주야 놀자!'는 그를 감동시키고 때로는 흥분시키는 전주와 전라북도 이야기다. 번역은 정보빈씨가 맡았다.

First published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by 정보빈.

Peaceful Places

2010-07-14T18:09:00.010+09:00

With the weather getting hotter and sweatier by the day, jaunts to the beach and the countryside are quickly becoming de rigeur. Jeonju is considered by many to already be in the deepest countryside but darker forests and mountains lie around the city in Jeolla province. There are plenty of day trips from the city that take in the cool, greenery of the province and offer a respite from the blazing city sun as well as offering plenty of beautiful Buddhist temples, lakes and art galleries.

East of Jeonju is Wanju county and following the river from the Ajungli area of the city quickly takes you into the countryside. When you pass under the railway line the main roads give way to fields full of squatting farmers tending their crops. Following the river for about 6 miles will bring you to Seongkwangsa.

Seongkwangsa is a temple located a the foot of Mount Jongnam in nearby Wanju County and is one of the temples leading the way in trying to revitalise Korean Buddhism in Korea. It is less famous than its namesake in Suncheon but it is none the less a beautiful temple, especially around the period of Buddha's birthday when, like in temples all over the country, hundreds of lanterns are displayed across the temple complex.

Located in Soyang-myeon, the temple was originally called Baekryeonsa and was established by Seon Master Doeui (Doeuiseonsa) a priest of the Shilla Dynasty in 867. The name changed to Seongkwangsa when it was repaired during the Goryeo period by master Jinul, also known as Bojokuksa. He is more famous for founding the other Seongkwangsa but he is the reason the temples have the same name. The temple is one of the oldest zen temples in Korea and although it is very small compared to most temple complexes, this wasn't always so. The gate that marks the entrance to the compound was originally located 3km away making this a very large temple indeed but for various reasons the complex has receded to its present location. The temple was destroyed during the Japanese invasion of the Joseon Dynasty but was reconstructed in 1620. The cross shaped belfry is said to be a very rare example and as such has been made a national treasure.

Temple stays are offered at this temple and an application form can be downloaded from their website, www.songkwangsa.org.

Another mile and a half up the road is O's Gallery and it is the perfect place to relax after the ride. O's Gallery is part of an art group that has cafes in the university area of Jeonju, one in Jeonju's Hanok village and another gallery in the small village of Ma-am in Imsil. The gallery sits on the bank of a lake, surrounded by mountains and when the sun is shining the are fewer places in the region to sit with a good, but expensive cup of coffee and read a book as it is as peaceful as Korea gets. The gallery is just one room and you get the impression that the owners are indulging in a passion for art with it but as indulgences go, this is a big one. The orange brick cafe adjoining the gallery has a very European feel to it and the small decking area is a great place to sit and look out over the lake.

If you find yourself with a surplus of energy after wandering around the temple and relaxing in the gallery grounds there are a few other sights in the immediate area that may interest you. Wibong fortress and temple are less than 2 miles away from O's gallery but there is a slight incline of about 10% up a winding road that takes you over toward Wibong villgae. A leisurely round trip will probably take several hours but it is worth it, and the calories you burn off can easily and pleasurably be replaced in the evening with a walk about Jeonju's University area.

If you have a heart condition or an aversion to exercise, city buses 806, 814 and 838 go toward Seongkwang temple from in front of Jeondong Church in the downtown area of Jeonju. For more detailed information you can call the Jeollabukdo tourist office on 063-1330.

http://www.osart.co.kr/

Originally published in Korean by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by Bobin Jung
Rob McGovern, July 2010

_________________________________________________________________________

점점 무더워지는 날씨에 해변과 교외로의 나들이는 결코 빼놓을 수 없는 즐거움이다. 전주는 이미 많은 사람들에게 전라도에서 가장 깊고 푸른 숲과 산, 들로 둘러싸인 도시로 알려져 있다. 시원하고 푸른 녹지대와 많은 사찰들, 호수 그리고 미술관과 함께 무더운 도시의 햇빛에서 벗어날 수 있는 쉼터를 제공하는 1일 여행도 즐길수 있는 곳이다.

그 중에서도 아중리 쪽에서 흘러내려오는 강을 따라가다 보면 전주의 동쪽에 위치한 완주군을 만날 수 있다. 철도의 아래를 지나면, 많은 농부들이 쪼그리고 앉아 농작물을 재배하고 있는 도로가 보일 것이다. 그리고 6마일 정도 강을 따라가면, 송광사에 이른다.

송광사는 완주군에 위치한 종남산 발치에 위치하고 있는 사찰로, 한국 불교에 다시 활력을 불어넣기 위해 끊임없이 노력하고 있는 곳 중 하나다. 이 곳은 석천보다는 덜 유명하지만 말할 수 없을 만큼 아름다운 절로, 석가탄신일 기간에는 전국에 있는 다른 절들과 마찬가지로 수 백개의 등불들이 절 구석구석을 장식한다.

완주군 소양면에 위치하고 있는 이 절은 원래 백련사라고 불렸으며, 867년에 신라시대의 승려였던 도의선사에 의해 성립되었다. 송광사로 이름이 바뀌게 된 때는 고려시대로, 당시 절이 보수되면서 보조국사로 알려진 지눌대사에 의해 이름이 바뀌게 되었다. 그는 또다른 송광사라는 절을 세운 것으로 더 유명하지만 어쨌든 그는 이 두 절이 같은 이름을 가지게 만든 사람이다. 이 절은 한국에서 가장 오래된 선종 사찰로, 비록 현재는 그 규모가 다른 절들에 비해 작으나 항상 그랬던 것은 아니었다.

절 전체 구조에서 입구인 정문은 원래 지금보다 훨씬 더 컸기에 원래 3km 더 멀리 떨어진 곳에 있었지만, 여러 이유들로 인해 현재 위치로 축소되었다. 이 절은 일제시대에 파괴되었으나 1620년 재건축되었다. 십자가 모양의 종각은 매우 드문 것으로 국보로 지정되어있다. 이 사찰에서는 숙박이 제공되며, 신청서는 아래 웹사이트(www.songkwangsa.org)에서 다운로드 받을 수 있다.

반마일 정도 더 길을 따라 올라가면, 오스갤러리가 있는데 이 곳은 드라이브를 한 후에 쉴 수 있는 완벽한 곳이다. 이 갤러리는 산들로 둘러싸인 호수 기슭에 자리잡고 있으며, 해가 반짝일 때, 조금은 비싸지만, 맛이 좋은 한 잔의 커피를 마시며 한가롭게 책을 읽을 수 있는 몇 안 되는 좋은 곳이다. 갤러리와 이어지는 오렌지색 벽돌의 카페는 유럽적인 느낌이 가득하며, 갑판으로 이루어진 작은 공간은 앉아서 호수를 바라보기에 매우 좋은 장소다.

오스갤러리는 전북대 캠퍼스 안, 전주 한옥마을, 임실 운암에도 갤러리형 카페를 가지고 있다.

만약 송광사를 둘러보고 오스갤러리에서 쉬고 난 후에도 아직 힘이 남아있다면, 또다른 풍경을 감상해 보는 것도 좋을 것이다. 오스갤러리에서 2마일도 채 안 되는 곳에 위치한 위봉산과 위봉사는 그리 많은 사람이 찾지 않는 한적한 사찰이다. 위봉사로 가기 전 하나의 고개를 넘게 되는데, 여기에는 위봉산성의 흔적이 남아있다. 또 위봉사를 넘어서면 위봉폭포가 있다.

이 곳들을 느긋하게 다녀온다면 아마 몇 시간이 훌쩍 걸리게 될 지도 모르겠지만, 이는 그만한 가치가 있다. 좀 더 자세한 정보를 원한다면 전라북도종합관광안내소(063-1330)로 문의하기 바란다.

* 롭 맥거번(Rob McGovern)은 웨일즈에서 온 프리랜서 작가다. 2006년 처음 한국에 와 현재 전주에 살고 있는데, 한국음식과 문화를 사랑해 태권도도 열심히 배우고 있다. '롭 맥거번의 전주야 놀자!'는 그를 감동시키고 때로는 흥분시키는 전주와 전라북도 이야기다.

Originally published by the Jeonbuk Ilbo newspaper and translated by 정보빈

Rob McGovern, July 2010