Monsooned

The sticky, damp blanket of monsoon season has descended upon Korea
yet again. Outside the window of the teacher's office where I while
away the time between classes mountains, hillsides and sometimes even
the dirt sports field next to the school are obscured by weighty mist.
The air is heavy with moisture even when buckets of rain aren't
pouring down from the sky. My breath catches walking out of the air
conditioned school library or my apartment, crashing into the clingy,
humid air that hangs on me like a net, like a weight pressing on my
chest because it's so much harder to pull into my lungs.

After just a week of true monsoon season everything already smells
slightly of mold. I've placed white plastic buckets of charcoal and
other humidity-eating substances around my apartment, but still it
never seems quite dry. The Korean shower system -- a shower head that
comes out of the sink above a drain in the floor making the entire
bathroom the shower stall -- leaves my bathroom constantly soggy.
Everyone's hair is limp and frizzy. Green-gray stains drip down the
white outside walls from the roof of my school. Doing laundry is
nearly impossible because everything must be line dried so towels and
jeans could stay wet for an entire week. My most prized scooter is
pretty much useless in this weather

It may seem strange for me to write a blog about the weather,
especially the second time I've gone through it, but perhaps you'll
forgive me since I grew up in the desert. Things do not mold in
Colorado, at least nothing but bread. The air is dry, thin and nearly
always clear. Fog is just as threatening as a blizzard and three times
as rare. I can remember just one impenetrably foggy night in my entire
Colorado childhood. So even the second time around, monsoon season
shocks me. However, I'm pleased to say that my memories of last year
are so scarring that it doesn't seem quite so bad yet.

In addition to the whinge factor, weather deserves a mention because
it is a point of pride for many Koreans. Since my first weeks here I
have heard all about Korea's four distinct seasons. The truth of this
claim is somewhat debatable (this spring, for instance, was notable
for its show of flowers, but it stayed just about winter cold until at
least the end of April) but worth mentioning because it is so often
debated.

These seasons dictate everything from wardrobe choices and temperature
control to heating. No matter how hot or sunny it might be in May,
beach season does not start until July, and regardless of gorgeous
September weather, it ends August 31st. Even if it's still hot in
mid-October, Korean girls are wearing knit caps and baggy sweaters. If
your co-teacher tells you your outfit is "very summer" in April, it's
not a compliment, it's a disapproving reminder that you're dressed out
of season.

대한민국! Go Korea! Fighting!

The streets, bars, stadiums, supermarkets and middle school hallways
of South Korea are all shouting red - the Korean (Konglish) term for
cheering on Korea's mighty red devil soccer team in the World Cup. I
can call it soccer because they call it that here, too.

I have never cared about soccer, at least not since I quit my
neighborhood team at age 11 after one too many losing seasons. I have
never cared about professional sports in general - even when the
Broncos or the Seahawks made it to the Superbowl, or when the Rockies
played in the World Series. I almost got into rugby during the Rugby
World Cup which France hosted in 2007, the same time I was there
studying in Grenoble. I watched a few games in the background at bars
and jumped on the bandwagon at the last minute to cheer in the streets
then slink away in shame for France's last two games (shocking victory
over New Zealand then crushing defeat by England).

However, World Cup fever has seized me and now I'm chanting and
cheering like my high school self, decked out in spirited red from
head to toe, shouting and jumping for my team. I stay up all night to
watch the games, I've set fifa.com as my homepage and I've developed
an irrational disgust for Argentina and off-sides calls. I have to
support the USA as well as Korea.

I talk soccer with the other teachers at work, gesturing wildly as we
celebrate Korea's first victory over Greece, mourning their loss to
Argentina. Resentment twists my lips as they tell me how the USA tied
England in their first match out of sheer luck. They laugh as my voice
gets higher and louder when I describe the last-moment goal that led
to the US defeat of Algeria and propelled my home team into the Round
of 16.

This week I've been giving my students a speaking test, asking them
whether or not sports are important. They struggle through forming
sentences about health and exercise. I just smile. I agree with them,
but in the midst of the World Cup, I see that sports are important
because they bring us together.

Climb up to the top

In my first few months in Yeosu, way back at the end of March 2009, I went for a hike.

I woke early in my one-room apartment and picked up my little 10,000 won (less than $10) backpack storing water and some Reeses Peanut Butter Cups I intended to share with my hiking group. I slipped a polar fleece over my thermal undershirt and torn jeans, and I headed out into the soft light of 7 a.m. I walked through the alleys lined with hole-in-the-wall bars and restaurants toward my local branch of the poorly named bakery franchise, Paris Baguette, on the rotary, the major landmark near my apartment. Young Min, the 40-ish Korean woman who looked 25-ish who had invited me to scale Muhusan with her hiking group, was waiting in her mini van with David, another English teacher slightly newer to Yeosu than myself. I clambered in and we were off into the swerving and honking of Korean traffic, even in the country town of Yeosu, even on a Sunday morning.

I was nervous about this hike. I grew up in Colorado, land of mountains and outdoorsy types, so I was well-versed in trailing, sweaty, red-faced and panting behind groups of real hikers. However, my guide book had told me that hiking was something of a national sport in Korea and I was determined to take all the opportunities and meet all the new people I could, so I decided to tag along anyway. Every day was an adventure in Korea, or at least that's what I told everyone at home. I wouldn't be able to tell the sorts of stories I'd need to tell to justify my trans-Pacific move unless I got out of my apartment and climbed some mountains.

Soon we boarded a bus packed with hikers. Each of them was decked out in hiking gear: neon North Face jackets, quick-dry, durable hiking pants, colorful, reflective hiking boots, neon visors and hats to keep off the sun, even aluminum walking sticks to help the hikers propel themselves up the mountain. I didn't know this yet, but everything in Korea must be done this way: seriously and with the proper gear. David, the other foreigner, and I were rather out of place in our torn jeans and sneakers, but the hiking group didn't care. They just cheered us on when we introduced ourselves over the bus's microphone, then went back to chatting, laughing and watching the comedy show playing on the TV at the front of the bus.

After two hours of windy mountain roads that left me green with motion sickness, we piled out of the bus, snapped some group photos and took off up the mountain. I do mean up the mountain. Unlike the trails I'd huffed and puffed up on Colorado, this one did not have switchbacks or other features to make the climb less strenuous. You just went up, as steep as the mountain wanted you to. I was trailing immediately, but David, Young Min and one of the higher ups in the hiking group kept pace with me. Whenever the group would stop, or on the rare occasion that I caught up with someone the other hikers gave me chewy candies and sips of iced green tea to keep my strength up. We passed masses of little colorful ribbons on trees, each covered with hangeul, Korean letters I couldn't yet read. Young Min told me they were left by other hiking groups. Members of our group had ribbons, too, and some of us, sometimes including me, had the group's flag sticking out of our backpacks.

Up and up and up we went in a way that seemed endless to me. I gasped for breath, took plenty of breaks and felt embarrassed, but in the end even I reached the peak. Only then did I notice that the other hikers who'd put me to shame had been carting huge Styrofoam crates. They opened them now revealing offerings for the mountain's god to pray for the group's safety in the coming hiking season. The hikers arranged dishes of fruit, vegetables and kimchi around a huge pickled pig's head, all on a tarp. Then everyone in turn lit incense, poured an offering of soju and placed minty green Korean money around the pig. I watched the hikers bow, mesmerized by the sheer difference from what I was used to seeing on a mountain top. Then Young Min reached out her hand and brought me with her to participate. Unsure what to do, I bowed before the offerings as well, following her lead as I pressed my palms against my thighs, then on the ground, then rested my forehead on the tarp.

Once everyone had made their offerings we all set about eating. The other hikers pulled out Tupperware containers from their backpacks, sharing kimbap (Korean fast food made up of rice and seaweed wrapped around meat and vegetables), fruit and a hundred other small dishes I didn't recognize. Suddenly my Powerbar seemed pretty sad, but the hiking group would never let anyone go hungry. They shared everything they'd lugged up the mountain, even though all I had to offer in return was a few peanut butter cups. We stared out from the mountain's bald top across the hazy hillsides and forests below us. Young Min told me an old king of Korea had been chased out of his capital by invaders. He had come here and felt so safe on the mountain he might have been home with his mother, so he called it Muhusan in honor of that feeling. We took photos with a plaque at the top of the mountain and began our long descent.

I was still slow on the way down, impeded by a fear of falling straight down the steep, muddy trail. The hikers were still nice. When we got back to the bus we took off to a parking lot in an unfamiliar town where the group once more pulled out Styrofoam crates. These held rice, lettuce leaves, spicy samjeong and slabs of pork for a Korean barbecue dish called samgeyopsal. On little plastic tables in the parking lot we dug into the meal, and a few bottles of beer and a Korean liquor called soju. Then we took off once more to look at yellow blossoms around a river and take pictures. The men in the group took turns calling me their girlfriend. In a perhaps twist that deserves more discussion, the standard of beauty in Korea is not so much a Korean girl as a Caucasian one.

We didn't make it back until hours after we were expected. I could barely say annyeonghaseyo (hello) in Korean and they knew very little English, but by the end of the day they'd invited David and me to join the hiking group. Though I never made it on another mountain climb with them again, I still run into those hikers occasionally in Yeosu and they always manage to call out "Hello Julie!"