How The City Became the Illusion and Nature Became the Reality

I never lived in the "country." My family is from Moscow. Some Russians have a dacha, a vacation country house. I'm not sure of the number and I don't think it's only wealthy people. I've always heard about it and have extremely vague memories, or at least photos, of myself bathing outside at a family dacha as a baby and toddler.

But that's just a "vacation." The full time "real" life is Moscow, where in the past the amount of cars on the road today was unimaginable. People lived by the metro and with their feet. Once the Soviet machine started grinding down, "Western" life seeped in and nowadays materialism has the city firmly within its grasp. As so often happens after a stint with the devastation of war, food shortages and state economic repression. In Korea, as well.

When my family first left the motherland, we moved West to the Rockies. Surrounded by mountains, I took them for granted. Then, because of lovely oil, we spent my middle and high school years in the Texas suburbs, a mushrooming landscape of cookie-cutter houses and lawns and strip malls that slowly but surely kills the rural community that used to be there. In high school, each drive across 3 massive highways to the heart of the museum district and downtown was like a pilgrimage to the light outside of the tunnel. The city was everything I ever wanted. I applied to Columbia because it was in New York, the fabled center of everything. I ended up living in Boston and then Lille, wonderful lively places that I would go back to again in a heartbeat. Over time, I began to eat fresh food and visit the places where it was produced. And made a movie about one of those places. And so began the re-awakening.

And now I've reached a point where something deep inside of me wants nothing to do with the city. Despite the art shows, basement shows, social centers, collective houses, bike rides, farmer's markets and bridges over water, in the city I feel less than human. I am missing an invisible layer of skin. The separation from nature makes me a monster, someone who cannot even relate to and communicate well with other people. I care about sexual and gender politics and worker's rights and collective living and dumpster diving but even more, I have come to care about working outside with the soil and letting nature teach me things that "society" has never done.

I've only begun. Last year, in Greece, I began answering the call of the night dream I had in Lille that told me to find my home in nature. In Houston, I sought out the community gardens where the din of the busy streets was outside these havens. And now, in Korea, I am beginning to dig really deep.

Jeungsan area, on the way to Hambaek, Gangwondo summer bike ride near Sabuk

I know next to nothing. The more I try to grow small vegetables, volunteer in big fields, read on farming, primitivism, eating well and its relationship to radical politics, the more big and complicated everything seems. It's complicated because for 20 + years my brain has been filled with only the things I've learned in confined classrooms, sitting at confined desks. Even at the university level, my classes and film internships were based on facts and figures and computer screens and enclosed walls. The process of unlearning and learning annew is more entrenched, requires far more engagement and openness than formal "education." So does the process of creating vibrant natural, rural communities when so much of the young, energetic excitement is clustered within the urban walls. But it's happening and will continue to happen.

I say this as someone from privilege beyond most people's wildest imagination. I am a white upper middle class American from an immigrant family that has, by and large, achieved the "dream." I've had access to the best education money can buy. I have never wanted for anything or even had to work that hard. (Oh, also I am cis and hetero). They gave me and others so much privilege for the price of our real freedom. While we still have nature on Earth, still have people clamoring for an end to madness, I intend to take the privilege to be here, now, doing what I can for as long as I can. There will be failures. And I will probably still return to the city again and again. But I'd rather fail on the road to reality than stumbling to chase a bygone illusion.

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WWOOF Korea photo. My dirty grape gloves.

WWOOF Korea photo. Us in the sun.

October was a month close(r) to home, including two trips to Handemy Village - a Korean ecovillage! - in the mountains of beautiful Danyang, not far from Guinsa. I got over my Guinsa mishaps quick as 13 of us finished off grape picking season for our October group WWOOF.

I really enjoyed this place, even for just two days. So much that I went back 2 weeks later to volunteer for the first English camp. Best of all, it was a Halloween theme camp, complete with carved pumpkins, a treasure hunt and painted faces. These elementary and middle school kids are great - full of energy, though still often tired from so much activity.

The story of Handemy is that several years ago, the founder revived the school that was to be shut down in the area and renovated this traditional village. There are still regular Korean families living on the grounds, but now it's also a place where children learn in the classroom and out in the fields and WWOOFers come from all over the world.

The next time I go there - hopefully for the next English camp! - I'll be sure to snap more shots. For now, suffice it to say that I was really inspired by the project and it made me feel - again - that Korea has so many amazing things going on right under our noses but not quite broadcast far and wide. Teaching kids language through farming - sounds like a great idea and it plays out well. There is a young Korean woman working there, who studied in the US and speaks English and Korean perfectly. She comes as a real asset to the kids and community in many ways. Living in the dorms with the loud, rambunctious Korean children can't be easy, but it seems that the unstructured and outdoors-focused life is very rewarding. For me, it would be a perfect gig. Just visiting, volunteering and enjoying the atmosphere is enough of a lovely experience for now, though.

 

Seoraksan Scenes. Photos by Hannah.

In between the Handemy trips was a second and triumphant trip up the northeastern Gangwon coast. We started with a low-key EPIK teacher/coteacher YangYang conference and ended with a beautiful weekend traipse through Sokcho and up Ulsanbawi peak at Seoraksan. This second Seoraksan visit,  during a weekend festival was absolutely mobbed with people. The fall colors were only just starting to turn and the daytime weather was absolutely gorgeous. Fall is prime hiking season in Korea, though I've noticed over time that its not quite as popular with younger people. A shame, too, because I love hiking. The seaside northernmost city of Sokcho proved to have many delights as well, from watching the fishermen at dusk, surrounded by all kinds of beautiful dead starfish, to the lively established North Korean refugee enclave.

The last weekend of October was one of the hundreds of local traditional festivals - Yang Yang Salmon Fest. I got there too late to catch a fish with my bare hands, but we all enjoyed eating it surrounded by Korean families immensely impressed with our American friend's salmon seasoning. We got massively lost trying to find a Halloween party in the woods so we ended up at a super expensive noraebang in Gangneung and a nice motel. The next day, we enjoyed the last of what can properly be called warm weather, around Gangneung and Jeongseon.

Yes, this was the last of single layer clothes. It was a good ride before winter.

Travelling Magic, WWOOF Korea and What is Activism?

After recounting some of last year's adventures, I now have a bit of travelling magic back in my life - a couple from Lille that I met through the social center have been staying with me this week in the middle of nowhere, Korea. After I came back to France from Greece last summer, Justine told me she was adopted from Korea and they would come visit me. And after a year they've finally made it. This past Saturday, they came from a few days in Seoul to meet me in Sokcho on the North Coast and we spent the night in Seoraksan National Park, exploring as much as we could of this beautiful natural place with its peaks and temples. From Sokcho, we happened to take the same bus as the director of a hagwon, private English academy, in Seoul (who later asked if I wanted to work for her!) and she helped us find a big cheap room in a nice motel in the park.

The next day was less successful because of the endless bus rides, the 2012 Danoje Festival lacking the atmosphere we were looking for, and their heavy luggage, but we still managed to make it to Gyempo Lake and Beach in Gangneung. We made it back to Sabuk late but not-too-late and crashed.

This week, two of my WWOOF Korea buddies came to Sabuk for a night, making it four  people in my apartment, and we had a really nice group outing to a lovely restaurant in Gohan where the owner does wood carvings. Pretty intense stuff for a weeknight in this neck of the woods.

So for about a month now, the weekends have been fresh, interesting, tiring, occasionally frustrating, but overall really vibrant and eye-opening. And definitely too short. In mid-May, the weekend before Buddha's birthday, with my bike, I hopped a ridiculously early Saturday morning bus to Seoul to go to the first English tour of the War and Women's Human Rights Museum in Hongdae. It was a lovely day and the tour was sobering but hugely informative and a chance to meet great activists and new people. That was definitely the turning point in me finally beginning to appreciate the different opportunities available in Korea. 

Afterwards, I gave myself no chance to rest as usual as I wandered around Hongdae looking for a good jimjilbang to crash at - I found out much later there is one right on the main street, but this one in a hidden corner worked just fine.

And travelling magic happened that night too. I met up with Gangwon teachers for the Lotus Lantern Festival, but joining them was a Finnish girl visiting Korea for a month. After a random big dinner, the festival and nice outside drinks, which produced a lot of walking and some ho-hum stereotypical Korean-foreigner interactions, me and the traveller ended up back in Hongdae. We chanced upon the last show of a white-boy band at Strange Fruit, one of the tiny, cozy underground bars. So the night ended on a good note and I made a new friend.

The Sunday, as most Sundays in Seoul are for me, was a case of wandering and river cycling but I did manage to check out the beautifully decorated Bongeumsa Temple.

And it only gets better from there...

Food, Food Everywhere 

Which brings me back to...WWOOF Korea! While deciding on whether or not I would go to Chuncheon's Mime Festival for Buddha's birthday weekend, the decision was made for me by WWOOF Korea posting a call for a group volunteering trip.

That was the weekend that brought me one of the most frustrating but also some of the best and future-giving Korean moments. I arrived in warm, quiet Bucheon neighborhood in Seoul at midnight on a Friday and was so happy I chose to stay at the WWOOF Korea Guesthouse lived in by a Japanese staff member and his girlfriend - they've since moved out and I can't wait to see the changes to the house. I was able to reminisce on WWOOF Greece, learn about WWOOF Japan and how the Korean chapter is and always becoming much more open, welcoming and full of group volunteering opportunities.

I did a write-up about this, my first experience, and a brief description here.

To wrap up, we were in the famous Boseong green tea region of Jeollanam-do, the southwestern province and we were helping a small(er) organic tea farmer weed his fields in preparation for summer tea harvesting. Drinks, laughter, and me being completely lost for lack of Korean. And the still cheap Yeolpo green tea & sea water spa with our nakedness overlooking the beach was a fabulous last touch. If only someone hadn't made the executive decision to drive back to Seoul from Boseong Sunday evening instead of Monday. It would have saved me the headache of arriving in the city at 3 a.m. after a long day of work and a 7-hour drive ending in rain, and finding that I had nowhere to stay after all. I had the option of either waiting at the bus terminal for the 6 a.m. bus to Sabuk or choosing a jimjilbang in Seoul. Honestly, I had a really hard time in the jimjilbang, I didn't sleep at all that night and felt like the positive vibes I had experienced were somehow less real. Like I had done something wrong. 

Thankfully, all that went away the next day as I saw WWOOF people again. Snacks in the WWOOF garden and shared curry by the river on no sleep. And the next two weekends brought lovely Sunday visits to Hansol, the organic chicken farm in Namyangju, the rapidly growing biggest organic farming region in Asia. When I first met the farmer Mr. Kim and a bunch of other WWOOF members and supporters on a Seoul Saturday, it was "Yu-gi", June 2nd, which also means "organic" in Korean. We learned, to our great surprise and delight, that Seoul has an island with a huge public organic garden and compost toilets! If only every city, especially every city with a river, had something like this - urban living would improve so much. Here's the link to more photos. 

How hypocritical of me is it to work on a chicken farm as a vegetarian? Well, they hardly ever slaughter the chickens, except as a special feast like on my first trip there, and the eggs are fresh and delicious. And the middle-aged Korean farmer is a badass, well-travelled, good English-speaking, even radical-minded guy who has built up the place for nearly 30 years. He leads around a 1,000 families in the area in the quest to be even more organic and sustainable. And he founded Slow Food Korea , a short ride from the farm in the same area. I have yet to go there, but it's next on my list as I keep exploring. In two weeks, there will be a compost toilet painting party. I can't wait.

What is Activism? 

I ask myself this question nearly every day and nearly every day, the definition keeps changing - expanding, contracting, becoming fuzzier or clearer depending on the mood.

To be an activist, do you have to be always active? To wave signs? To shout? To smash bank windows? To chain yourself to trees? To occupy the college campus? To attend meetings? To bomb cars? To rescue animals from fur farms? To never drive? To tag public ads? To do street theater? To play in a folk punk band? To read or report for independent media? To ride a bike to work? To eat vegan? To get most of your food from dumpsters? To wash your clothes with soap and water? To wear certain kinds of clothes? To hitchhike instead of taking the bus or train? To garden in your backyard? To keep guns? To protest guns? To befriend people from many different backgrounds? To read political literature? To compost? To take cold showers? To reject religion? To volunteer at the infoshop? To organize shows at the social center? To talk a lot against all the -isms that could possibly come to mind?

Summer roses on a Seoul bike path

It can be those things and a whole lot more. Or it could be none of them. It could be just sitting quietly in nature with a good novel. It could be spending a lot of time with your family. It could be cooking dinner for your housemates. It could be being the best teacher you can be. It could be helping your neighborhood plant trees. It could be playing basketball with your students. It could be smiling at everyone you see on the street. Or only smiling when you truly feel it.

I'm thinking about this now in particular as I finally reach the point where I'm positively processing my time in Europe, all the people I met, all the things I learned. When I was first coming to Korea, my biggest apprehension was definitely how I would go about finding an activist community. I was evenly torn between that and finding quiet, natural places to spend my time. It turns out that I want both. My time with WWOOF here so far has been the most inspiring time and I can see it branching out in all kinds of amazing and more eye-opening directions. And because I feel happy when I do it, I can radiate positive energy to others. Unlike so many other things that I've taken part in, which were fun but often felt more like I should do this because if I don't I'm not living up to my values. 

Having visitors from the past, melting with the present and influencing the future is really exactly what I need at this time. 2012 is half gone, drama-free and I've lived to be a quarter of a century old now. I - and I hope everyone I know - am becoming more and more of the activist and person I want to be, day by day.

Monsoon beginning, Sabuk