June 8, 13, 14, 2008.
Soon after arriving in Seoul, I met up with my friend Keum from last year’s SK Telecom trip. Keum has been working here in Korea for over a year as the international manager for two productions, which has him coordinating logistics around the world. And he’s my age.
Keum invited Masato and I out to see one of his productions, Sachoom! (If You’re in Love, Dance!; 사랑하면 춤을 춰라!), at its new theater in the Nakwon building off Jogno and next to Insadong-gil. The dance musical loosely follows three friends as they grow up, and is a stunning set of dances so young and muscular and alive that the heart dances along with them. The cast plays well to the crowd, too, often stopping to involve bashful members of the audience in the story. The young production dances its heart out and looks good doing it, and I was really happy that I had gotten to go see it with Keum, who explained the evolution of the production, showed us around its new theater, and introduced us to the dancers. Keum and the cast are just wrapping up a month of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but when they return to Seoul, it’s worth a look.
After the show we headed to a teahouse in Insadong retrofitted with train car seating and even a small electric line running along the central tracks. We caught up for awhile, then headed over to a small but vibrant area somewhat like Sinchon, right next to Insadong on Jongno, for dinner.
The next weekend, I headed off for Jikjisa (직지사 直指寺) in Gimcheon (김천), Gyeongsangbukdo (경상북도), on a temple stay arranged by the Korean Tourism Office and the Temple Stay Division of the Jogye Order, and offered to Sogang KLEC students. I was only one from my class who signed up to go, so I ended up meeting a ton of great people from the other levels of Sogang’s program during the trip. We stayed two days and one night, hosted by a young monk who joked around with us late into the night, defeated all of us at chicken fighting, arranged for a jump-roping competition between the other monks and us, put us through the rounds of eating together, and took us for a few stunning walks. At night we learned Dado (다도 茶道) from devotees. My peers were just too smart, though, and bargained with the monk to let us sleep in, so we missed the 3 am prayer, which was my favorite part of last year’s temple stay. But I wasn’t about to argue that everyone else should surrender their sleep to me, and kept an open mind (and kept alive). In the morning, we took a beautiful walk around the temple and Hwangaksan, the mountain right behind it, collecting pine needles for making pine pollen dasik (다식 茶食) and for steaming with the ddeok we made.
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- At Sachoom with Masato
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- Keum’s photo of Sachoom in motion
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- Sogang friends
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- Monk’s Quarters at Jikjisa
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- Save your radish
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- Dusk
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- Contemplating
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- Our host monk demonstrating Dado
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- From Hwangaksan
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- Chicken fighting
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- Our ddeok
