Korean Homestay Experience

So earlier on this week I received an e-mail from the International Student Coordinator (my minder here at CNU) that there was an event I could participate in this weekend. The Korean National Mother's Association was having an homestay event for CNU students to participate in, so I could sign up, go on a field trip, and stay over at a Korean family's house AND get excused from classes on Friday. It sounded like an interesting plan, and I've been trying to have the mentality of "try everything once" in Korea, so I signed up.

They came and got us in the morning on Friday, gave us some small gift bags with a snack and a coloured shirt for the day (I got an attractive fluorescent orange one), and got us to meet our Korean mothers! My mother was pretty shy and she doesn't speak English. One of the international staff was concerned for my well-being this weekend, since I'm only a beginner level Korean speaker, but I told her it wouldn't be a problem. I'm fairly good at charades and I try to always be aware of my surroundings in case I need to escape and make it to safety.

Anyway, they packed us up into buses and took us to the Kimchi Museum here in Gwangju.

After the briefing, they had a gauntlet for us to run through on our way
 to the buses, giving us high-fives and clapping :)

Inside the museum. Here are some of the things needed to make Kimchi

As an aside, if you're ever required to design a museum and you want to help out anybody who can't read the primary language of the displays, please don't try and go half-and-half with translation. All or nothing really. The Kimchi Museum had counter-intuitive displays with the headlines in English and the description in Korean (example: "What goes into making Kimchi? koreankoreankoreankoreankorean", "Kimchi is healthy for the following reasons: koreankoreankoreankoreankoreankoreankorean")

To make up for the unreadable information signs, they had a ball pit
with an awesome slide. I used it twice.

Here, a guide shows us how to make kimchi. You have to grind up all sorts of stuff and mix it all around, then massage your cabbage which has been salted a little bit to draw the water out. Chili, garlic, shrimp, rice, you name it, it's in there. I asked someone and she said the recipe this lady used was a pretty standard kimchi recipe, but it can vary by region.

For a fun activity, they let us make our very own kimchi! We made 2 types, the standard cabbage one, and a fusion type with apples and cucumbers. It would take too much time to prepare the sauce by ourselves, so the lady did it for us ahead of time.

I could go for some raw fruits or vegetables...
Koreans seldom eat fruits or veggies without some sort of sauce.

la Pièce de résistance. Now now, I'm talking about the kimchi!

Here's some examples of regional kimchi faves.

Also, kimchi is incredibly important to the Korean people in the following ways. 1. It's quite healthy. Apparently it's good for the hair, and of course, spices are always good for the immune system. 2. It's quite traditional. People would grow cabbage in the summer or fall, harvest it, and prepare it for the winter. They would bury it in clay pots underground so that it would keep. Since there's so much salt in it, it wouldn't go bad (but it will spoil by getting more sour as time goes on). In modern times, people will have a second fridge (it actually looks like a small freezer) in their homes just for kimchi. You can control the temperature and the humidity and stuff. Kimchi has undergone a few name changes over the years: it was once called "dimchae" which is today the name of a popular kimchi fridge company.

After our fun at the kimchi museum, we headed for a place called Songgwangsa which is a buddhist temple here in the province. It's one of the top 3 most beautiful and famous temples in Korea.

We stopped and had a really small lunch at the base of the hike. As an aside, I'm getting really fed-up with these tour lunches. I hear them throwing around words of really tasty food and my hopes always get dashed when we get served something completely different (and usually inferior)... just sayin' Also, Koreans don't eat in courses, they just lay it all on the table and pick and choose.

It reads: Songgwangsa

We made our way up the hill slowly but surely. All the leaders of our hike kept saying "bali bali" which means "hurry up".

How could one resist stopping and taking in all of this beauty!

Not so beautiful, but interesting

The entrance gate to the path to the temple

It's a buddhist symbol, but I can't help it. Swastikas, swastikas everywhere

My homestay mom! Her name is Hyeon Dang.

I have no clue what this says, but this is
what original hangul (Korean script) used to look like)

Simply beautiful. The leaves were falling on the water and there was
a fresh breeze in the air. So peaceful.

This is part of the temple.

One can take a bridge or these stones to enter the temple.
Apparently you're supposed to pray before you enter,
to cleanse yourself of negative energy. Leave your baggage at the door!

The coordinator for our tour. In the top right (in black) is Natasha, my
international buddy from CNU. She was a student at U Missouri

Temple guardian (they were painting the other ones)

Behind us is big buddha's hall. No pictures or shoes allowed

My friend Le Ti

After spending some time at the temple, we boarded the buses again and departed for an ancient folk village/fortress nearby (Nagan Fortress near Suncheon City).

The folk village is a real village, real people are still living in these huts. I have a suspicion the government pays them a salary to remain there and keep trying to live in a traditional manner (some people make ceramics, some make roof materials, some are farmers, etc.)

Regardless, their village is pretty old and ancient. In my opinion, one of the best things about it was actually imagining what this fortress (they call it that because there's a fairly high stone wall around the place, but there's no castle, just a magistrate's house) would have looked like in ancient times. I bet the houses would have been similar, but I was most interested in location, location, location. It wasn't really on a hill, but it did command a good view of the whole valley and surrounding hills. You could see an incoming army pretty easily :) I assume the traders and farmers of ancient Korea would have felt safe inside these big strong walls as they traveled from place to place.

I took this picture because this person has a LAWN. A real genuine lawn.
I haven't seen something like this in a long time...

I added a cool filter to this photo so it looks like a movie. The wall is on the left,
a town gate is in the background, behind it is a watchtower/hill, and to the
right is a water wheel.

Some of the other people in our group visit local huts. These huts even
have address markers on them :) You could mail something here.

Rampaging cow perhaps? I'd like to know where they got
all the thousands of rocks it took to make this place.

In front of the magistrate's house, you could see some ancient Korean justice in action. They had a prison as well.

In the background, you can see someone getting ready for the
spanking of a lifetime.

The magistrate's word is law!

Watch out or I'll chop your head off

Or my mom will

A cute dog on an insufficient leash.

These are the kind of looks I get for being white in Korea....

Koi pond.

After we finished at the folk village, we returned to Gwangju and went to our homestays for the night. My mom took me out for dinner along with some of the other exchange students and their moms. Originally the plan was bibimbap (delicious warm mixed rice with veggies) but once again, it was not to be. We had something I've never had before, saengtaetang, which is a fish stew sort of thing (spicy). It was actually pretty good, although it was pretty spicy... AND Koreans hardly drink anything during meals, except for maybe alcohol. I was parched :(

Yes, that's an entire, whole, terrified looking fish staring back at me from my bowl
with either a bean or piece of tofu for an eye. New experiences in Korea!

After dinner, we went home. I met my Korean sister, Seulgi, and after they returned from school/work, my Korean brother and father. We had some grapes, watched TV for a little bit, and talked about our likes and dislikes (since one of the only Korean verbs I know is "to like"). Turns out my mom and I have similar taste in music! Then, my mom proposed we go drive to Mudeungsan which is a local mountain (It would be like proposing we drive to the Westminster Abbey in Mission, for some perspective on distance). She loves to climb this thing, and she wants me to go with her sometime to climb it. I'm in!

Anyway, it was almost 10:00pm by the time we left, and so my homestay father went to bed while my sister, brother, and I went with my mom to the mountain. We piled in the car, and she cranked up the tunes from the movie "Mamma Mia" and off we went :) It was one of the most enjoyable car rides I've ever had haha.

Here's the view we were rewarded with.

The next day I was treated to a special Korean breakfast (Korean breakfast is an oxymoron - Koreans don't distinguish between meals). We had samgyupsal, a delicious chicken breast and potato mixture, and the kimchi I made yesterday, as well as "dried yellow corniva" (google it, it's a fish). Mmm, nothing like breakfast ;)

I said goodbye to my host brother and sister, as well as Kiki, my host dog, and went with my host mother to the drop off location.

Kiki, my host dog. She's literally the size of my foot.

They wanted us to give speeches about our awesome experiences

My mom dropped me off at school

I had a great time, it was a really nice experience and I was blessed to have a great host family. My mom even gave me a whole bunch of grapes and bread to take home with me, and she told me (well, she gestured to me and I tried to understand what I could of her Korean) to call her whenever I'm feeling sick or whenever I want to come over to stay or eat. She wants me to go with her to Mudeungsan as well :) 

It was a great experience, but I think it could have been even better if I knew more Korean. I noticed that I was one of the lowest level Korean speakers on this tour, so I can only imagine how the other low-level speakers must have felt :P One of the most important things I will take away from this experience is being in the shoes of a homestay student. Now I know how it feels to have to deal with the awkwardness of cross-cultural family life, including expectations, routine, and unknown cuisine :)