Korea videos--church and temple

When we were in Cheonan we attended the local branch. I got permission to film part of a hymn (unobtrusively from the back) one Sunday, and then we got some of the general mayhem after the meeting.



Sister Cho Kyung Sun (조경순) also served in Taejon mission, and was in my greenie house in Gwangju. Her husband was the branch president in Cheonan. I remember going to church there that first Sunday and seeing her. "Hey, I know you!" That was cool.

The Tices were another American couple that was there teaching. We discovered that Sister Tice's sister was friends with Doug's brother Al's ex-wife. Kind of an odd connection. And after we got back home I realized that I had a book by Brother Tice, that one of my Young Women's leaders gave me when I was fifteen. We just recently got back in touch with them, and found out they're in our area now! It's like we keep following each other around.



The temple in Seoul. I love the way you walk up the street and turn the corner and Bam! There it is. They do have a sign, in English and Korean, out on the main street, so hopefully that helps people find it!

We ran into Sister Jung Su Jin (정수진) outside the temple. She'd been a stake missionary in Gwangju. There was one sister missionary who was serving in the little visitor's center by the church (which I hear is not there anymore), and Sister Jung filled in as her companion for a while. At the time I couldn't really say much in Korean, so it was fun to run into her again and actually be able to carry on a conversation. She was serving a mission in Seoul.

After I got these videos put together I thought I really should get ahold of someone in Cheonan, so I got the number for the missionaries serving there now, called them and got Sister Cho's number, and called and talked to her. She has four kids now. When we were there she had two little girls. Now she has two boys as well.

I asked about Sister Yoon Jung Hee. (윤정희--she's not in the video.) She was always really sweet. I remember we had her and her husband over for dinner once, and then she fed us the night before we left Korea. Sister Cho said they were not in Cheonan anymore but had moved to Jinju. So I called the Busan mission office and got the number for the missionaries in Jinju. I talked to Elder McCain (who was serving there with his companion, Elder Elder. We had an Elder Elder in my mission too. Apparently not related). I asked him if he knew Yoon Jung Hee, and he said, "Yes, we just had dinner at her house last night!"

So I got Sister Yoon's number and gave her a call. It took her a minute to figure out who I was, which was kind of comical (well, it has been a long time!). We exchanged email addresses. I knew that her husband had family in the U.S. and occasionally came over to visit, but I was surprised to learn that his mom lives in Tacoma. Holy cow. He said he was just here a couple of months ago, and should be coming again this summer. I said, "Bring your wife this time!" It would be great to see them again.

You know that six-degrees-of-separation thing? In LDS circles it's waaaay closer.

Korea videos--at the hagwon

More videos! This is the hagwon in Cheonan where we worked.



Doug shows off a classroom with his "Trashman and Ratboy" wall, and some more of his creations in the teachers' room. Appearing at the end are a few of the kids that we worked with. It's kind of alarming to think that they're practically all grown up now!



Min Young shows off her mad gonggi skills. I love the bit at 1:49 where she does the quick hand sweep and picks up the two pieces that are farther apart. She was so good at that.



I have Min Young's original gonggi (not the ones she's using in the video). I bought several sets to bring home, and she liked the ones that I got, so she wanted to trade. Which I was happy to do because I thought hers were very cool. I remember sitting on the floor in the Seoul airport and playing gonggi with Doug while we waited for our flight home.

Next: Doug's class says hi!



Choi Ji Young pouts because she wants to look through the video camera. I think Doug let her, after this. (Note: the Korean last name 최 is generally romanized as Choi, which looks like it should be pronounced "Choy," but it isn't. It's kind of like a cross between "Chay" and "Chweh.")



The book spinners. Yong Il and Yong Ee are twins. Their names mean "Dragon One" and "Dragon Two."

Cities in Korea are divided up into sections called dongs. (That's with a long O, like "dome" with an ng sound.) The dong we lived in was called Ssang Yong Dong (쌍용동), which means Twin Dragons. The hagwon was in another dong, close by. One day it occurred to me to ask Yong Il and Yong Ee if they lived in Ssang Yong Dong, and they said they did. I thought this was hilarious. They didn't seem to see anything remarkable about it.

Aram is the boy whose cards Doug was reading through the camera. He was a funny kid. (I recall he appreciated Doug's sense of humor.) I wonder where he is now.

Doug just started a new quarter at school. He has two morning classes back-to-back, in different classrooms. A few days ago he stayed behind a little longer than usual in the first classroom, to talk to a student. A couple of students came in for the next class. One of them starting writing something in Korean on the chalkboard, and Doug read it (much to their surprise!). Turns out she's from Cheonan. In fact, she's from Bek Seok Dong, which is where Doug is pointing the camera in the first video when he mentions the apartments up on the mountain. Small world.

Korea video--Galbi with Mr. Ha

Here's the first of the Korea videos. I've decided I'm going to post Korean stuff on Tuesdays (for 한국 화요일).

While Doug and I were teaching English in Cheonan (in '96-'97, right after we got married) Doug took a kumdo class. Kumdo is what's called kendo in Japan--the fencing with bundled-bamboo practice swords. I went along at first to help translate (and came down with a case of kumdo elbow after doing the quick head strike 500 times). After we started actually hitting each other I stopped going.

In the class was Mr. Ha, a forty-ish restaurant owner with two kids. His full name is 하종률, which I think he romanizes as Ha Jong Yul. (Or something like that. Though the last syllable is really more like "nyool.") He spoke absolutely no English at all, but he and Doug managed to communicate well enough in their classes, and he would give Doug a ride home afterward.

Mr. Ha fed us at his restaurant a few times. On New Year's Day we went over to the restaurant and ate, and then went with him and his family over to his brother's house and ate more. We spent the evening eating, playing yut nori, eating, singing (we still have the song book they gave us), and eating. We had a wonderful time and went home completely stuffed at 1:00 in the morning.

In the weeks before we left Korea, we were able to go back to Mr. Ha's restaurant with a borrowed video camera, and record the experience for posterity.



(If you watch it at youtube the picture is bigger.) You only see Mr. Ha for a couple of seconds. I wish we had gotten more of him. It was also pretty noisy, so you may not be able to catch everything. (I could add subtitles... should I do that?)

Mr. Ha was unusual among our acquaintances, being not someone we knew from church or someone who wanted to practice English, but just a regular, nice guy. We kept in touch after we went to Newfoundland, exchanging letters a few times. In one letter he mentioned that he had sold the meat restaurant and started another place. The whole economy at the time was not doing very well, and it sounded like they might be having some trouble.

I sent Mr. Ha one of the cards that I made for the lunar new year, and it came back. I had no idea how I might find him, since he's not LDS and I couldn't use the same channels that I used to track some other friends down. Then Sister O'Bryan, whose blog I've been following, got transferred to Cheonan. I thought, "Hmmm, maybe she'd be able to find him somehow." So I sent her an email, giving her the information that I had. And then I thought, "Hmmm, I should try googling again." (I had tried this before, inconclusively.) So I googled 하종률 천안 and up popped this site. It's a restaurant in Cheonan. With owner Ha Jong Yul. And a phone number. I thought, "How many restaurateurs named Ha Jong Yul in Cheonan could there be?" (And I totally had to look up how to spell "restaurateur.")

It was way too early to try calling. I had to wait till evening, when it was about 9:00 am in Korea. Then I called the number on the site, and it was Mr. Ha! He was so surprised. Just completely gobsmacked. It was so awesome. I got his email, and we exchanged further news. He sent some recent family pictures. His kids are 20 and 22 now. The new restaurant is actually a fugu place. (Ooh, fancy!) He said he's also studying hotel management. Maybe he'll start a hotel and then we can go visit. Wheeee!