Different Strokes

So while learning our grammar, it struck me how differently everyone represents different meanings in gestures. The first thing I noticed was that it's very common to make an X either with your fingers or with your arms to either mean "No, that's wrong" (틀려) or "That's not allowed" (안 돼). I think in the US (at least to me), that would seem like a babyish thing to do or for a teacher to gesture to little kids to help them understand--but here it's used between anyone.
Another gesture that was *very* bizarre to me is the gesture you make when you're asking (somewhat angrily): "Who said that?!" The grammar pattern we were learning is _____(ㄴ/는)다면서요? which is used when asking a question to someone for their confirmation when you heard something. For example:

프랑스에 간다면서요?
"Is it true that you're going to France?" (heard from a third person source)

아니요. 누가 그래요?!
"No, who said that?!"

The gesture for that is violently sticking your index finger straight up in the air--which is very strange to me, because in the US, the idea expressed there is very much "Up yours!" But apparently, that's not rude here.
A funny gesture that Ryan told me about is the gesture for "come here." Now in the US you would stick your index finger out, palm face up, and curl it back and forth to show "come here." Here though, both hands are put in front of your face next to each other, palms down, and the fingers are wiggled as if your hand were a spider.
Another interesting difference is the different ways in which people say certain small interjections, like "um" or "ouch!" Those would be what we say in the US, but "um" in Korean because "그..." (guh...) or "저..." (chaw...) while in Chinese it's "uh...," and in Japanese it's an "eto..." (which I think is a pretty amusing sound). Exclamations of pain become different too. In America we'd say "ouch" (actually I doubt that's even used much anymore so it's more like "ow"), and I'm not sure what it is in Korean but I think it's some vowel sound related to "ai." In Japanese though, you get "itai!" Hehe--it's always amusing to hear my Japanese friend Reiko say "eto..." in class ^^.

While traveling I also realized how careful you have to be with your clothing when eating--especially with slippery foods, like 떡볶이 (sticky rice cakes) or 닭갈비 (chicken kalbi) because of how slippery the food is and how easily the sauce splashes and stains. Too many countless times already where I've worn a white T-shirt, eaten some of these foods, dropped a piece of 떡 because it's just so slippery! And then got one or many red splotches on my white shirt. Which is why I am very grateful to that 닭갈비 place we went to for giving us bibs :).

So...not too much commentary for this week :). I had my writing midterm on Friday which was okay, except that I didn't have enough time to read it over and check it :\. Speaking and listening and reading tests are on Monday, and then we have our interview next next Monday, so it's been a bit stressful studying and not having a life lately haha. Still, we find some time to have fun :).

And now for the weekly summary:

Last weekend we went to Gyeongju 경주, the old capital of the Silla Kingdom of Korea. It was a nice gift from Sogang to let us join the East Asian Studies Summer School Students (that's a lot of S's in the acronym, EASSSS?--good thing I just made up this title) on their trip. Seeing all the traditional stuff in Korea and from a different perspective was an interesting experience.
On Friday, we took a long bus ride to get to Gyeongju--our first site visit was 천마총, or "Tomb of the Heavenly Horse" (which Philip joked was "The Tomb of 1000 Mothers" because 천마's hanja can either be 天馬--heavenly horse or 千媽--1000 mothers). Our tour guide for the whole weekend would continue telling us to "Change our viewpoint"--whether it be from above, parallel, below, or at a different angle or side, and to absorb the feeling of the environment before attempting to learn about the place knowledge-wise. It sounded very silly to us at the beginning and after being repeated multiple times, but after a while, the implications made a lot of sense.

Maybe it's the English geek in me that loves to read into symbolism, but a lot of what I gathered from the idea of "changing my viewpoint" had to do with how different Western and Eastern thought is, and how these days we rely too much on hardcore facts, technology, etc., and forget the simple idea of just "feeling" something, following our instincts, etc. It struck me as an interesting allusion to open-mindedness as well as the Buddhist idea of moderation and tolerance--understanding different viewpoints. And to take that into the physical sphere was to just ground ourselves in the idea that there isn't just one way to look at anything, whether it be a cold, hard immutable entity, like a mountain, or something more metaphysical, like an issue. Now I'm not the most articulate guy, so what I just said probably makes little sense, but I hope at least I got some of my point across :).
Here's a random picture of a duck I took.
And a chipmunk--just trying out some closeups :).
Here's the tomb that we entered to observe the artifacts. It's named "The Tomb of the Heavenly Horse" because a drawing of a horse with wings was found--much like a pegasus-like creature.
The artifact that stood out most would be this crown, which is a crown that the Silla kings would wear.
Our next stop was a museum with many Gyeongju artifacts--one of them being this bell which has been rung several times. The sound apparently can be heard from 40km away--quite impressive.
Inside the museum was this--look familiar? Haha, it's actually a replica of the crown we had just saw at the tomb of the Heavenly Horse. Strange to see a replica right after you see the real thing.
After checking out inside the museum, we got ready to leave. So normally you'll have pictures like this from far away--leaning on the Tower of Pisa, etc. We decided to have Jesse smush Philip hehe.
Before leaving, I took pictures of some of the Buddhas outside. My parents are Buddhist so it was nice to get a picture of this Bodhisattva--관음 Gwan-Eum 觀音--the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
After seeing one more tomb, we headed to our pension, a small area in the middle of rice paddies...with some very narrow winding paths to get through to get to. We were really impressed by our bus driver's ability to not fall into the rice paddies and cause us a starchy death...(bad pun, I know).
All five of us Yalies shared a room, sleeping on the floor as in traditional Korean homes, with 온돌 (Ondol--or heated floors), which is a pretty unique tradition to have, as I believe Rome is the only other large civilization to have had underfloor heating. At first we found the heat unbearable, but when the cold night came, it was a pleasure to have underfloor heating and our thick comforters :).
The room was also decorated with these words--meaning, if I translated it correctly: "Live with feeling and let's love everything." Pretty warm instructions for guests :).
Gracing our presence before we ate dinner were some performers playing instruments (one of them even played "My Heart Will Go On" haha--that is, the Titanic theme song ;)) and singing Arirang 아리랑, Korea's most famous folk song.
After dinner, which was a delicious meal of Samgyupsal 삼겹살 mmmm, that is, "three layers of flesh," which is very much like bacon, Jesse, Ryan, Andy, and I hung around--as can be seen in this bizarre picture where Jesse's just a ghost and Ryan has two heads.
This would be a picture of our shower. Pretty luxurious, no?
Haha I'm just kidding :).
The next day we started off by visiting a temple site. Our tour guide (left) told us about it while our interpreter translated it.
It was a pretty rough trip, considering the rain, holding our umbrellas, and having to be careful not to slip in the mud and fall to our doom...
Visiting another site--we tried the changing our viewpoint suggestion again.
After this rainy temple visit, we continued to eat lunch at a seaside restaurant, with yummy seafood soup called 매운탕, literally, spicy soup. Wrapping the food and rice in seaweed to make makeshift sushi (which I miss oh so much...) turned out with pretty tasty results actually!
It was pretty crazy that despite how rainy it was how many people were still playing on this beach. I guess the mentality is "We're wet already, why not get more wet!" Haha.
Our last stop before heading back home for the night was a small traditional village.
This was the women's quarters of the home, but I wonder how uncomfortable it would be during rainy times...such as that day.
After listening to some more about the village, we headed back to sleep in our warm cozy pension for the night.
Of course, the next morning, before leaving the pension, we had to take the mandatory group picture of everyone :). Kimchi!
We first visited another Buddhist temple site...with a pretty angry guardian.
Our tour guide explained to us the idea of Koreans using the right triangle, but with a curve at one corner--which would explain why so many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese temples have the curve at the end!
We then saw another Gwan-Eum temple, although we weren't allowed to take pictures of the statues of Gwan-Eum herself.
Our interpreter explained to us the "mudras" or Buddhist hand-positions (phew, pretty impressed that I could remember this term from eighth grade social studies!). This particular one is of Buddha surrounding the whole world and protecting it from evil. It was a pretty nice comparison with the interpreter telling us the idea of the lotus being a symbol of Buddhism because of its growth in a muddy, dirty world--despite all the filth around it though, it's able to grow beautifully and see beyond all of that. In the same fashion, the Buddhist grows and achieves enlightenment by seeing beyond all the dirtiness of the world. It was quite a nice analogy, at least I thought so :).
Before leaving, we all rubbed this pig--because the pig is a symbol of good luck in Korean. If you dream of a pig, it means a lot of luck will come to you soon and you should enter the lottery. Hehe, I dunno what it is, but all Asian cultures seem to be very big on the lottery. My parents used to do the lottery once a month or so and pick a number each and have each of my sisters and me pick one as well since there were six numbers (my parents being two and my three sistesr and me being four, adding up nicely to six).
Our tour guide told us about the ancient toilets of Silla, including a funny (and I don't know how true) reason for why many Koreans wear high heels today. Apparently, because people used to do their business anywhere, high heels were worn to avoid contact of waste with the bare feet...yeah...I dunno how true that is haha. These Irish guys on our trip had fun pretending to use the bathroom though :P.
Following that visit we went to our last site--where we would see dinosaur footprints. It's always crazy to think of any area in the context of prehistory!
The area had beautiful scenery--but what place in Gyeongju didn't :).
If you look carefully, you can make out a dinosaur footprint here :).
And here were some petroglyphs--which you can't see, but if I had taken it closer you could see ancient drawings.
And the final picture--Jessica, Jesse, and Becky, standing on the river :).

The bus ride back was pretty fun--lots of sleeping and bonding with Yale buddies, but home to lots of homework :(.

Maybe if I look at my homework and midterms from a different viewpoint it won't be so bad :).