Windy Winter

Here I am again… One shiny season fully upgraded. Windy winter has made his entrance through a new time level. The nice thing about living in a Korean temple and mostly outdoors is that you can notice time difference by the expressive seasons. To be honest, the cold isn’t that nice, but at least you get a fresh (frozen) nose (always look positively). Especially when we do the walking meditation (walking from top to down gate) at 5:30 AM and do about 1000 meter (about 30 minutes) walking at the pace of a penguin.
4 weeks ago it snowed here for the first time. In Seoul it already snowed several times last month. Probably because we are close to the sea and situated southeast of Korea it is a big bit warmer here. (Just for your imagination, Seoul ~ Golgulsa = about 5 hours by bus. Almost the same distance from Amsterdam to Paris). So after this small snowstorm, instead of doing walking meditation we had to sweep the snow aside on the trail where we normally do the penguin thing. It took us some longer and because off all the hard efforts one of the handmade twig brooms got demolished. Happily by sweeping our way to the dining hall we got warmed up by being active and after it we could have some warm breakfast.

Because that night it snowed pretty much, we also could have some fun with fallen white powder and my first snowfight was an ambush. Juno (one of the flying monks) was waiting for anyone to pass the Sunmudo School. I was the first lucky one and he was busy building a nice bunch of round rockets. When entering him I did some speed snow claying myself and made a sprint towards him to surprise him. My second throw was a direct hit and gave him a nice nose feed. Unfortunately a friend of him also passed and helped, I was trapped. They tried to powder my face with their home made rockets. After improvising a few of them in my face, eyes and nose I counted my changes (that was really quick) and directly run towards the school to save my ass from being ‘snowmanned’.
The next morning more people helped cleaning the road and I think it was a shame that they whipped away most of the snow that prevented us from having some more fun. Actually I already had some visualizing sliding with a sled (or any kind of slippery object) from top to anywhere lower to make total effort from the steep hills we are living in. So for next snowinvasion I have to be more alert and immediately respond to these weather occasions!

This first chapter of my blog was written last week. Actually 1 day after writing this part, the weather Gods wanted to give me an opportunity to let my fantasy run wild and dropped almost half a meter of snow spread over the whole day. This amazing snowfall created a lot of beautiful pictures and fun to play in this white ocean of cold powder. Me and some guys scanned the area for something to slide on and finally found a metal plate. After washing it and put a towel on it, we slide our way down from a steep part of the hill. Every time we passed a gutter we crashed and rolled or slide the way down further without our creative sled. A metal plate can be sharp too, so after crashing without my gloves on I made a deep cut in my thumb. When I taped my thumb, the other guys were halfway down where it was less steep. Finally we noticed that most fun was up but were too lazy to go up again in the slippery snow. We decided to have a snowball fight and tried to hit each other as hard as possible in the face or neck. When it got later I decided to make a 33 minute snowman and some other guys helped me.

Temple people respond quickly to all kind of situations and probably the Head master ordered a bunch of bold headed hats to clean the road. This was useless because the snowflakes were as big as giant cornflakes and came with tons down in our area. So when they asked us to help we just ignored them and threw snowballs at them. Finally we ended up in a small battle where they finally had to continue the Headmasters orders. Later on they had to use the temple crane to clear the road. It took maybe 2 days and certain parts of the road became really icy.

As the cold weather is on ruling matter I feel less motivated in different ways. I skipped a few Sunmudo classes in a row and overslept my first 2 times, though on Christmas and New Years day. I think it’s more that I missed the holiday feeling and missed my family in those days. I also love to walk in my jogging pants all day and watch some feel good Christmas movies and have a cozy gourmet or fondue at night with friends. At the temple it was just like any other day. Happily we got lucky because I asked Master Boorim what time the Christmas party started? After looking surprised for a bit he answered ‘if you want you can join the junior monks with Karaoke’, the only condition was to buy a lot of snacks. After this answer me and Heather didn’t had to think too long and joined them after diner.

This year was the first time I celebrated New Year in Korea. I noticed the temple is not the place to have a big party or expect a lot of activity at the countdown. The only program we had at night was doing 1080 bows. Normally the bows are used for punishment for the kids, so I didn’t really understand the fun of it. Next to that it is a kind of daily job for me to do 108 bows every 2 days, so I wasn’t most enthusiastic. So I just skipped this part and watched a movie with some steady temple people. 15 min before noon a handful of people went down and drink a bit and ended up in a mandu shop. It was freaking cold with crazy wind. Me and Chan went back to finish the movie (strange days) and the rest were crazy enough to do a 40 minute walk to get some chicken.

The next morning (06:30) we went out for the beach to see the sunrise and do some small exercise. For this day I had in mind to do a New Year’s dive. In The Netherlands it's a kind of popular and its a good way to start the New Year with good intentions, besides that it's really refreshing! At first I thought I would be too chicken because New Years Eve was mega cold and windy. The next morning the wind was more down and only -3 (instead of -7). As I told other people that it was my intention, they were curious if I still would go… Finally I was like, chance in a life time… and just undressed spontaneously and rushed my way into the ice-cold East Sea.

When I entered the water I didn’t even noticed the cold because I was too busy with running and flounder like a hunted chicken. On my way back I thought, this is too short so I went back one more time to feel the real cold and thought OK enough and sprinted back to hug my towel and dress up fast to prevent freezing body parts.
The funny thing was that another guy joined me a few minutes later. His reason was a box of cookies and he let on his jogging pants and shirt. Still brave and fun and afterwards we shared the cold together! :)

In December a handful of temple friends left and it was quite quit for visitors. Probably because of the cold weather, holidays, diverse diseases and flu’s floating around Korea. Last month we also made like 500 pieces of Kimchi with the whole crew. Everybody in the temple helped. First we collected the cabbages from the farm. This was pretty easy as we were with more than 10 people the job was easily done. We just threw the pieces to each other and finally in our old skool multi van. From the van into the kitchen and in the kitchen they were washed and dried to prepare them with a pepper and garlic sauce layer. This whole workout took us one week and we prepared Kimchi for one year. In a way we are lucky because the last pieces of the former stack were really sour and not really mjummie (in soup it’s great though). Now we got young fresh and delicious Kimchi 3 times a day!

By ending this time consuming work the whole crew got treated by an unlimited lunch buffet. These occasions are celebrated big and most of us ate more than 4 plates of everything you can imagine. We stuffed our pockets and hands full of bread and ice cream and went satisfied into the bus on our way back. Not much later, maybe a few days… the first victim got stomach flu and that night he perished from pain and sweat like a pig. I took a visit to check how he felt. Probably that night he infected me and a few days later I was suffering with cramps and ate hardly a full meal a day. Finally it went from one on another and more than half of all temple people endured a stomach virus. Most of them went to the hospital and the whole contamination lasted for at least three weeks. Happily I was one of the first and ended up in bed for a few days and took me down for a small week.

During last period I also got several different roommates. Most of them were late teenagers (like 18) and have so called difficult personalities. One guy was a pathological liar. He lived in a kind of dreamworld and was at the temple because his mother wanted him to socialize more with Korean teenagers. Besides that he is addicted to movies and using internet (who isn't these days). I noticed he isolated himself from others and didn’t seek for contact with his fellow teenagers. He has Korean parents but himself was born in Germany and lived most of his life in there and also a part in Boston (at least that’s what he told me). Most weird thing was that he acted like he couldn’t speak Korean, but he can! We finally found out because he used my friend's phone and his mother text messaged him back in Korean. I am still thinking about how he can keep up a lie like this for three weeks and fool everybody. He told me he was a forward of a premier league soccer team in Boston and also captain of this team (which is odd because forwards mostly don’t have as much insight as defenders or midfields). As I saw his muscle legs I believed him, but by playing temple soccer he just sucked. His Sunmudo skills were also far from good and complained every day about the temple. He acted like a kind of toddler, was sick or injured most of the time and told me how much he wanted to go home every night. When he slept, he grinded his teeth and the annoying sound went straight through my clay formed earplugs. Sometimes I just threw a pillow at his direction to stop it (and mostly it helped).
Maybe I sound quite negative, but in overall this guy doesn’t have the intention to harm anybody or anything. He even looks very friendly and peaceful for an outsider. I think he is confused by the fact that he looks Korean but feels Western (US/ European) by visiting Korea the second time and has some mental issues that probably is caused by spoiling him too much. So who to blame? In the end we didn’t make a real fight and just said normally goodbye to each other. I think I can understand his situation a bit because even Kyopo's have to get used to full Koreans. I hope he is doing well at the moment, but the only thing I blame him for is that he took my phone! Of course he said he didn’t, but he was the only one who didn’t have one. Sometimes I get crazy by the teenagers here, because some of them have loose hands and you don’t want to blame anybody innocently. Thanks to a Dutch friend living in Korea I got another phone. Ahram, thanks!

His follow up roommate just left last week (actually there was 1 more in between, but he was great). He only was my roommate for a big week, but he had the habit of sneaking out at night and drink, smoke or calm down his munchies (big desire to eat fat snacks). Mostly he came back at night (around 02:00 or 03:00) and woke me up by opening our wheezing door. Other notifications were that he just drunk my water without asking. Probably you think, what’s the big deal? But nowadays all outdoor water tabs are frozen, so you have to get your water at a dispenser and those are only at a few places. Actually I didn’t worry too much about it, because I knew he would only stay for like 10 days as a roommate. Finally he got caught at night and was kicked out (2 nights before the actual date to leave) because of the many warnings and disrespecting temple rules. The fact that he didn’t speak English was a burden because I couldn’t tell him just to stay in the room (I think it’s more that he didn’t want me to understand). At the end we just avoided each other in a certain way and didn’t get to know him really well. We had great fun in the snow though and probably if he could speak better English or me better Korean we could have some nice time. I’ve had a lot of roommates in The Netherlands, but having a roommate here is different because you share one room (and actually a lot more mostly) with each other. If the room is just for him I don’t mind that much what he does with it, but I just can’t live in a messy room or somebody that awakes me during my precious sleep.

Half of December a Dutch friend came by. I know Rachel from Arierang and the special thing about her is that she is really enthusiastic with our beloved organization and joined the board of directors really quickly as a vice president. Her character is really lively, positive, funny and she is always in for some adventure. One of these adventures ended up in this fall program for Adoptees and before she knew it she experienced first time Korea for at least 4 months! In this period many new friends entered her path, learned survival Korean, became a black belt in Taekwondo, learnt to be a Korean master cook, did a lot of intelligent games (with liquids), saw many beautiful spots and most important she visited me at the temple.^^
She was the second Dutch friend that came by for a small visit.

Sandra was the first to explore Golgulsa. She came like a handful of weeks before Rachel. Sandra is one of the most energetic persons I know and talks as fast as she thinks (Her thinking must be faster otherwise there will be stutters in her talking’s). I think she has a kind of plug somewhere hidden in her head to feed her with data… (Like in the matrix) and to process this data she talks like a chipmunk (that’s a kind of squirrel with a voice of a fast forwarded speed tape). My simple processor can hardly catch up with all the chipmunking and just like the sound of all the fast talking’s. I was blessed because Sandra took my job within Arierang and for what I’ve noticed is that she made this position a lot more mature and secure!

For Rachel’s visit it was a bit chaotic, because at the last minute in the morning I was asked by Boorim to join bongsa (community work). The work created by our headmaster was to provide old people from Kalkuksu (fish noodle soup). So the good fellow donated many liters of this fine noodle soup to half frozen halaboji’s and halmoni’s (grannies) to fill up their empty stomachs. The content of this work was doing dishes in some fine fresh weather with a lot of wind and just smile friendly when they brought back their dirty dishes at us when finished (I think it was more deriding us for wearing pink gloves and seeing men doing dishes).
Finally I was 90 minutes late and searched my ass of for Rachel and her friends. The stupid thing was that I couldn’t find them and nobody knew where they were. I looked at every spot except the top, because I wouldn’t expect her there (normally she complains about steep hills and too much activity). After 30 minutes searching I saw her breaking one of the temple rules by smoking at the top of the hill (bad bad girl). The second rule was to be broken by me. Normally everything in the temple is split up for men and women. So I live at a floor only for men (or most of them are just boys). This entrance also says something like ‘highly restricted to women’. Her crew existed of another female and a guy. So I just slipped in with the four of us to drink some Korean Jujube tea and show them my humble room. Here she surprised me by giving some nice Christmas gifts. Real Xmass tree balls (they are still hanging), a Xmass card, a red Busan handkerchief (limited edition) for the cold days, an exclusive silver keycord (she most have heard that I am really save with my keys) and another gift to break some more rules… A real can of Heineken! I drunk it after she left in a fervently way and even though it was warm it tasted great. I felt Christmas spirit all over and I am still thankful for this warm gesture!

So after the short introduction we went for some Archery to shoot some serious… rubber. At first I felt sorry for the bows that were going to be raped by a bunch of rookies. But after like maybe a short half hour they surprised me with their medieval powers. They hit the board several times and almost crashed the bull’s eye with their extreme sharpness. After an hour of playing they had to be back in time to catch the free bus to Busan again. I walked them to the busstop and thanked them for a lovely day. I noticed that it’s really nice to meet familiar people in a place where you are a kind of isolated to the outer world in a certain way. The funny thing about their visit was also that everybody was a kind of interested in my friends, especially when they see some beautiful girls.

The last 3 weeks it was a kind of chaotic at Golgulcamp, this because the winter program for kids started. Every year the temple offers a summer and a wintercamp for tiny terrors between 6 and 16 where they follow certain temple program. In the summer there were around a hundred kids I’ve heard. At that time I also heard it was complete chaos, stress and disorder during camp period.
To give a slight impression of what kind of juveniles we are talking about… In the first week 3 guys escaped from the temple and took a taxi to Gyeongju (45 minutes from the temple) and just run out of the taxi without paying. Finally they got caught and the funny thing was that I heard the story after I saw the guys running half naked (only shorts) bare feet in the snow at night being pushed by a junior monk yelling and waving with a bamboo stick at them. Weirdest thing was that the junior monk also was half naked on his bare foot. Also at night training there was a speech about the incident and we had to applaud… Strange guys here!

Luckily they minimized this winter camp to half size, so finally I was put up with a minimum of responsibility by teaching children from 9 to 16 English Class for one hour. As it was my first time teaching English to children I had to adapt a bit. Korean Kids are really energetic and mostly not really interested in boring teaching. With 25 children it was a kind of hard to keep everyone’s attention (Later I’ve heard that you should be lucky if half the class is giving attention). The first day was a kind of stupid because I prepared the learning materials for small children. So with flashcards for bodyparts they got bored really easily and saw they lost focus quickly. But by giving candy rewards at the end for the best team they got a certain degree of attention. After a while I noticed they like word puzzles and finding words in letter matrixes the most. So I just surfed my way around English teaching websites and printed them out. With self made team names and rewarding them by candy and cookies I got almost 88% of the classes’ attention during my 3 weeks of teaching. This also reminded me when I was that age. I was one of those guys who didn’t pay attention and rather like to talk or just tease the teacher instead of behave like a good student. Happily they didn’t teased me (as if I would let them :P) and ended my last lesson with a spelling test where everybody did his best (because of the candy prices of course). I wasn’t able to build a deeper relation with them because some of the kids only stayed for a week. It was a good experience though, but I am also a kind of happy it’s finished. For now, I can just train in the morning again!

Last writing for now… This weekend Hannah left. Hannah is an 18 year Kyopo (Korean person who was born and raised abroad) girl from Florida and stayed at the temple for 6 weeks. She is a funny little girl that claims to be a professional golfplayer and also likes to play in general too. Especially during our Sunmudo classes I had great fun with her and liked to kick her small behind and pull weird faces at her. On return she really liked to distract me when I was doing orientation for foreigners and pulled weird faces at me while I was explaining how weird this temple actually is. Happily her normal face is funny enough so I just could control my laughing muscles most of the time. Because of her background (Kyopo) and the fact that she is just a great person made it nice to have her around. I am really going to miss her this last month, especially the cookies, candy, toast and hot chocolate she gave me! :P

What?! Last month… Yes time is going fast and according to my agenda I only got one month left at the temple. In this month my big friend Theo will return and schedule will return to normal again. I am still not used by getting up at 04:00, but I created a kind of sleepmode during morningmeditation (05:00) where I can catch up a minimum of sleep. Furthermore … I experienced my first time of snowboarding in Korea and it was great! It went really smooth and this was the first time that I saw more than two Koreans on a slope! I hope the future will change this ^^…