Tag Archives: Korea

February 6, 2013

Leaving the Green-Walled Tower for a breath of fresh air

Adios, さようなら，再见， ជំរាបលា, au revoir, 안녕히 계세요, bye bye… um, that’s about all I know.

Anyway, not to be too dramatic, but I’m taking off for a few days. Actually, I’ll be coming and going for the next few weeks, so don’t fret if my posts seem sporadic. I’ll try to read your posts as well, but don’t get mad if I can’t.

Tomorrow, I’m taking off to go visit a city in Korea I’ve never been to before. I’ll post pictures, if anything seems post-worthy. In the meantime, I will keep writing. Here are a few questions that will be answered when I get back.

1. In Aftermath, what will Edward do now that he has met Hestia again?

2. In the Fantastic Travelogue, who is that strange lady and what happened after I got close to her?

3. I heard from my friend Adam Flynn again. Things haven’t been so good since his last post.

Let me leave you with a song that has always reminded me of traveling, ever since it was on the mix tape in my sister’s first car.

9 Comments | tags: Korea, outside the tower, travel, writing | posted in Uncategorized

February 5, 2013

The Woman Who Wants to Meet Bush

By David Stewart

Considering this is a fiction blog, almost everything I put up is fiction, even if it’s written in a realistic way. This post, however, is totally true. It actually happened to me last week and nothing is exaggerated. For those of you who don’t know, I live in the city of Jeonju, South Korea. The conversation below took place in Korean, so what appears here is an approximate translation.

* * *

I was walking through one of the outdoor markets on the way to lunch when a woman grabbed my arm. She was older, with a heavily wrinkled face and sporadic, yellowed teeth. She was dressed up in several coats.

Her first question was where I was from. This is not that unusual; it’s the number one question people ask me. Before I could answer, she asked if I was Mexican (that’s a first). I told her I was Canadian.

Woman: You know America?

Me: Yeah, America.

Woman: I don’t know who the president of Canada is, but the president of America is Bush. I like him. He’s four stars. I wanted him to come to Korea before, but he didn’t come. Here, let me write my name down. Do you have something to write with?

Me: I got a pen.

She wanted something to write on too and dug through her coats (proudly showing me the US Air Force patch on one of them) and pulled out a small day planner. She laboriously wrote down her name and her address and then wrote down “To the American President” I had to tell her how to spell the last syllable of the Korean word for “president” which is the first time I’ve ever helped a Korean spell a Korean word. Then on the side she wrote “I am inviting you”.

Translation: Korea, Mrs. Son Il-Kong, Jeonbuk, Jeonju, Geumam 2dong, Block —, To the American President. I am inviting you.

She gave me the paper and told me to be sure to ask him to come. People passing by were giving us looks as she was writing all that down, but I didn’t care. She told me again to be sure to tell him to come and I said I would, because seriously, what else can you say in a situation like that?

Me: You know, the president now is Obama.

Woman: No, the one before the black president.

Me: Okay. (the woman knew who she wanted)

Woman: Maybe you should take a picture for him to bring.

Me: Sure thing. Let’s do that. (I take her picture.)

Woman: What’s your name?

Me: David.

Woman: Can you write that down? (I write down my name, but not my address.)

I almost laughed when she threw up the peace sign.

At that point, I shook her hand and said good bye. I walked away feeling great; it was such a great experience. You might think she was mentally unbalanced and perhaps she was; I can’t comment, since I don’t know her. All I know is that she really wants to meet President George W. Bush.

P.S. I really did email President Bush and passed on her invitation to come to Korea to meet her. The ball is in his court now.

22 Comments | tags: funny, George Bush, Jeonju, Korea, outside the tower, photograph, president | posted in Light

February 4, 2013

Seriously, Stay Away from Strange Women – Fantastic Travelogue #4

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

I just wanted to go home and I was determined more than anything to try. It was becoming a human rights issue, keeping me locked up like that for no reason. I pounded on the door a few more times and then stood next to it, waiting. Sure enough, the door opened a crack and I stuck my foot in it and pushed it open wide. I couldn’t tell in the dark which woman it was in front of me but I pushed past her and I was free.

Actually, I was in the hallway. Here, there was a bit more light from a lamp burning on the wall. The woman behind me let out a cry and started saying something really fast. Another woman, a young one, appeared at the end of the hall, blocking my path. She held out her hands and seemed to be pleading for me to stop.

I don’t know what she was thinking as I—a huge, bearded foreigner—bore down on her. I was running on adrenaline and I hip-checked her out of the way and dove through the open door. I almost blush to think about it now. I’ve never pushed a woman before, except maybe my sister when we were young, but I was frantic and just wanted to get out of there.

The streets outside were deserted, although another woman was sitting on the landing by the door where I came out. She was older and didn’t get up when I came out, although she shrieked at me something awful. I ignored her and ran down the road, heading back up the valley towards the trees where I had come from. Forget cool experiences; I was done.

The bright light was still visible through the trees, although the loud screaming sound had stopped and the ball lightning was all gone, thank goodness. I still figured it was a concert or something going on up there and I pushed my way through the trees and underbrush, trying to go around the clearing with the stone circle. If they were as crazy as the women I had met, they’d just grab me and put me back in the room. I wasn’t going back; I was sure of that.

I got close to the clearing and the light became so strong I could pick my way through the bushes as if it were daylight. I got to the far edge of the clearing and looked back.

It wasn’t a concert. There was a group of women standing in a semi-circle, close to the stone circle, but not too close. The whole stone circle was bathed in a brilliant pale light that shot up in the sky like a searchlight, although I couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. The stone itself, I guess. On the stone circle was a woman. She looked about middle-aged and was wearing what looked like animal skins and a shimmering purple veil that framed her face and fell down the front of her dress.

I was just about to move on and make a break for the mountain pass when the woman looked directly at me. It was weird, but for a moment I forgot about going up the valley and found myself walking towards her, out into the clearing. The assembled women noticed me before too long and I heard a few gasps that sounded like terror. That didn’t make me feel any better. The woman kept looking at me and smiled.

This is an adventure? part of me said, trying to reassure the rest of me.

I’m an idiot, the rest of me said, as I kept walking.

10 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, Korea, travelogue, woman | posted in Travelogue

January 28, 2013

Fantastic Travelogue #3 – The Light in the Woods

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

The worst part about being locked up all day is not being able to go to the bathroom. This wasn’t a dank prison cell I was confined in: it was a nice parlor with polished wood floors and walls covered with a pale pink, fibrous paper. It held nowhere where a civilized person could even hope to respectfully relieve themselves. At that moment, I had just eaten as much as I wanted to of the meal and was feeling very comfortable, but I did not count on that feeling lasting.

I knocked on the door some more and tried calling, but no one answered. Finally, I sat down and looked at the signboard above the door. I had noticed it when I was eating but now I stared at it and tried to make some sense of it. It looked like Chinese, but the characters were a lot more curvy than what I was used to. From what I could tell, it meant “the fortress of the rising light” which would have been typical of the grand and lofty names of most Korean palace buildings.

Things were getting urgent in the bathroom department and finally I started pounding on the door, calling out in every language I knew just to let me out for a moment. The door opened without warning and the head woman stood in front of me, holding two fingers to her mouth. When I started to speak, she put the fingers on my lips, which shut me up quick. She evidently perceived my distress in my expression and in my stance since she made a little noise of comprehension and slammed the door in my face. The young woman I had met in the forest opened the door and put a earthenware pot on the floor along with a small basket of freshly-picked leaves. She gave me a smile and then shut the door again.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, and I did what I had to do. The rest of the afternoon, I moped around, wishing I had a book at least. A couple times, one of the women would open the door a crack to push in a tray with water or some fruit on it. They were at least running a hospitable prison.

I must have dozed off because I woke up to find the room much darker. Peering through cracks in the shutters, I could tell that the sun had set outside. I could hear shouts and cries and some of them sounded male to me. The men are back, I thought, unsure if I was relieved or not.

I stuck my hand out the small window and managed to push the wooden shutter out a little. It was fastened at the bottom, but I could move it enough to see through a crack between them. There seemed to be bonfires built around the village and by the dancing red light, I could see the outline of the nearby houses and the dark wood looming up beyond them.

At that moment, a burst of white light erupted from within the forest. It coalesced into a pillar of white light that shone straight up. It’s a spotlight, I thought. It was coming from the area of the large stone ring and I realized that they must have been preparing for a concert or something there. Why they would need to lock me up to keep me out of the way, I wasn’t sure, but they had been nice enough to me besides that.

A ball of light flew away from the pillar of light and moved horizontally through the forest. Okay, that’s weird, I thought. More and more erupted and flew here and there. Some of them came over the houses and rested on the tips of the roofs. Ball lightning was the only thing I could think of. I’d never seen it, but I had heard that it acted crazy. An orb of light came towards me scuttling along the ground, but it missed the building and kept going.

A sound like a scream came from the forest. It could not have been human though, because it was constant in pitch and grew slowly in volume, until it sounded more like the roar of a jet engine. Shadows were being thrown around in the forest, as if things were dancing in front of the light pillar.

I sat down on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest. Suddenly, I was just tired of being there. All I wanted was to go home.

5 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, Korea, light, prison, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

January 27, 2013

Captain Butterfly – Visual Fiction #16

By David Stewart

You think you’re in control, don’t you? “Look!” you say. “A butterfly! Let me see if I can take a picture.” You get the camera out slowly, marveling that I’m not moving at all. And then, snap! you get a picture.

What you don’t know is that while I’ve been posing for you, my little ant friends have been untying your shoes. You start to walk away, notice your shoes, and bend down to re-tie them. This gives my sparrow comrades a stationary target to dive-bomb with poop.

Now you’re really getting annoyed, but you take off your pack and jacket to clean them off. While you’re distracted, the chipmunks and spiders get to work unzipping your pack and searching for all the best little goodies you’ve got stored away.

An hour later, you stop for lunch and think, “Huh, I thought I packed a sandwich.”

You did. Thanks for the chow, loser.

taken on Sapshido Island, Korea

13 Comments | tags: animals, butterfly, Korea, nature, photograph, theft, visual fiction | posted in Visual Fiction

January 21, 2013

Fantastic Travelogue #2 – The Amazon Fortress

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Life is good, I thought as I strolled through the forest, listening to the birds conversing in the trees, and breathing the warm, living scent of nature. The path had dropped down into tall trees and I could no longer see the golden dome that I had spied from higher up.

I came around a bend in the trail and found myself standing in front of wide disk of stone, about fifteen feet in diameter and carved around its edge with some amazingly intricate work. A young woman was standing on the stone. She was holding a broom, as if she had been in the act of sweeping it off, although now she was frozen in place and staring at me. She wore a light gray skirt and a slightly darker gray jacket, and her long, black hair was braided down her back. She was also insanely beautiful.

Life is getting better, I thought—not in a lascivious way, you understand, but just in a general way of admiring the beauty all around me.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” I said, greeting her in Korean and bowing slightly. She bowed her head, but didn’t say anything. “Is there a restaurant around here? I’m a bit hungry,” I said, but again she did not respond and just keep staring at me. It was a bit ridiculous that no one could understand me, I thought. After all, even if these people had a very strong mountain dialect, they must still be able to understand standard Korean. They watch TV, don’t they?

I mimed eating, taking food up my mouth with an invisible fork (which I quickly changed to invisible chopsticks). The girl said something and I nodded, because honestly, nodding even when you don’t understand becomes a bit of a reflex after a while. She seemed to come to a decision suddenly and climbed down from the stone and motioned for me to follow her.

Not even two minutes later, we came to a sort of village. The houses here were similar to the old woman’s house I had visited earlier that morning but beyond them, I saw a stone wall rising up above the roofs. It had to be at least fifteen feet tall and was tipped with what looked like golden spikes. It continued out of sight, both left and right across the valley and I could see that we were on the inside of the wall. Somehow, I had come down in the middle of a mountain fortress.

I saw a few woman here and there as we walked among the houses, but there were no men visible anywhere. As soon as the women saw me, they jumped up and looked quite agitated. The first few just yelled at me (or at the young woman guiding me) but a few rushed at me, brandishing tools of various sorts as if they wanted to attack me. The young woman starting talking really quickly and it was pretty obvious there was a huge argument going on. I bowed and smiled awkwardly at a few of them, until this seemed to make things worse and I just looked down and scuffed my boots in the dirt.

After about five minutes, an older woman came up and everyone stopped arguing. She didn’t have a name tag that said “The Boss” but it was pretty obvious. Also, her clothes were more colorful than anyone else’s. They had a much more respectful discussion in which everyone ignored me. I was just thinking about climbing back up the mountain pass to try to find my way back when they stopped and the head woman bowed to me. I bowed back and said, “It’s nice to meet you. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” This prompted another minute of discussion. I don’t know why I kept speaking Korean to them when they obviously couldn’t understand it, but it seemed rude not to say anything and I hadn’t quite gotten to the place where I just gave up and spoke English.

The head woman said something and all the other women suddenly dispersed and went back to their houses until it was only me, the head woman and the young woman left. They led me to a large house whose walls were made of stone for four feet, and then wood above that. The young woman led me to a bare room with small windows along the top of the wall. There was a low table and a cushion on the floor. I took off my boots and she motioned for me to sit down. Then she left.

Well, this is certainly an experience, I thought as I sat there alone. It intrigued me that I hadn’t seen any technology here at all. I wondered if it was a Folk Village or a UNESCO Heritage Site, where they did everything in the traditional way.

I also wondered where all the men were. Perhaps this was some hidden tribe of Amazons living in Korea and I was the first man they had seen in years. This didn’t excite me as much as you might think. For one thing, I was married, so I wasn’t looking for any significant increase of women in my life. Also, I had read about the original Amazons. They were scary.

The young woman came back presently with a tray loaded with food, all in individual dishes, which was refreshingly Korean. As she was arranging them on the table, I tried to learn her name. “David,” I said, pointing to myself. Then I pointed to her. “You?” I did this several times, but apparently movies have lied to us about this being a universal gesture since she just stared at me uncomprehendingly.

I was about to ask (i.e. gesture) if she was going to eat too when she stood up and left, closing the door behind her. I heard a sound like a bar being put down across the door. I went and tried the door and sure enough, it was locked firmly. A moment later, someone put down shutters over the small windows, throwing the room into deep gloom.

Great, they had put me in prison. Still, I wasn’t too worried yet. At least they had given me food, and if I ever got out, it would make a great story. That is my view on all bad experiences. So I sat down and started to eat.

9 Comments | tags: amazons, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, Korea, prison, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

January 20, 2013

Visual Fiction – Tower Camp

By David Stewart

Tad looked up the moon burning like white phosphorus above him. It was growing, fattening, and three days from now it would be full. He lay down and listened to the soft hum of electricity running above him. Already he could feel that wildness that grew inside of him every month, the atavistic ferocity that led him to desert his comfortable town life and move his dwelling to this rude camp under the tower. His neighbors had laughed at him anyway and called him crazy.

He didn’t care though. Three more days and he could hunt werewolves.

taken in Jeonju, South Korea

5 Comments | tags: fantasy, hunting, Jeonju, Korea, monster, photograph, visual fiction, werewolves | posted in Visual Fiction

January 14, 2013

Fantastic Travelogue #1 – Just a Cup of Water

By David Stewart

This is the first part of the travelogue I introduced in my post, Always Always Bring a Camera. Because I didn’t have a camera at the time, I am going to attempt to draw all the pictures in this series. I apologize in advance for my lack of artistic skill.

I was nearly faint with thirst. I had been wandering all night along mountain paths and my throat was swollen and raw. There was a rough track that went down into the valley in front of me and I took it immediately, thinking only of finding a house or a temple where I could beg some water before turning back. At this point, I did not think anything was out of the ordinary. It was true that I had never seen a golden dome like that in Korea, but I simply thought it was part of a Buddhist temple, even though Korean temples don’t have domes. It looked to be a few kilometers down the valley, so I thought I might go back and get my gear and come back for a better look.

About fifteen minutes down the trail, I came to a house with a low, earthen wall around it. The house was the first surprise I had. It had a thatched roof and rose to a high point in the middle, unlike anything I had seen before. The walls were made of reddish earth. I went through the narrow gate and saw an older woman in a light gray dress and cloak loading wood in her arms from a woodpile. She stopped and looked at me warily.

“May I have some water?” I asked in Korean. She didn’t respond and so I repeated it—the Korean word for “water” is a little hard to say correctly. When she still did not react, I resorted to miming drinking from a glass.

At last she said something to me, but I did not understand a word of it. Mountain dialects, I thought. She said it again and it sounded like a question, so I nodded slowly. After living abroad, I’ve gotten good at making assumptions about meaning based on the situation, or at least bluffing it.

The woman looked a little annoyed as she carried the wood into the house. The floor was raised as in traditional Korean houses and there were stone steps that led up to the door. I followed her to the door but did not go inside. She came out a moment later with an expensive-looking porcelain bottle in her hand, sealed with wax. She sat down and started to cut the wax off with a knife.

Oh no. It was probably alcohol and she was opening it for me, supposedly at my request. I understood now why she was annoyed. That’s why bluffing doesn’t always work. I moved to stop her and she started yelling at me, pointing to the bottle and the knife.

At that point, I just wanted to get away, but I hung on, looking around desperately for a well or some water I could show her. Finding none, I wrote the Korean word for water (물) in the dirt and then, because that had no effect, the Chinese character for it (水). She stopped then and pointed to it. I nodded and she got up and led me around to the back where there was a series of bamboo stalks tied together, all different heights, and with their tops open. It was for collecting rainwater, I saw and they had pieces of wood at the top to catch more water. The shortest one had a spigot sticking out of it, with a plug of something stuck in the end. The woman mimed taking out the plug and putting the spigot in my mouth and when when I hesitated in embarrassment, she stood next to it and bending almost double, with her head at the level of her knees, she twisted her head and put the spigot in her mouth.

I couldn’t physically do that, but I hunkered down and pulled out the stopper, which was made of some sort of hardened tree gum. Water gushed out immediately and soaked my pant leg before I could get my mouth in front of the stream. Even so, it was coming out so fast that a lot of it overflowed my mouth and splashed on the ground. The woman gave a short, unbelieving laugh, like you might make at someone who accidentally tied their own shoelaces together.

I didn’t care—the water was delicious. It was cool and had a wonderful taste that I can only describe as “light green”. After a nice long drink, I put the stopper back and stood up. I bowed in thanks, but the woman just waved it off and went back to the wood pile.

I had been planning on trying to find my way back to the sanjang where I had left my stuff, but now that I was much more refreshed, I thought I might just walk down and see what the golden dome was right away. And so I set off, going down along the forest track with birds chirping around me in the morning light and the faint smell of woodsmoke wafting through the air from the woman’s fire. I felt pretty good right about then. It was a feeling that was only going to last about six hours.

7 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, Korea, old woman, travelogue, water | posted in Travelogue

January 9, 2013

Always, Always Bring a Camera

By David Stewart

You never know what you are going to come across in your daily life, and if you are at all photographically inclined, you need to be ready to catch those perfect, once-in-a-lifetime pictures. Or even those once-in-a-week pictures. My rule is that I should always have a camera with me when I leave the house. It is a rule I often break, sometimes to my lasting regret.

For instance, the very first Visual Fiction post I did was about a bridge I used to take to school every Friday. One day, a few months ago, the entire area was shrouded in fog and that bridge looked amazing, emerging out of the ghostly pall of mist, like the passage to another world. You would agree with me, if you could have seen it, but I forgot my camera that day. I kicked myself over and over, but of course, it made no difference.

The worst time, though . . . I almost hesitate to tell you about that time because frankly, it’s unbelievable. However, a fiction blog like this seems like a safe place to share it. Suffice to say, you are the first people to hear this story.

It was a few years ago, when I was on vacation by myself. I am a bit of a lone wolf at times and sometimes I just need to get away from everything. I was hiking in the province of Gangwon-do. It is the biggest, most mountainous and least populated province in Korea, and by far the wildest. There are many hidden valleys and steep passes between them. I found myself just south of a big national park and just started walking, away from the park. Korea isn’t that big of a country so I wasn’t too worried about getting lost.

I followed a small road up into the mountains until it came to a sanjang—a shelter for hikers in the mountains, like a small, rustic hotel. I decided to stay the night there.

a sanjang, although not the one I stayed in

That night after supper, I decided to go outside to look at the stars. I wasn’t planning on going long and I didn’t bring any of my things with me, including my camera. I walked up to the closest ridge and strolled through the forest, looking at the stars peeping through the budding spring foliage at me. I admit I got lost in a kind of reverie and when I decided to go back, I wasn’t sure of the way. It is very easy to get lost in the mountains at night, especially in an area that you don’t know.

I wandered all night, first on one trail, then another. I wasn’t particularly scared; just thirsty and very tired. The eastern sky began to lighten and just as the sun broke between the mountains, I reached the crest of a long valley and saw a large building with a golden dome on top, shining in the sun.

I wish I had a picture to show you. It was one of those moments that hits you unexpectedly and just floors you. All I could do was stand and stare at it in amazement.

That was the beginning of a several week-long adventure that was like nothing else I have ever experienced. I don’t know where it was, but it wasn’t Korea, as weird as that sounds. I am hesitant to use a phrase like “another world”, since it brings up images of magic wardrobes and Neverland. It wasn’t like that at all.

Over the next few weeks (maybe once a week), I’m going to share my account of that time. I’ve been going through my memory, trying to remember every detail and making some notes. I am not much of an artist, but since I did not have my camera, I will try my best to convey what I saw through my words and a few sketches if I can manage them. I will do my best at least.

14 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, Korea, mountains, other worlds, travelogue | posted in Uncategorized

January 6, 2013

Visual Fiction – Vanishing World

By David Stewart

I watched it from the mountaintop: the creeping whiteness that devoured the landscape below me. I had climbed up, camera in hand, to capture the view but instead what I saw was nothingness. It was not fog, it was simply white. I should have been frightened, I suppose, but instead I watched with dread fascination as it ate away at the landscape, slowly approaching the mountain where I stood. Just as it was climbing up the slope, I saw far away, a glimmer of something. It was a single spot of color in the vast field of white, but it was enough to give me hope. So I saw down on the bench to watch and see what would happen.