gray man in a gray land

As Rachel so astutely put it later, we seem to have good luck whenever we visit temples, just the two of us, and always end up encountering interesting companions. When we hiked in Songnisan back during Orientation, and decided to just hike to a nearby hermitage instead of trying to do the peak late into the night, we were invited to dinner there by a student. When we hiked Soraebang during the Chuseok break we met a female student as we got off the bus, who was visiting the park alone. She helped us figure out where to go, and then accompanied us on our hike. When we hiked from Songgwangsa to Seonamsa yesterday, we ended up with a monk as our personal escort.

On Friday I met Rachel and Cynthia in Gwangju, and we visited the Street of Art--a street near downtown that consists of little shops and galleries. Cynthia had to leave fairly early, but Rachel and I stayed longer. We visited a couple exhibits, including one of black and white photography done by women. I really fell in love with some of the prints there--there was a series of photos shot through what appeared to be a rainy car window. All you saw in most of them was the road and powerlines. It reminded me of Portland--there's also something just viscerally comforting about being a passenger in a warm car in the rain. After we left the art street we decided to see a movie, "The Phantom of the Opera." I miss seeing movies in the theater, and even though the movie was a little silly at times, (Obviously, genius has turned to madness!), it was basically what I was expecting. And I've enjoyed the music of that play ever since I saw it in San Francisco when I was pretty young.

The movie didn't leave Rachel enough time to make it back to the bus terminal for the last bus to Jeongup, so she came back to Suncheon with me and spent the night, with the plan to do the hike between Songgwang Temple and Seonam Temple the next day (it's about 6.6 KM, and I didn't think it would take us more than a couple hours).

We caught the bus to Songgwangsa, a longish ride past lots of farmland and little villages. I'd never been to Songgwangsa, and I wish I'd brought my camera. It was a really beautiful clear day. On the busride I'd been looking at all the dead foliage on the side of the road and wondered if winter was maybe not the best time to be doing this hike, but when we got to the temple I changed my mind. There's definite beauty in a snow-less winter landscape that I haven't appreciated before. All the gray leafless trees made the surrounding mountains look like the soft, hoary back of a huge dog, with patches of evergreens. Later I noticed how you could look up at a ridge and see the perfect sillouette of a pine tree, the kind of slender, curved, top-heavy tree like those painted on Japanese scrolls, visible because the surrounding trees were leafless. The buildings at Songgwangsa had paint and woodwork that I hadn't seen before, carved yawning dragon's heads flanking the entrances. Being early December, there were few people and it felt very tranquil. After wandering the grounds for a little while, and being handed a child to hold while her father took our picture, we looked around for the trailhead. We saw a sign that said, "Mountain trail" and asked a passing monk, outfitted in the traditional gray monks clothes and a gray wool hat, if it was the trail to Seonamsa. He placed his palms together and bowed to us, then attempted to explain the best way to go, which turns to take an so on. He knew a few words in English, but seemed to lack confidence in our ability to understand his directions, so he indicated that he would "escort" us part of the way there.

He led us up the trail, and we passed through an area that struck me as sort of 'behind the scenes' of the temple--there was a building with a huge pile of lumber behind it, some of it bearing traces of the blue and green and white paint that decorated many of the buildings. We passed many monks on our way up, of varying ages, who greeted us in various ways. We also passed some terraced fields which I assumed belonged to Songgwangsa. Throughout the trip our guide, who we eventually learned was named Hong Jun, (though I liked to think of him as 3 Tigers, since he told us he was born in the year of the tiger, in the month of the tiger, on the day of the tiger--he was 31 years old, but like most Koreans looked like he could be several years younger), would pause to attempt to communicate something to us in a mixture of English and Korea, some bit of knowledge or a funny anecdote. With our few words of Korean and his few words of English, I think we got into a rhythm (I think often attained by people with no common language attempting to communicate) of understanding most of the what was being said. Occasionally though he would raise his hands to his head and give a short, good-natured cry of frustration (or more often, remove his hat and rub at his shaved head in concentration). We'd only been walking a short way when he paused and gave us each a photo of a Buddha, one of the Buddha's at Songgwangsa. It turned out he was an amateur photographer, and later he produced his camera to take some pictures of us. At first I thought he was only going to accompany us past a certain bridge, but three bridges later he was still walking with us--I didn't feel any social awkwardness in his presence, neither was I worried about when he would leave us on our own. Even though he drew attention to what a slow hiker I was on three separate occasions. Once he asked to see my shoes, and when he saw they were hiking boots, he was puzzled as to why I was still going so slow. He seemed to accept my "long legs are not good for this kind of hiking" (steep up-hill with large, uneven steps) explanation, and later told me not to worry about it. We stopped a couple times to rest and eat some small oranges Rachel had bought. Though the weather was cold, the combination of the exercise and the sunlight meant that Rachel and I were constantly adjusting the layers of clothing we were wearing. Once when we stopped and I became a little chilly, Hong Jun gave me his wool hat to wear. We started back up the trail, and I think to the Koreans hiking down it must have been a little strange to see two American girls hiking with a monk, one of them wearing his hat.

He reminded us a couple times that he wasn't going to go the whole way with us, but then he said he would buy us lunch. It seems like there have a been a couple situations when a Korean person has been incredibly helpful or generous, and I've thought that I should repay them by buying them lunch, or something similar, only to have them turn the tables. Finally, after maybe two full hours of hiking, (and still with over 2 km to go) we reached a restaurant on the trail. There we had bi bim bap and some makali (Hong Jun told us that monks don't drink, but that it was permissible in some cases--I guess this was one). He asked for our addresses so that he could mail us prints of the pictures he'd taken, or e-mail us the files. Then he told us we should hurry to finish the hike, since it was already after four and we didn't want to hike in the dark. We asked him how long it would take, and he smiled at said, "Your speed...maybe one hour, thirty minutes." We parted ways outside the restaurant. He told us the next time we came to Songgwangsa, to say his name and we could get in for free.

As we were making our way up the trail (which had turned uphill again, much to my disappointment) we asked an older man in full hiking gear if we were going the right way, and promptly gained another hiking companion. He indicated that we should follow him, and accompanied us all the way to Seonamsa. His English vocabulary seemed limited to "temple," and "hiking," but he still paused occasionally to tell us something about the trail we were on or the mountain nearby. He also took note of my comparatively slow process (my calves were experiencing minute spasms at this point). At one point at a creek crossing he motioned for us to sit down on a bench, while he picked up plastic wrappers and other bits of trash that had been left by hikers. We'd been seated maybe thirty seconds when a group of men across the creek motioned for us to come over and drink some makali. Neither of us really felt like drinking more, but they were insistent, and I didn't want to be rude. We insisted on sharing a cup, though, though they also insisted on a refill. They also gave us some chestnuts and oranges. I feel my host family probably thinks its a little odd that I often come home with random food from strangers. Later when I hiccuped on the trail, our new guide pointed out, a little disapprovingly, that it was because of the makali.

Finally the trail leveled out, and we found ourselves walking on the edge of a cedar forest, with some fields on the other side. It wasn't long until we reached Seonamsa--the sky was quickly darkening but we'd made it in time. The old man bid us farewell when he understood we were planning on visiting the temple. We paid a quick visit to the temple store, where Rachel picked up some incense as a gift for friends back home (she's going to the U.S. for Christmas), and then hurried down the hill to catch the bus. We got off at the bus terminal and Rachel caught the 7 pm bus to Gwangju, where she would then catch a bus to Jeongup and I went home. I ate dinner with my host family, and when they learned the hike we'd done my host mother suggested I take a nice warm bath, an idea that struck me as very good. I read in bed for awhile then went to sleep.