(Busan – Gangneung – Daegu – Iksan – Seoul – Chuncheon – Hong Kong)
Good afternoon from cold and drizzly Blackheath.
I’ve been back home for over two weeks, swamped by school stuff with several trips to Sydney on family matters. What follows is some of my writings from South Korea (and Hong Kong on the way home). As I’d seen the DMZ and Korean War memorials and sites last year, this time I buried myself in Korean colonial history books: Korea’s Twentieth Century Odyssey by Michael E Robinson and Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea 1910-1945 by Hildi Kang, and travelled across the middle of the country in an “S” shaped journey from Busan to Seoul.
Korea tends appear on the fringes of mainstream history as we know – and are taught - it. Interviews with Korean survivors of Japanese colonisation make for confronting reading. I won’t bore you (much) with museums and sights, but here’s a bit of a sense of the journey, with some of what I was reading along the way. The bold bits are some of the readings which coloured the trip. My father has first dibs on borrowing the books!!
Read on or delete. Either way: Enjoy!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Across Korea
The JAL flight from Narita curves to the north over the eastern coastal plains (murky photo) then climbs due west over snow spattered Japanese Alps (several photos) over Kobe and the cloudy Sea of Japan (which Koreans call The East Sea) and gently descends around the south and west of Busan, South Korea (“NO PHOTOS ALLOWED” as the country is still technically at war with the north).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korea was an ethnically homogenous nation: the Hermit Kingdom with closed borders, demonstrating allegiance to China and proud of previous defeats of Japanese attempts to invade. In the late 1800’s the people of Korea experienced collisions with the modern world that sparked change of ever increasing magnitude.
1876: Korea signed a treaty with Japan and opened ports to western nations.
1884: Protestant missionaries arrived from U.S and Canada. They built schools and hospitals.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Busan is a spectacular southern coastal city criss-crossed by olive green mountains with soft grey fog clinging to the peaks. They plunge down to steep ocean and harbour bays and ports. Valleys rise from a blue sea and the pristine white Diamond Bridge. These are filled with massed grey-white high-rise buildings mixing with a patchwork of Mediterranean-blue factory roofs. The plane curved west to the airport, landing past a line of armed forces planes parked strategically off the runway.
The gruff, loud, gum-chewing and confronting airport bus driver (her hand hitting the horn first, then perhaps the brakes in stop-start traffic while yelling into her mobile phone) makes it VERY clear we are not in lovely, polite Japan any more. The spires of many churches peek between grey high rises as we battle Sunday traffic into Busan Station. Street crowds include families and scattered conscript soldiers in green camouflage uniforms.
From Japan, where never is heard a discouragingly angry word, I’m now staying in downtown Busan where arguments are shouted by men and women in street stalls, in public and down mobile phones in open, loud aggression which is rare in much of Asia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They dragged all of us – literally by our long braids – to the township office courtyard. They had the hair clippers ready and proceeded to cut our hair. Right there. All of us had long hair hanging down our backs in long braids. Then we all went home with no hair. Grandfather took one look at me and went into a great rage. He yelled, “You become Japanese. Do not step inside this gate.” So for three days I had to stay elsewhere.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“GLORY* KORAIL”, “PROUD KOREA – PROUD KORAIL” yell the green banners I’m led past to the station manager’s office to validate my rail pass. It’s a bit like being in many school offices really as I stand behind a bloke who’s confirming my details on a computer screen in amongst competing priorities. I’m then perched on a large couch while the underlings print out reservations. In the background are telescreens of animated Korail trains as smiling cartoon creatures flogging Korail safety messages to kids. Before any announcement throughout the huge glass station an annoyingly catchy Korail jingle is broadcast which, irritatingly, stays in the mind long after the announcement (and the train) has gone…
*GLORY was translated by a nearby green poster as:
“Green Life Of Railway Yearning” (?)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1894: Japan declared war on China
1895: Korean Queen Min was assassinated in her palace in Seoul: Japan implicated.
1905: Korea becomes a Japanese “Protectorate”.
1907: The Korean king was forced to abdicate: Royal Palace was turned into an amusement park. Open rebellion was gradually, methodically and cruelly, put down by the Japanese.
1910: Korea was annexed by Japan which then put a stranglehold on political and economic development: all Korean organisations were placed under surveillance; place names changed to Japanese pronunciation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over eight hours, the comfortable Mugungwah slow express to Gangneung wanders through southern rural scenery towards the central range of mountains and the east coast. I’m slowly reading history while the passengers around me regularly change trains at junctions for faster services. The “Mini Mini Café” car behind me is the mother-of-all-vending-machines that dispenses everything from bottled coffee to whole packets of digestive biscuits. The guard walks through the train every half hour or so and turns and bows seriously to us all before moving on. No tickets get checked. At each large city stop, the “Welcome Aboard” recorded music is wailing traditional stringed instruments torturing “Let it Be”. At every one of the many stops during the day, “Korail Rose” breathily tells us in a Koreo-Californian twang: “We are arriving at ____. Please make sure you have all your belongings with you…”
Mid afternoon: it’s bleak and drizzling in a dark coal mining valley as we stop at Cheuram. The few passengers huddle under the grubby station awning as we crawl to a stop. Shacks cling to damp mountain sides as coal trains rumble past and we slowly zig-zag down to the equally bleak town of Dogye in the base of the valley. It’s Lithgow with cherry trees.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1919: “The independence movement began simply. Thirty three representatives of the Korean people met at a restaurant in Seoul, read aloud their declaration, and formally proclaimed Korea an independent nation. Having made their public statement, the men walked to the Japanese police station and turned themselves in.
What happened next surprised everyone. Unplanned and unexpected, those who had been silent became vocal. Over the following months thousands… called out for freedom in separate demonstrations throughout the country. The Japanese were stunned by the enormity of the movement and quickly moved to crush it by military force. Japanese records show 46,948 arrests, 7,509 killed and 15,961 injured.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korean hotel culture is just strange. After finding, last year, that I’d ended up in a “rent by the short time” motel in Gyeongju with distressingly friendly neighbours - this time I booked on-line in a government-approved pub in Gangneung.
Well… the “GOODSTAY HOTEL” was actually the Dong-A Hotel with a depressingly dark but friendly check in, a groaning elevator to floor 5 where every room was decorated with a small red light (if occupied) and an illuminated door bell. Arranged around the huge and moodlit bed were a computer, a 48” telescreen, the huge bathroom with multifunction shower and deep bath, and an additional washroom/WC with used cakes of soap and half used bottles of shampoo, moisturiser and so on. On the large dressing table was a large collection of opened and semi used personal care items with interesting brands (“HARD” hair gel) and sealed condom packets. In the refrigerator were three mini bar items: a vitamin tonic for men’s vigor, a tonic for female youth and agility, and a sealed bottle of drinking water.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1920’s: “Enlightened Administration”: Military police system was abandoned. Some businesses were deregulated but Korea was very much a colony providing raw materials to Japan (often at the expense of Koreans: exports of rice left Korea short of food).
1925: Formation of Korean Communist Party.
1928: All school teaching is in Japanese.
1931: Korea becomes land bridge to the new Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The “Seaside Train” from Gangneung is promoted as a delightful scenic experience of the eastern coastal beaches and shoreline. Inside a carriage interior painted with fishy and seaweedy delights, large arm chairs all face east. In amongst the beaches and coastal architecture (such as the multi-storeyed cruise ship shaped resort hotel plonked on a cliff top at Jeongdongjin), are miles and miles of rusting barbed wire, security fencing, camouflaged concrete pillboxes and sandbagged gun emplacements and some deeply ugly industrial developments with cheerful seaside murals painted onto oil tanks and smokestacks. From the train you catch a brief glimpse of the North Korean spy submarine that went aground near here in the 1996. None of the 26 crew got back to their country alive – although one is still missing. During the 49 day manhunt 17 South Korean soldiers and civilians were killed and 22 were injured.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then the school office boy came to my classroom with a small piece of paper. When the teacher read the paper, his face went pale and his hand began to shake. He said to me: “You are summoned to the Principal’s office.”
The Principal said, “You are summoned to the police station. You must go now.” The detectives started to handcuff us, but the Principal spoke up and said, “Not here. This is just a school. Do it outside if you must.” So they did. …
In the third prison the torture began. They had gotten wind of a plot to have a nationwide student uprising, and they thought we were part of it… Some of the others were tortured in different ways – one awful one they called the airplane torture. They take a rope from the ceiling and tie your hands behind your back and the chair is removed. You are left hanging in the air with your hands going up and up and up, giving you excruciating pain in the shoulders… Six months of my life spent in prison. When I tried to get back into school, they would not let me in. They told me, however, that since I was a good student, I should try other schools.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The manager of the ramen bar on the top floor of the discount store and multiplex in Gangneung pointed out to me that Koreans sensibly eat rice with a large spoon, unlike those Japanese. And so should I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1937: The War Years (in China, then beyond). Program to promote Japanese national spirit and to erase Korean national identity in order to bring a “more perfect union”. Koreans were “encouraged” to abandon their family names and to have Japanese family names (otherwise they could not access rations and were more prone to “volunteer” in mines and factories, increasingly in Japan or the occupied “Co-Prosperity Sphere” in South East Asia. Korean women who “volunteered” increasingly found themselves as “comfort women” to the Japanese armed forces).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Koreans want to talk - certainly more so than the Japanese. Even reserving a seat becomes an extended personal interrogation/conversation about your history and your travel – and personal - intentions. In a Daegu subway train an old bloke with an eye patch ran in and asked my age. 57. “Too young… too young…”. He then gave me a graphic mixed language description of his recent eye surgery followed by a quick handshake… “And I’m 79”, and he scurried off the train at his stop.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among other new rules, Koreans were now required to recite the Pledge of Imperial Subjects (1937), speak only Japanese (1938), worship at Shinto Shrines(1939) and – the ultimate indignity – change their names to Japanese (1940). By 1940 Shinto was the required religion, including for school ceremonies. Close monitoring of population took place for “thought criminals”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daegu is a huge industrial sprawl in the middle of South Korea. The downtown area features a large cathedral, clogged multilane streets and a traditional medicine market where window displays feature many, many reindeer antlers and strange vegetation suitably dried or bottled and stored. These shopfronts are mixed in with food stalls which feature sugary soy-based displays of sweets shaped and coloured as fruits, vegetables and seafood platters.
Hidden away on the edge of the laneways and behind the massive Hyundai Department Store is the respectfully preserved traditional house of “Korea’s Great Poet”: Lee Sang-hwa. He witnessed the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in Japan, and the subsequent massacre of Koreans due to groundless rumours that they were to blame. “What he saw in the massacre of innocent Koreans was a collapsing homeland and he must have crossed an irreversible line in his mind.” He continued to work and write for Korean freedom.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We were to be sent to the front, but to do that we needed training. They gave each of us a wooden rifle and we had to practice. I kept thinking, I am a woman, why do I need this rifle? The rifle had a pretend bayonet and we had to plunge it into the straw “person” on the ground, again and again.
I hated this! I didn’t want to do it. My parents decided I should get married, and then I wouldn’t have to go. So I obeyed my parents and got married, and it turned out to be a fortunate thing. Much later, I found out that the women who went overseas to the front were forced into being comfort women. Japanese called these ‘Teishintai’, meaning ‘Volunteer Corps”.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korean Urban Male Fetishes:
Shiny suits. Really, really, really shiny suits: they look like worn, wrinkled, spun aluminium, copper or brass. No animals or natural fibres seem to have been harmed or utilised in their construction.
Hair. Any public mirror or highly reflective surface will attract Korean males of any age to preen their hair and adjust their fringes to be “just so”. There are many, many ads for toupees. The numbers of bad “rugs” in Korean streets seem to reflect the lethal efficiency of Korean advertising.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A “volunteer” Korean labourer in Kobe shipyard:
“Prisoners of War worked there also, mixed in with us. These prisoners were British, captured in Singapore. You could tell they had been starved – they were just skin and bones. They looked so emaciated that even we, who were hungry, thought they looked starved. They were brought to the ship in shackles, then the shackles were taken off. They scrounged in the garbage cans for any scraps of food. I felt so sorry for them I shared cigarettes in secret... If I had been caught of course my own life would have been in danger.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korail announces a recall of all locally built high speed trains due to problems with management of their speed (!). This is a major national embarrassment as the KTX trains are a source of pride and prestige. They were first imported from France (NOT Japan…) then made locally under license. Hyundai Rotem made a suitable apology in the extensive TV news coverage which included stock shots of derailments and disruptions over the previous year.
I kept travelling in the slow expresses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1943: Military draft. All Korean cultural expression is banned.
1945: A Japanese blacklist of 10,000 Korean Leaders was prepared in order to arrange mass arrests and a massacre on 15th August of potential leaders who may retaliate against the defeated Japanese. Events overtook this plan following the atomic bombs and the abrupt Japanese surrender on the same date.
“On August 15, I finished ferrying doctors out to the troop ship in the Pusan harbour, docked my boat, and went upstairs in the office building. I had no idea what had happened. I saw the Japanese workers in the office wailing, banging on desks, banging the floor. I can see them today in my mind. These were the very ones who had been so sure they were invincible. He next thing they did was drink themselves into a stupor. They went crazy. It was the tragedy of a nation in defeat.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sintanjin junction. The express is continuing to Seoul, but I’m taking slow trains to Iksan, then the east coast line north to the capital city, past many villages surrounded by rice paddies and clustering around Christian churches.
Departure is delayed as hundreds of conscript soldiers (see top photo) with their packs pour out of the front carriages onto the platform. Ranks of blank faced or surly conscripts are already lined up, slouching, as they are shouted at by officers or chant unison replies. Within five minutes they occupy two thirds of the space on the platform in bored, green camouflaged ranks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“How many Koreans were like us under the Japanese – not resisting, just going along? Many went along, not by choice but because they had no other choice. Look how it worked. After the war, my family was branded pro-Japanese, but while we were under the Japanese my father was suspect and watched every day by a detective. How ironic.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When there is no English language TV on offer, Korean free to air TV has its unusual attractions. I reacquainted myself with the TV channel where, at any hour of the day, sombre professorial types of both genders wave a bit of chalk and solve endless equations on a blackboard. Is this some arcane form of torture, and is it of the viewers or the presenters?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some interesting Korean chain store Brands:
Men’s trousers: “WINDY CLUB” (!)
Toilet paper: “KISS” (!!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“When the war ended, everyone stopped using Japanese and started speaking Korean again. I was young and I had never spoken any Korean in my entire life. Since I didn’t know a single word of Korean, I repeated the sixth grade just to learn to speak my own native language.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Seoul stretches south in a continuous built up area to Suwon and Sinchan: nearly a two hour ride by subway train from downtown Seoul through endless high rises with occasional glimpses of industry or green belts.
The sprawl of Seoul also confirms that this is Lotte Land. The Lotte company’s logo, advertising and tentacles spread across the city and all over Korea including department stores, Lotte Mart supermarkets, Lotteria fast food, Lotte ice cream, Lotte persona care items, Lotte Castle high rise apartments, Lotte Hotels. Lotte also attracts passengers trying to leave the country with Lotte Magazine enticing passengers into Lotte Shoppers Wonderland duty free at Incheon Airport.
On my first night in Seoul, I walked back to Jongno 5 from a downtown pho restaurant. In one underpass arcade, what looked like homeless men were sitting in a line waiting for the tunnel to close for the night, and then for a quiet sleep. They waved and greeted me like an old friend. After 5 weeks of travel, was I beginning to look so dishevelled?
“Enrique Stanko Vraz’s Visit To Seoul in 1901” was the huge banner over the city museum and it was a unique way to see the Seoul that was, with missionaries running schools (including girls in formal education for the first time) and orphanages. Koreans in white traditional dress with braids and black hats are in each photo. Very Japanese looking streetscape develop around new fangled electric trams and telegraph wires which pass through the majestic traditional city gates.
Upstairs is a huge exhibition demonstrating the forced growth of Seoul driven by refugees from the North and from rural areas since 1960. The Japanese island airstrip in the Han River (a staging post for supplies into China and Manchukuo) became a huge city park amidst high-rise developments to house many thousands of shanty dwellers, and stimulated the southward spread of development away from the old downtown areas. The exhibition is also linked to the authoritarian governments, violent uprisings, coups and instability of post war Korea, which led to democratisation and the sixth republic since 1987 when massive demonstrations forced the capitulation of the Chun government.
On the floor above is a huge illuminated model of the city, spreading across the Han and sprawling south away from the constrictions of mountains and the DMZ to become the monster urban area of more than 2 million people. It’s just a short subway ride from one of the most unstable borders with one of the most unpredictable nuclear armed regimes in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, Mr Yi received a letter from the North Korean Communists, the People’s Reconstruction Committee of P’yongyang, saying, “Mr Yi, let us work together to build our fatherland.” The day after he got the letter he packed his things and travelled by foot to South Korea to get away from the Communists.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korean Subway Culture for Travellers: Episode 1.
If you are punched (a gentle, closed fist punch in the ribs or shoulder) by a stranger while riding in a subway train then, either:
An excited old lady is attracting your attention because she’s sighted an empty seat (often made of comfy stainless steel), or
Someone is in need of a conversation with you and they will insist… often starting with: “I believe you are a foreigner…”, or
The train is terminating (announcement only in Korean) and the bloke next to you is urging you to get off. (The lights are quickly switched off as well if you haven’t yet understood), or
A huckster in a shiny suit is giving out product samples. (More on this later).
Subway trains in Korea have a unique, warm, thick musky smell of last night’s garlic, chilli and kimchi. It’s not unpleasant but it’s pervasive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enmities between the left and right wings of the Korean independence movements continued into the power vacuum following the Japanese defeat. Cold War politics built on these to create the Korean (Civil) War.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seoul was effectively destroyed three times during the Korean War. Little remains of traditional or colonial Seoul apart from impressive restored palaces and traditional fortresses, Myengdong Cathedral, Myengdong Theatre which seems to be Japanese/Korean Art Deco, and the Showa architecture of the restored Seoul station. Traditional houses tend to be rounded up unto special parks where a variety of designs can be seen in one site.
Last year I was denied entry to Changdeokgung (built from 1405, and surviving the Japanese invasion in the 1590’s) because of: “No English Tour”. This time it was the first place in Seoul I visited for the thousands of years of royal history, the dazzling colours in the extensive wood decorations, formal and well preserved gardens surrounded by the inevitable Korean high rise apartments; and the council hall where the Korean king signed away his country to the Japanese on faux western Victorian drawing room furniture under some of the first electric lighting in Korea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During their roughly fifty-day occupation, the North Koreans attempted to replicate their northern revolution in the South, and many South Koreans joined them. Political cadres from the North began to systematically restore the disbanded people’s committees in order to undo what they believed had been a reimposition of colonialism under the US occupation. Bringing their own lists of people’s enemies, they began a purge of collaborators of all stripes. They emptied the ROK jails of political prisoners, unleashing a backlash of reprisals against the system that had incarcerated them…
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Korean Subway Culture for Travellers: Episode 2.
It’s free-range but formalised begging and salesmanship on subway trains in South Korea. In the duration of a half hour trip on Seoul’s Line 1 you can be offered scarfs, knee supports, collapsing clothes-line hangers, bedside lamps and gloves. You will also see people walking the length of trains placing bright 5x5cm stickers adjacent to each doorway advertising some service or other with large phone numbers. Presumably the Korail cleaners remove them each night, ready for the next lot on the following day.
This seems to be the main sales strategy:
With your cunningly decorated cart (for wheeling between carriages: a dummy’s head on a trolley wearing what you sell seems to be a ‘goer’) you enter the car, make a loud announcement, proceed in a circuit around the carriage (easy because the few seats are along the sides between double doors) handing out pamphlets or samples to every third or fourth passenger. Pause. Make another announcement, then complete another circuit of the car, pausing to bow politely if you have made a sale. Passengers know the game and just politely leave the item in their lap or on a vacant seat if they do not want to buy. In a week and a half of travel I saw only one refusal to “play”: it was a severe looking woman in Daegu who was not going to make eye contact, let alone accept a wintergreen coloured survey form from a wintergreen uniformed sales lady. She twisted a full 180 degrees while strap hanging at the end of the carriage while the sales lady stalked a full circle around her.
At times it’s just sad as special needs kids attempt to use the same strategies to “sell” sweets or tissues. One more enterprising blind man strode into a carriage with a CD player around his neck blasting out traditional music with a pink plastic bowl containing a few coins hanging at waist level as his white cane tapped slowly along the carriage.
On my last night in Seoul on a subway trip to Gwangjung Market, a well dressed young man in a suit walked around the carriage doing the random handout routine with photocopied letters (in Korean). I don’t know what they were saying, but several passengers pinned 1000 Won notes to the letters before he collected them, giving three measured, slow, low bows to each donor. (This is quite an achievement in a fast moving train).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Koreans, the fateful decision of hundreds and thousands to support or not support the Northern troops remains woven into the fabric of post-war memory. This is especially so because the north Korean occupation and nascent revolution was temporary, and set off a new wave of violence when South Korean forces reoccupied the territory and began a new round of reprisals against all who might have rallied to the Northern cause. And for their part the North Koreans either killed or abducted to the North thousands of prominent South Korean politicians and intellectuals. To this day entries in South Korean biographical dictionaries bare witness to this phase of the war in the death-day notation for thousands of entries: “Birth date – 1950?, “ “taken north (nambuk), or simply “dates unknown”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korean Subway Culture for travellers: Episode 3: Mr Wo.
Chuncheon is a forested mountain lake resort north east of Seoul and just south of the Demilitarised Zone. The twisting mountain railway built by the Japanese has, sadly, been replaced by a flash new suburban line with the identikit-bland pink high rise apartments marching out of Seoul and into the hills following the new trains.
It’s a 90 minute trip back to the Seoul suburbs and weekend hikers were sitting on the floor with backpacks and boxes and mobile phones; dozing or in desultory conversation. The bicycle racks at the end of the carriage were occupied by two laughing grannies, balancing and swinging naughtily on the bars as all of the (few) seats were taken. Two cyclists were standing, with bikes, in full multi-emblazoned Lycra gear, looking moderately unimpressed.
I received a gentle punch on the shoulder: “Where are you from?”
I answered. This is the start of a long and somewhat loud 45 minutes on a crowded train with Mr Wo, a man who seems to be in his sixties, travelling with his tolerantly smiling wife and another couple of about the same age.
“ I have only ever travelled in Korea but I learnt good English at school. Can You speak Korean? I can teach you in just seven days. This I guarantee”. He exchanges a joke with his wife who playfully punches him in the ribs and smiles at me before he asks my age.
“You young. You young!” Can I guess his age. I am wrong: he’s 83. His wife leans over with a twinkle in her eye and says: “ He means 73.”
“So why are you here?” I explain… the whole carriage is listening now. We are in a tunnel.
“I work in construction. You will soon see cranes. Here is my business card.” We exchange cards. He reads mine aloud and comments: “So not just a teacher, then?” He translates our discussion to the other three, then, “Which school?” More discussion and (I hope reliable) translation. His wife punches him again in the ribs. He then gestures out the window at cranes building high-rises in an otherwise pretty river valley.
“Country Club. Very good. My company builds. We will move there.” His wife doesn’t punch him for this one, so I presume it might just be true. More conversation continues between Mr Wo, his wife and companions… getting louder now. Mrs Wo has taken to regularly beaming at me when her husband is exaggerating too wildly. Her English seems excellent, but he holds the (increasingly crowded) floor.
Mr Wo: (increasingly effusive) How long am I here? Too bad I go so soon. Next time I’m in Korea I must promise to contact him. I have his card. Now I am given his company card (in Korean). “See (gesturing to the window). This! Building the country club. Fourth largest construction in Korea.” (More discussion with his wife: another punch in his ribs). “I have been to North Korea.” (Another punch from Mrs Wo: a twinkle in her eyes for me).
“ I have been to North Korea. My wife is from North Korea.” (Punch. Twinkle). “She (pointing to the other couple) is from Iraq. He is from Austria.” (Gentle punch). “I have experienced Western Culture. I have been to Okinawa.” (More discussion. Twinkle). “I have met Osama Bin Laden.” (Mrs Wo gives me a look). “I have been to North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq. (Another twinkle of eye. Much discussion in Korean). Mrs Wo fumbles in her handbag and reaches for a wrapped chocolate. Mr Wo insists on unwrapping it and placing it in my mouth: “You don’t reach in Korea.” It’s chocolate wafer. It’s good. Many thanks. We all enjoy our wafers.
I start fumbling in my backpack for the last of the Australian souvenir pins and present it to Mr Wo, saying thanks.
“What is this?” He can’t work it out and hands it to Mrs Wo. She is thrilled: “Bridge! Opera House! Sydney! Thank YOU!” and she proceeds to pin it to her collar and displays it to other passengers.
Mr Wo is suffering attention deprivation: “ Opera house. You like opera? I am famous opera singer. See me on KTV at 10.30 on Saturday nights.” (Another, less gentle punch from Mrs Wo and another exchange of looks with me).
We have reached their stop. Many handshakes smiles and bows are exchanged as the Wos depart the carriage. The other couple remains seated with me. The husband turns to me with a serious look and says: “He can tell a good story. He was in the Korean CIA.”
With a recorded parting farewell from “Korail Rose” on the first airport express of the day to Incheon, I flew to Hong Kong.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At IMMIGRATION, the welcoming sign (to long queues actively directed by young, assertive officials in baby-blue uniforms) said:
“PLEASE REMOVE MASKS FOR IMMIGRATION OFFICERS”
“MTR Rose” then welcomed me aboard the train into Hong Kong with the first of many polite instructions about where to stick my luggage, finishing with an order to have a pleasant journey (in three languages).
Indeed, visiting Hong Kong is a bit like being in a nanny state: PLEASE MIND THE GAP, PLEASE DO NOT EAT OR DRINK IN PAID AREAS OF THE SUBWAY, MIND THE STEPS, PLEASE WEAR MASKS TO STOP THE SPREAD OF FLU, PLEASE COVER YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU SNEEZE OR COUGH, PLEASE DO NOT EAT, DRINK OR SMOKE IN THE TRAIN THANK YOU, IF SOMETHING FALLS ON THE TRACK NEVER PICK IT UP YOURSELF: ASK THE STATION STAFF, HOLD THE HANDRAIL AND STAND STILL AND YOU CAN MAKE IT A SAFE JOURNEY. All this in my two hours on the way to the hotel, delivered in a very correct BBC Eksent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’d never been to the Hong Kong History Museum. Wednesday is free so it is SWARMING with NOISY nine year olds on school excursions with shouting teachers and multi-page worksheets.
It was great.
I particularly liked the World War II section where visitors are greeted by a Japanese invasion propaganda letter to residents:
STOP USELESS RESISTANCE
When the Japanese Force makes its attack, Hongkong cannot be escaped from the most fierce bombardment from the Japanese Air Armada. Even with no aid from the land force, it is certain that Hongkong will be smashed into pieces from the air. (Picture of large falling bomb painted with Japanese flag).
British officers, we appeal to you to consider the very fact. Do not kill your men in meaningless resistance!
Remember, the Japanese Forces will guarantee the lives and livings of those who surrender.