Counting in Korean Style

Jiwon,

The life in Seoul has so many things to discover. Especially with friends from different countries,even a tiny little thing becomes a cultural exploration and analyze. This time, I want to share the water bottle provided in a homy restaurant.

We come to eat our dinner in the same restaurant after afternoon rehearsal session from Monday to Saturday. Day after day, this routine boosts our observation to the details around. One day the Japanese artist Yuji found out the interesting measurement numbers on the bottle, starting from 300ml., 500ml, 700ml, 900ml, 1100ml, 1300ml. Both of us were shocked because normally we count 200ml, 400ml, 600ml, 800ml, 1000ml, 1200ml in our countries. We checked the bottom of it and for sure which is manufactured in Korea (not in China), then how does this idea come up? There might be a national custom or mindset hidden in this message...... We were beating our brains for this trifle till the dishes were ready in front of us. After that, everyone only focused on the food and no one mentioned it again......

Actually, it is not important whether we get the correct answers or not. The finding and sharing are truely precious to me. Now can you come up any interesting/crazy/weird explanation for this bottle?

Snow Painting

Dear Jiwon,

I have moved to Seoul for several days. The days in Yugu Performing Village is remote to me now. Sometimes I would think of the Grandmother who cooks for us in weekdays and the smothery smell from the burning woods..... No matter what I encountered in the past two months, those are turned to be a piece of rubbed papper, easily forgettable. All I know is to carry on the life now. I only have one month left in Korea. I want to experience more and more and more......

Here I want to show you the first snow I saw in Yugu. It was so beautiful and I had a great fun with my friend Asif in snow painting. You might not see it clearly from the photo, I drew a little monster and two Chinese characters meaning "Winter".

Yesterday it snowed again in Seoul. I couldn't play the snow painting but only walking in the flying snow. It was another impressive moments in the snow, I LOVE it!

This picture taken from the window of my room in Seoul

My Korean friend played the song "White Christmas" from her i-phone 4 as she saw the snow by the window. Eveything is so matched with the white snow, the voice of Louis Armstrong, good friends and a little worries in mind. Hope you enjoy listening it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rq6y71i12w

Walking in Your Past

Jiwon,


I prefer to call your real name...


I felt very excited when reading your letter about your childhood with your grandmother in Young Cheon Market. So I decided to leave my team and found the market by myself. It was happened around two weeks ago and I didn't have time to put things in order. Now I am writing my past which is your past as well. It seems to me another interesting occurrence to me.

떡 Ddeok 
Traditional Korean rice cakeI bought a pack of colorful rice for testing. I thought each color would have different flavors but actually not... they all tasted similar or the same... filled with sesame paste.













내복 Underwear
My Korean friend Soyoon told me this is not old fasion anymore. Some of young people still wear this kind of complete set, costed about 22,000 Won.

 서대문 Seo dae Mun

Independent Gate
One of my favorite photos, shot in the middle part of pedestrian zebra from Young Cheon Market to Independent Gate. I didn't have time to walk inside of the park, maybe together with you next time.

At dawn, it is the scenery of a platform near London. If I didn't say it is London, it wouln't look that different from a platform somewhere in Korea. I have been always a urban girl. I was born in a city. I was brought up in a city. And I settled down in another city after my thirties. My trajectory goes from a city to another.

Life is going along at its own pace, sometimes slow sometimes fast. My life shifts different times through different spaces and my work is to patternise and metaphorise those different realities. Metaphor(meta-phorein) in the original sense as in Greek it means 'transportation'...

I am grateful for this Hope's invitation that we create (a) performance(s) together as international artists. I don't know how we will shape or where we will arrive, but this is an exciting new journey through spaces and times....

Fall in Korea

Jiwon,

I'd love to praise the beauty of Autumn in Korea. It is so beautiful here in these couple weeks. Although some of the flowers I photoed previously are fading now, I still keep watching their changes in colors and shapes day after day. To me, I aware more of the importance of being in its disappearance, like people always learn to cherish something as it is not existed anymore.

Somehow sometimes I have to remind myself I am living in the time now, not in the past, in dreams or in any fictional settings. Have you ever have this thought? So, when I awake from my imaginations, sometimes I have a little depression. It is meant that I would prefer to stay in my imainary world more than the reality......

I am really enjoy the time now, not just the Autumn here, but the satisfication of every aspects, including the new friends I met here, the task I am working on, the food and the nature... Once I even had a thought to move to Korea. Hahaha, I am actually into a situation of "fall-in-love" with Korea!

One Asia

Hi Jiwon,

I've just finished the Samulnori program with one of the best players in Korea Mr. Hong Yoon Ki. Within the four-day intensive learning, I focused on playing Janggo for the competition on the fifth day. It truely was a mission impossible because none of my team-mates are musicians or have good knowledge in Music. However, we still stood on the stage and tried to do our best. The result was not too bad but we still couldn't involve in the second run of the competition. Anyway, I was so glad to break my limitation on one new thing. The feeling of achivement was really attractive, and I thought I may fall in love with Janggo instrument. Have you had such emotion before?

Janggo needs to be played by both hands. Sometimes one rythem would speed up to the most and hardly can see players' hands and heads. To me, they all look like psychedelic. There was a several times that I could reach this kind of "mind state". I think one should memorize the score very well and then he can have the freedom to play around of it.

"One Asia" is the name of our team. We actually came from different countries and cities for the ASSITEJ theatre program. By invitation, we made the Samulnori competition as our first collaboration. It did link us more than before and I believe we could make the theatre production as good as what we did in Samulnori.

Let me introduce my team-mates for you. Now they are my family in Korea!







If you or your children want to learn Samulnori, you can get more info of the teachers, schools, competitions,performances, festival from the website below:
www.samulfestival.co.kr
www.samulnorischool.com

Want Some Black Coffee?

Jiwon,

The previous two times when I were in Korea, I found out the people here are used to drink instant coffee in a small bar-pack mixed milk and suger inside already. To me, I can't say that is a proper coffee for my morning stomach. This is perhaps my least requirement of a day.

This time, I brought my grained coffee and Vietnam-style coffee maker. However, I spend about a week time to find out the best way of making. Now the process of making becomes a sort of coffee ceremony to me. Once in a day (normally in the morning) I would prepare the tools and materials to the kitchen. As the water is boilded in the kettle, I will arrange everything properly set on the table. The total making time for one cup of coffee costs about 10 minutes.

From the picture you may ask: why not simplely adapt myself to instant coffee then? Actually I do drink it once or twice since I arrived Korea. I really can't like it......so I prefer not to disorder my digestive system.