Friday, July 9, 2010

Trip to Korea

I traveled to Korea for a workshop at Yonsei University. It went really well. I met a lot of wonderful people and made some important progress on my dissertation.
Me climbing aboard the plane in Evansville. Unfortuantely, we were delayed because of a storm in Chicago so I missed my plane to Seoul there. So I had to fly from Chicago to LA to Hong Kong to Seoul. So instead of arriving Monday I arrived Tuesday. My luggage was lost and I did not recieve it until Thursday. Thank God though I (and the luggage) made it safely there.
Posters in the airport thanking countries for the participation in the Korean War.

The audience at the workshop.

My roomate Paul Cha studies the relationship between Christians and the state. People who converted to Christianity in East Asia for material reasons were derisively known as "rice Christians" (that is, they converted ino rder to get rice). Hence the words on this slide. I thought it was pretty funny.


Another shot of the audience.

Me presenting, notice I'm wearing the same clothes I had one when I boarded the plane. I presented Thursday afternoon and my clothes did not arrive until Thursday evening. Pretty funny I think. I explained my situation at the beginning of my presentation and everyone had a good laugh.

Pierre wins a prize for his paper on Catholicism in Korea.


Group photo of the participants in the workshop.



Flags displayed for Canada day (July 1st)

A protest against North Korean human rights abuses in Insadong.


A subway poster stating that the only rival for its treatment of customers is a mother's treatment of her child.
A courtyard behind Myongdong Cathedral.
A branch gift shop of the Teseum, a teddy bear museum on Cheju island

Subway poster supporting the Red Devils in the World Cup.


Our friends Yoori and Moon. Their children are playing behind. They helped us a lot while we were all in Korea. They treated me to a nice dinner.


Yoori and Moon's kids playing.


Graves damaged by bullets during the Korean War.


The grave of Soda Gaichi, the only Japanese Christian missionary buried at Yanghwajin. He came to work with orphans.


Graves of children. I think many of them are from the Anglican orphanage.

The grave of a baby girl.
"The Korea Times" has its offices on the 8th floor of this building. This is the paper I wrote a series of articles on An Chunggun for.




My hotel room (Yonsei provided us with a hotel room while the conference was going on. I extended my stay a few days and stayed at this hotel, called Casaville).

2 comments:

aimee said...

wow! what adventures! sounds like a good trip albeit the travel/luggage snafus. congrats on getting it all done!

Hilary said...

Hey--where is that cemetary in Seoul? Haven't seen one like it here.