Saturday, September 27, 2008

Housewarming Party

Some Korean friends that we met in the Philippines came by to throw us a housewarming party. They took us out to eat and then we came back and had cake. It was a lot of fun and I was able to practice my Korean a lot:)




Dr. Jane (standing) and Jessica spending time with Arlene and David
Jessica shows David her cell phone. Jessica will have her own baby in March. Dr. Jane and Jessica watch David will we were eating. This is a Saboo-Saboo restaurant which is a kind of Korean adaption of Japanese cooking. Each person has their own pot of boiling water which they then put noodles, vegetables, and meat in. It keeps boiling throughout the meal and when it boils down a waitress comes by and fills it back up. There are various dipping sauces that you use with the meat. It's really good.
May takes a picture of Jessica and David while Dr. Jane looks on.
May and her boyfriend having dun with David.Group photo!

Typical Days

I thought I should blog about what my our schedule is like. I'll briefly cover this last Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday Arlene need a bit of help around the house so I left for the office a little later than normal. I stopped by the post office to mail some stuff and then took the sbuway to my office. I worked there for awhile and then met with my friend Donggyu who is studying Korean Shamanism. He and I talked about our studies over coffee for about two hours and then I went back to the Korea University project, had a snack, and then worked a bit more. At 6pm I went to meet with Professor Cho, my adviser, and Professor Yu who is working on her phd (she is currently teaching French literature and cinema at another university). Professor Cho took us out to dinner and then we discussed her translation project. She is looking at some documents left by the French missionaries. Professor Cho will have me present on my research in a few weeks. He thought that if the three of us had meetings together it would help us more than just having one on one meetings. It's a big help to me as I can keep working on my Korean in a friendly environment and I'm learning a lot. The meeting didn't get out until after 9pm so I got home after 10, after

On Friday I went to the office to work and was able to get a lot done. Shortly before I had to go a Chinese-American guy came to our office looking for help. He didn't speak any Korean so I helped him find the little library in our building and some sources he was looking for. After that I went home and made some phone calls, including to Father Yo who will take me to a certain holy site next week that I need to go for my research. Since it was a Friday I would usually go to class. However, class was canceled and Fulbright was having a dinner so we could all meet each other so I went to that. It was fun meeting the other people. I spent much of the dinner talking to a nice lady who studies art. She is in Korea to learn paper making and in addition to being able to paint and draw also makes paper and books and plays the violin. She also does performance art and to do that better (I think) she also learned acrobatics and the trapeeze! It was all very interesting. There was also another lady there working on autism in Korea and a guy who was looking at violence during the Korean colonial period. I'm hoping to talk to him more as his work has some connections with my own. His wife is with him and she is five months pregnant. After the dinner we took a taxi home and again I arrived after David had gone to bed.

So things are goin very well here. I'm hoping in the upcoming weeks to be able to do more research but it's good for my work to also do all these other activities. I feel bad sometimes because Arlene is home alone a lot of the time with David. Fortunately on Friday her friend Na Tata came and took her around.

Visit with Juyun

Last Sunday we were able to meet Juyun, an old friend of mine from UBC for coffee. It was fun to see here. We started at UBC at the same time on different phd prgorams and it looks like we might very well end at the same time.

Basket Case



David plays in a basket

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Special Mass for Korean Martyrs Movie

At the end of the mass I took a movie of the choir singing as people left. The song they are singing is "Faith of the Martyrs" which is sang to the tune "Faith of the Fathers". I then pan over to the monument for the martyrs who were killed. The three columns are a kind of stocks that peope in prison were made to wear as a part of their punishment (their head would fit through the hole).



Martyrs pray for us!

Special Mass for Korean Martyrs

This weekend is marked by the feast for the 103 saints of Korea. It conincided with an effort to have 38 more martyrs added to these saints. 40 days of prayer were held and concluded with a special mass where Little West Gate used to be. A lot of Catholics, including Hwang Sayong, one of the subjects of my study, was killed here.

The whole thing was a pretty big deal. There were several groups of Catholic women dressed in hanbok who were ready to give people directions to the mass.

Near little west gate is the Yakhyun Church which was finished in 1892 and was the first western style church in Korea.

Some nuns enter the park where the site of the Little West Gate is. Nuns are greeting by bowing women in hanbok.

My Office

I took some pictures of the Korean Studies Building which houses the Korean History Institute which is where my desk is (I share an office with several other students. I think the building is really cool--its inspired by traditional Korean architecture.





This is the International Studies Building where my class on Korean Silhak learning (a type of philosophy) is taught by my adviser, Professor Cho Kwang



Korea University is a really great place to work and I am meeting lots of nice people.