The 108th Time's the Charm

On Wednesday, we were taken on a cultural field trip to discover some hidden Ulsan treasures. We began our day's journey at Oegosan Onggi Village where we learned about the traditional Korean pottery called Onggi. The day began with a visit to the village's museum which even has a corridor designed to look like one of the wood-burning hillside kilns used to fire the pottery. Following the museum, we walked through the village to a building where we all sat down at tables with spinning disks, a chunk of clay for each person, and chairs with tennis balls on the feet to reduce noise (a la first grade). We were given very detailed instructions on what we should do, but of course they were given in Korean so we just tried to repeat the teacher's technique. Many bowl-shaped clay items later and we were off to lunch in Onggi Village where half of us ate at a table... on a table. Lunch was another typical Korean noodle dish which, by that point, had lost its novelty.

The afternoon proved equally unique with our adventure to the whale museum. The history is quite fascinating since the industry is now considered taboo to the modern world, except for Japan and perhaps part of Russia. The musuem first taught about the whale as an animal followed by the whale as a commercial good. The biology perspective (at least the blurbs written in English) was interesting I suppose, but the more relevant area to my interest has to deal with the series of papers documenting the international whaling agreements both establishing and abolishing the whale trade in the eastern hemisphere. There was also a modern art piece that worked sort of like a star constellation where you're given a few stars which I am told make up a belt and you're supposed to extrapolate an entire person's body (Orion to be specific) from there. Following the museum, we moved to a building which houses perhaps the world's only dolphin aquarium. We stayed around for feeding time, not expecting the dolphins to actually be trained and put on a show for us so it felt a little more like Sea World than it did an aquarium.

After a break to walk around along the water and a short bus ride, we arrived at a Korean food market which makes Whole Foods look ripe with pesticides as a lot of the food there is still moving (sometimes even after it's been killed). Trucks overflowing with produce drove through the market yielding food from the recognizable such as melons and peppers to the unrecognizable such as... well we still don't really know what it is. We sat down at a set of tables in the traditional fashion, meaning the Koreans ordered and we ate whatever they placed in front of us. With the traditional assortment of Hite and Soju, we were presented with sashimi, Japanese for raw fish. Our dishes took an ironic turn when we were delivered a plate of whale meat. After spending the morning learning about whales and the whaling industry, it was interesting to actually try the meat. It was good but certainly not worth the cost and don't ask me exactly how it was legal to eat because I'm still not certain about it. The next course was raw octopus. For anyone who has already tried this delicacy, they know that an octopus still has nerve reactions up to two hours after it has been killed so the tentacles actually move while you eat them and require thorough chewing because they have been known to occasionally choke people. Our seafood adventure continued with some cooked octopus followed by cooked sea shells and then finally some barbeque eel at which point we were all far too full to eat.

The next day was a whole new experience with our overnight visit to a Buddhist temple. We took an hour bus ride which included a ride through a 7 kilometer-long tunnel and drove through some curves clearly not designed with buses in mind. When we arrived, we were given outfits to wear that would have made for great pajamas had it not been for the dank musty smell they emitted. The trip would have been a great opportunity to test the blocking capacity of Immodium as the only bathroom choice was a Squatty Potty or, I suppose, the river. After we returned from a short hike up a decently steep grade to another temple building, we were taught the proper bowing procedures by our resident monk. We were then taken for dinner which, in traditional temple fashion, was free of animal derived protein. Prior to eating, we were told that they didn't mind if we ate a lot, just that we eat everything we took so there is no waste. Following our rice and vegetable medley dinner, we were given the chance to apply our lesson on Buddhist bowing during prayer time in the temple. Traditionally, the monks are supposed to bow 108 times per day which I've been told represent different kinds of sin. The nature of Buddhism is actually quite inspirational and I would find it quite appealing if it weren't for the uncomfortable sitting positions during meditation, the next activity before our 9:00 PM bed time. Why did we go to sleep that early? So we could wake up at 4:00 AM for the next prayer time and meditation session before eating breakfast of course. A monsoon in the morning limited us from doing anything serious so we got plenty of nap and reading time which was important for making up for the sleep we should have gotten the night before. Then we were taken for a lesson on traditional Korean tea in an open-air building overlooking the most fascinating fog blanketed mountain. Three women from a local group which educates on the art of tea drinking provided us lessons and three derivations of green tea and some delicious fruits to tie us over until lunch. During the lesson, there were many times that they seemed to be having conversations at us with minimum translation from our University liasons. However, I did successfully learn that while drinking tea in the traditional Korean fashion, you are supposed to raise the cup to your mouth rather than stoop down to take a sip and that you should drink each cup in no less than three separate sips. Following tea we ate our final temple meal and headed back to the sleeping quarters to change back into our normal clothing. After a short break, we walked back to the bus for our hour long ride back to civilization and, more importantly, western toilets.

Until next time,

-David Rood

University of Ulsan

We are spending this final week in South Korea at the University of Ulsan taking classes mostly about Korean culture and a few field trips, including to an aquarium, whale museum, and an overnight stay at a Buddhist temple. Monday was our first day of classes, first of which was an introduction from the school chair (they're called a School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering rather than a department since the freshman enrollment is over 50 students). Then we rounded out the morning with an interesting overview of the history of shipbuilding in Korea and a look at what the Korean shipbuilding industry needs to do in the future to maintain its competitive edge.

The afternoon was full of more cultural delights that I have been looking forward to the entire trip. We had a class called "Korean Folk Music" during which we learned to play the Jajinmory, a traditional Korean percussion beat. A group of University of Ulsan (UoU) students awaited our arrival to the classroom, which looked more like a small theater with an unspecified purpose in an engineering building. A series of percussion instruments adorned the side of the stage and we quickly knew this was not going to be the sort of lecture that you could sleep through and for that matter, not much of a lecture at all. The class started off with a demonstration of the Jajinmory beat by the Korean student group given the unfortunate task of teaching an assortment of mostly musically untalented Americans. For an in depth look at the Samulnori, the type of music we were playing, read about it here.

Following the musical demonstration by people who clearly know what they're doing, they handed the instruments over to people who clearly don't... the Americans. We were broken up into four groups and each given a specific instrument and part to learn. The four instruments were as follows: Kwaengwari, Jing, Buk, and Janggu. The Kwaengwari is a gong-esque metal dish that is very useful if ear splitting noise and migranes are your definition of fun. The Jing is also a gong, but it's deeper tone and infrequent use actually makes it less painful and relatively useful for the beat. The Buk carries a deep beat like a typical bass drum and the Janggu is the rhythmic heart and soul of the piece (I may be a bit biased as it's the instrument I tried to tackle). The Janggu requires more coordination than has been bestowed upon most of the naval architecture students present but the challenge didn't stop us from enjoying the activity. On the other hand, sitting Indian style (or would it be Korean style?) on the floor leaning over a drum for a half hour or more challenges my cultural appreciation. I suppose if that's the way you sit at the dinner table every night then your body is already malleable enough to endure the seated position.

The Jajinmory rhythm doesn't look particularly difficult once you figure out what the musical characters written on the board mean, but the beat isn't quite in any one time signature and proves challenging even for the few students who are rhythmically inclined. Somehow, we got a handle of the time signature ADD and as a collective group, at least one person was playing it correctly at any given time. Then they had us turn away from the board on which the Jajinmory was written for a real performance facing the audience of experienced Korean folk musicians. It no longer sounded quite as proficient, but our Korean audience applauded in appreciation of our efforts and still claimed that we sounded good (maybe they messed up the translation of the phrase 'tepid at best' into the word 'good'). Below you can see us actually performing the Jajinmory but I swear it looked and sounded better in person... honestly.

Today, we spent the morning with a lecture about Chung Ju Young, known to many under the name Asan, and recognized globally as the founder of the entire Hyundai family. The lecture not only focused on the founding and growth of the company, but of the entire Korean business culture which is void of much of the skepticism that makes American corporate culture so frustrating. The afternoon, however, proved to be much more exciting with our Taekwondo class.

We showed up at a gymnasium where a box of very non-breathable uniforms awaited us. I will say that these uniforms, which felt like we were canvassing ourselves in Tyvec, were probably not designed with a hairy American's chest in mind because, worn without a shirt, they show off much of the manly goodness that seems not to be bestowed on our Asian counterparts (a fancy way of saying we have chest hair and Koreans don't). We began with stretches which were counted in Korean and then learned some of the basics. I don't have the gift of flexibility required to touch my toes so our UoU liason thought he would give me a hand with some pushes on the back. Effective? Yes. Painful? Also a yes. The martial art came more naturally to others than me but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. After about an hour and a half of Taekwondo training, we watched the group of students teaching us break a lot of pieces of wood. At one point, a blue belt student jumped over 6 people curled over on the ground... well he sort of missed the first time and kicked the first person in line. As if the jump wasn't impressive enough, he kicked through a piece of wood on his way down. Then each of the naval architecture students got to choose their preferred method to break their own slice of wood. The range of methods included kicking, punching, and one bout of headbutting. I was unsure at first about what would break first, the wood or my hand, but after missing once, I broke through the piece of wood with ease. On the whole, the experience was definitely worthwhile and now I'm ready to defend myself with hand to hand combat (not really).

Until next time,

-David Rood

Moving on Up

Last Friday was our final day at HHI. Although it was a little depressing knowing that we would probably never set foot inside the shipyard again, after three full weeks of touring we also felt that we had seen enough and were ready to move on. The final week at the yard was spent in the engine department. For those of you who don't quite know the magnitude of HHI's engine manufacturing capabilities, at maximum capacity, they can put out an average of more than two 2-stroke engines per day. This isn't the kind of engine you find in a car. No, this one is about three or four stories tall and puts out over 108,000 horsepower. Oh, and that figure doesn't include the maximum of around 2,500 smaller 4-stroke engines per year.

Those statistics make the HHI engine division look impressive and don't get me wrong, it is incredible... just not four days' worth of lectures and touring incredible. We learned about forging and casting on Monday, followed by machining, 2-stroke engines, and 4-stroke engines on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday respectively. After the previous week walking around the shipyard and getting close to the ships and physically into the work, a week spent mostly in conference rooms listening to powerpoint presentations just didn't excite us much. In the end of the day, as naval architects, we really don't care that much about engines. We returned all of our HHI-issued paraphernalia and after yet another "interesting" lunch, we returned to the HHI dorms to pack and leave for the University of Ulsan.

Until next time,

-David Rood

McKorea

For our second Korean cultural tour, we were taken to Busan on Saturday. The city is one of the largest cities in South Korea and in 2005 played host to APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). After an hour and a half experiencing Korea's driving culture (a fancy way of saying we were on a bus), and a brief humid walk, we were at the APEC meeting building where there was a small display giving a background to the conference held there. We took a short self-guided tour through the facility, seeing the chambers and a garden paying homage to each of the attending nations... although I don't know how Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) and Hong Kong are counted in that figure. Then we followed the path to the spot where all of the conference members (Bush Jr. included) stood for a picture in traditional Korean garb. There was a mild rush for the United States plaque but after that was settled, I took my spot as China in honor of one of my roommates from school... he's Chinese if you couldn't pick up on the subtlety.

After our stint at the APEC location, we walked along an oceanside (or perhaps it's 'seaside' since I'm not so keen on Korean geography) and across a beach into the busier city of Busan. Something interesting to note about the city is the abundance of motels which I have been told is the result of a high degree of infidelity. We're not talking about a few motels, we're talking about 8 or 9 within plain sight from one spot on our walk to the lunch restaurant. Another delicious family-style chicken barbeque later topped with a taste of home (Pepsi) and we were too stuffed to walk back past the motels. Put some ice cream in our bellies and somehow the motivation changes drastically and we were once again on the move.

Busan is a nice city relative to Ulsan because it has more diversity, and by diversity, I don't mean a large wooden ship used in the civil war (movie reference), but rather there were European cars. Foreign cars are more expensive here in general but couple that with the Hyundai manufacturing hub of the world and Ulsan becomes almost hostile toward foreign cars. It's probably a sad thing but German cars have almost become a treat here so Busan was like foreign overload with the concentration of wealth and slight distance from Hyundai central.

For our second excursion of the day, we were taken to another Buddhist temple, which I'm afraid to say loses its luster after the more interesting examples from the previous Saturday (see my article titled: Buddha-licious).

FYI: There is a guy looking at pictures of scantily clad women two computers down from me. I'm not complaining per se, but it isn't the sort of internet browsing you typically do in public.

Like the prior weekend, we had a cultural tour on Saturday and a free day to sleep in and explore on Sunday. My mission this time was to try some of the activities Americans regularly pursue back home and see if they are any different here. The afternoon began (because of course we weren't awake early enough to do anything in the morning) with a bus ride to the Hyundai Department Store across from the shipyard. It's a large building that gives off a Nordstrom's sort of vibe inside and is by no means bargain shopping apart from the 'Power Sale' going on outside with merchandise that's there for a good reason... unless plaid polyester sport coats and cheap t-shirts are your thing. American department stores are typically separated by gender into different sections or floors. Clothing here is a bit different and is instead separated by brand, often grouping the same style and color shirt for both genders side by side. This unexpected juxtaposition was confusing at first as we were constantly worried about admiring an outfit for the wrong gender, but I finally put two and two together when I remembered how much Korean couples tend to dress alike when they go out.

And now for the namesake of this post. You must ask yourself: what is the most American food out there? Here's a few hints: it's not apple pie, cracker jacks, baba ganoush. It is, however, the most visual representation of America's obesity and high cholesterol problem. Yes, you guessed it, (or perhaps you didn't but the title of this post was a dead giveaway) we're talking about the big golden arches: McDonalds. We wanted to know if the American staple had transformed for the better on its journey across the Pacific. Well, the fries are a little less salty, but the consensus is that it's all the same. There is a bit of an Asian influence on a few menu items such as the bulgogi burger which I'm told has something to do with soy sauce and/or special seasonings, but my dining companions who ordered Big Macs and a McFlurry seemed to revel in the familiar flavor. I don't typically trust McDonalds a la Super Size Me (movie reference), so I figured I would play it safe with an order of McNuggets. They came with some sort of gingery sauce, displaying the Asian influence of the menu and the flavors worked well but the nuggets were the same low quality ground up chicken bits that you get in the states. The street system is also a bit different in Ulsan than back home so there is no drive thru window at this McDonalds. Don't let that get you down though because there is another way of getting your 'heart attack on a bun' without requiring you to walk, a medium of transport forbidden in the fast food rings apart from Jared at Subway. This motorized alternative is called: McDelivery. If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself.

Until next time,

-David Rood