Changgyeonggung Palace, Part II

Bridge and Pond in Changgyeonggung

Today my language partner, Hee Jung, and I went to Changgyeonggung, one of Seoul's grandest palaces. Her best friend was supposed to come along, but she couldn't make it (that's a story in itself, but never mind). I took several pictures of my language partner, who is becoming a good friend, but she was shy about having her picture posted on the 'net, so you can't see her this time.

Today was a happy day for several reasons. Chea Young and I are spending more time together lately. Also, the weather turned summery in just one day; I was shocked at the fact that I was sweating in the sun! And I must say that I enjoy the company of my language partner, too. Finally, I went to a beautiful historical place, explored a few parts of it I hadn't seen before, captured a coveted picture of a "taeshil" (see below), and and purchased a book on the palace. I was unable to purchase the book last time, because the souvenir shop was closed that day. The book, which was only about $5 CDN, is written in both Korean and English, and is lavishly illustrated, covering the accompanying Jongmyo (Royal Ancestral Shrine) across the road from the palace. Look for an entry on that place in the future. Anyway, I want to go back again--hopefully this time I will overcome my inertia, because the palace is only a 20 minute walk from my apartment.

Anyway, I keep calling several of the palaces "Seoul's grandest palace." Well, they are all grand. Gyeongbokgung is my favorite, architecturally. Changgyeonggung is my favorite from a nature perspective. My previous post on Changgyeonggung is here, and mentions a little background about the place. I also have a nice picture of the botanical garden there. Here's the sign describing it:


Sign for the Botanical Garden

This next picture takes us into the realm of religion, a perennial favorite topic of mine, even though I no longer believe in any religion. What's so interesting about this pagoda is that it has seven stories and is eight sided! Why is this interesting? Because around the world the numbers 7 and 8 are sacred, or are symbols of perfection. Bible readers already know about number 7, but the more attentive ones also see the number eight at work. And in fact 8 was a symbolic number widely used in the ancient Near East, and in the Far East also.


Octagonal Seven-Storied Pagoda, National Treasure #1119

According to the sign, this National Treasure dates to the 15th century, and originated in China. It was purchased from an antiquities dealer. The author of the sign suspects that the top of the pagoda is a later addition, because of the difference in stone.


Sign for the Octagonal Pagoda


Fountain and Tree in the Garden

The above picture and title should make you think of Paradise! And of course such paradise was widely depicted in the ancient Near East, especially in the Levant and Tigris and Eurphrates regions, where the tree was associated with various goddesses, including Asherah. Fountain water is always a sign of life and divinity in those parts. Here, they serve both an aesthetic and a sort of spiritual function.


Another pagoda

I don't have further information on this pagoda, above, but I can say what a pagoda is. It took me some time until I actually asked this question, believe it or not! Anyway, a pagoda is a symbol of Buddha consciousness. It was the principle statement in architecture in early Buddhism of this consciousness. As time went on, the figure of the human Buddha came to replace the traditional pagoda as the primary symbol in architecture.

The next few pictures show the Korean kingdom's interest in the realm of science.


Astronomical Observatory

The above picture shows an "astronomical observatory," called variously "Soganuidae" or "Cheomseongdae," built in 1688. I didn't succeed in getting this picture last time. According to the brochure for this palace, it is representative of the Joseon dynasty observatories.


Sundial, Replica of National Treasure #845

This sundial, known as Angbu-ilgu "upside down cauldron sundial," according to my book, is slightly differently described on the accompanying sign. It is a very beautiful instrument, and I like it very much. I would like to learn how to read it one day.


Sundial Sign

The next picture shows a "wind streamer," but I think the word "pole" should be in there. The accompanying sign is an interesting read.


Wind Streamer Pole, National Treasure #846


Sign for the Wind Streamer Pole

The next picture made me particularly happy, because I had read about its subject, the "Taeshil" in the brochure last year when I was here, but I never had the chance to see it. A "taeshil" is a stone box that holds a placenta of a prince. Fascinating! I don't know of any other societies that ritually buried and commemorated placentas from the royal dynasty, although I'm sure this wasn't the only such society. Anyway, this taeshil, like many Korean monuments, is not native to its present location. It was brought here in 1930 from Gyeonggi-do, another province in the country. According to the brochure, all the other princely taeshils of the Joseon dynasty, which had been scattered around the country, were brought here, too.


Taeshil


Yours truly by the Taeshil Stele

The thought just occurred to me that I've seen both "stela" and "stele" in scholarly literature. Of course, the only point of that sentence was to increase my Google count!


Sign about the Taeshil

Finally, in one part of this palace, there was an area in the sun where many gentlemen were playing paduk, a traditional game. I personally like the quaintness (if that's the right word), of this next scene. I particularly like the hat! Chessplayers in North America will instantly recognize what the other two men in the picture are doing. And indeed, Janggi is a distant cousin of our own beloved chess game.


Kibbitzers and players at Janggi

Yours truly (before the haircut), on the wall in Naksan Park

Unbelievable! I Can See My Home!

Several days ago I tried searching for "Port Coquitlam" on the Google Satellite tool. The page was inoperative and froze repeatedly. I tried again today, and the search returned no hits. So I tried "Vancouver," and was rewarded with a picture of the city; I scrolled over to Port Coquitlam. Using the zoom and arrow features (you can too!), I was able to see my exact house in Port Coquitlam! I could also see my old favorite haunts in the Deboughville Slough, my old McDonald's and the Costco, the Safeway, and the Coquitlam River, with the gravel mines I once drove through on my bicycle! I can even see Coquitlam Lake and the dam there! (Speaking of which, I never knew there was any development at the north end of the lake.) I can't believe this technology is freely available already! Although my plans are to stay here long term, it makes me miss Port Coquitlam and my family there. Now I'm going to see my old UofT dormitory in Toronto!

UPDATE: I can see Wycliffe College, my old residence, Trinity College across the street, Emmanuel College (I used to work in the library there), and all the UofT buildings! Good heavens--I can even see the paths in Queen's Park!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I tried looking up some places outside of North America that I've been to, but I was unable to see them.

Naksansa Buddhist Temple

In the past 72 hours, a forest fire in Gangwon-do ravaged a mountain, causing great permanent damage and destruction to Naksansa, a Buddhist temple there. This has been noticed by not a few western expat bloggers here. I'm disappointed that I can never visit this temple, now, even though I hadn't heard of it before I read the news. Because I've been compiling (for my own sake and the benefit of others) in my "Best of Seoul" sidebar feature pictures and accounts of the temples I've visited, it seemed appropriate to put this one in the list, too. I've never been to it, but I've visited it through the photographs and words of others.

The Marmot has an incredible picture from his newspaper in this post, showing dramatically the flames devouring one structure.

The Flying Yangban has a post on this, noting that much of the damage was done to the post-Korean war part of the temple.

Gangwon Notes has two articles with quite a few pictures from both before and after--the articles are available here and here Gangwon Notes also notes the normal Buddhist attitude that all is changing and impermanent.

Thank-you to Two Readers

Two people who read this blog now and then emailed me to encourage me recently. I've never met either one. I want to thank them: Gord Sellar, a fellow expatriate blogger here in South Korea, and Jung-Eun C., a Korean in America. Thank you both: your emails touched me.

Two More Feathers

You can read my letters in response to two free WSJ opinion articles here and here.

The Pope Dies, Part II

I think a small round up of the news and opinion on the late Pope's death is in order, and some personal thoughts, too. Of course, I--a West Coast-born, Toronto-educated, no-longer-believing convert to Catholicism from an iconoclastic and aesthetically rigid Baptist background--had differences with the Pope: enforced celibacy for the priesthood (except for Anglican and Episcopal married priests who converted to Catholicism, and except for the Eastern Rite Catholics, all of whose clergy are married), the misplaced emphasis on "the Bible" present since, actually, Vatican II and strengthened by the late Pope; the complete disavowal of normal methods of birth control, and, eventually in my journey, the continued prohibition of homosexual marriage. Additionally, I thought the late Pope weak and naive on the Iraq war and weak on the issue of aesthetics, generally. By that last phrase I mean the unfortunate Protestantization of Catholic aesthetics. Finally, I sense the pork-barrelled nature of politics in the stuffing of the College of Cardinals, like the Canadian Senate by the Prime Minister--with yes men and with men whose appointments smacked of theological favoratism. I doubt, now, that we will get a more liberal Pope, although I hope to be proved wrong. And as for the Cardinals and its role in the Catholic church, it is a morally bankrupt organization that refuses to deal adequately with the sexual abuse of children by its members. And yes, that was meant literally. Where was the leadership of the late Pope on this issue? All the Pope did was to very belatedly accept the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Law, the man who shuffled offending priests from one diocese to another after "incidents."

On the other hand, John Paul II was also the first Pope to free poor old Galileo from the flames of hell, which has to count for something. Rapproachment with other religions, notably Judaism, Islam, and Protestant Christianity, improved under the reign of the last Pope. In light of the Christian persecution of the Jewish people for the last two thousand years, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, was being both truthful and gracious when he said "No Pope did more for the Jews." Importantly, the late Pope was also instrumental in bringing down a barbarous and tyrannical communism, and in serving as a beacon of hope for a world drawing closer together.
--
Roundup

One of the things that completely stunned me, is that, as of this moment, prominent Catholic and practicing homosexual, the erstwhile Republican-leaning Andrew Sullivan has absolutely nothing to say about the Pope's passing since it happened. I had agreed with an earlier comment by Andrew that the Pope's clinging to this life was unseemly.

As might have been expected, the Wall Street Journal Online has an excellent and largely positive editorial here.

It's now working, but a few hours ago I could not access The Vatican City's website.

Oh great--some are calling for an African Pope. Isn't Kofi Annan disaster enough? Do we really need another powerless figurehead from the Third World? The Third World is the Third World because it is unable to deal with its own problems, be they theological or social. The lack of birth control is most certainly a case in point. An African Pope (please note that I'm not talking about an African-Englishman, or an African-Frenchman, etc.--were Condoleeza Rice a Cardinal, I'd be sure she'd be the best candidate!), were he to reflect the "burgeoning churches" in the South, would have to be pre-critical in his thinking. There's a reason why the churches of the West are ebbing: the people in the West have lived with the reality of Christianity for much longer. They know what it's about. They know that it's making a lot of "truth claims" which are either improbable, self-contradictory, or even inhumane. The churches who value biblical scholarship most are the ones who are suffering demographically. Furthermore, an African Pope, like Nelson Mandela, and the government propaganda in South Africa, which has asserted recently that HIV does not cause AIDS, would be unable to resist the urge to irrationally bash the West in general and America in particular. I see no hope for the Catholic church if an African is elected Pope. But fortunately, I'm almost certain that won't happen in this next election.

More Odds 'n' Ends & Tigers in the Zoo

Today is my third out of four consecutive days off. Tuesday is a holiday, and my school decided to give us Monday off as well. That's nice.

It's official, more or less: Chea Young and I are back together, at least for now. She seems to be making an effort to be more understanding of yours truly, and I'm trying to make that effort for her. I love her company, but I still feel unsettled about everything, especially when we're not together.
--
Something truly bizarre happened to me on the subway today. A halmoni in her seventies with tanned and wrinkled skin asked me, using English and signs, if I wanted to sleep at her house! She asked me two times! I haven't had anything like that happen since I lived in Toronto. Fortunately, I had to get out at the next station. On a different note, my male eye is amazed at the length, shall we say, of the skirts here. Many are the bare minimum. Today I was eating a donut at Krispy Kreme's with Ian again and we were sitting at the window. At one point, a gust of wind came along and blew one young lady's miniskirt up--completely! This shocked one female passerby, in particular, and her reaction was amusing in its own right. Anyway, I must beg the pardon of the reader--I just couldn't resist those puns!
--
Yesterday Chea Young and I went to the zoo at Seoul Grand Park. We rode on a lift (which was rather pricey), and saw many species of animals, many of whom I pitied because of the confined nature of the space, and the visitors' endless noises. Many people were feeding the animals junk food snacks, which I found abhorrent. In Canada that would not happen nowadays. Anyway, I was amused by the monkeys picking lice (?) out of each other's hair. How very intelligent and cooperative! Among the animals considered exotic enough to be present here were North American deer and raccoons! There were other animals, including the Giant Anteater, the Armadillo, the Yellow anaconda, and many others, including some animals that were extremely odd and surprising in their shapes and characteristics.

My favorite non-human animal was the Siberian Tiger, but he was resting and only lifted up his head a little to look at us. I was on the wrong angle, but from what I could see his face was one of surpassing beauty and dignity. His fur was only white, black, and grey.

Slightly less beautiful were the other tigers in the more traditional colors. In one area there were three tigers: one big one and two smaller ones. That word "smaller" is relative, however; any one of them would have been much taller than me if they stood on their hind legs. I was also in awe of the big one, who roamed constantly: his thick legs and giant paws, his gentle footfalls, the sheer power visibly present in his legs and back, the untamed look in his eyes, and the total size of him. In short, I fell in love with the beast, and I wanted to worship him, even let him eat me. It would be an honor to be killed by so noble a creature. I understand much better Lucy's desire to bury her hands in Aslan's mane in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the other Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. To me, however, the aesthetics of the tiger are more pleasing and awe-inspiring. I should mention that at one point the male tiger put his front paws on a raised platform, where he was mildly harassing a female who was jealously guarding her perch (much like the late Tink at home), and he growled fiercely in a wonderful, wild voice. I couldn't help thinking that if there were a God, "he" sure did a good job on this creature.

Tyger Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

But of course I definitely don't believe in a personal God. But certainly, that tiger was divine.

The Pope dies

Well, the story is here. I hope the new Pope will be less conservative, but I doubt it, since John Paul II has stacked the College of Cardinals with social and doctrinal conservatives. I've been waiting for this day for a long time, as I'm curious to see how the new Pope will be elected, and who he will be.

Odds 'n' Ends

Hi Mom, you should skip this post as part of it concerns religion. Lately I've been getting quite down, being single again and all. I resolved that I would try to play more chess during this time. So I talked the organizer of the local chess club here into posting a notice saying that anyone who wanted to play outside of the usual Sunday time could play on Saturday. So today I went for about 2pm, and played several games of chess with Youngjin, the kind and English-fluent organizer, and with one other person also. I'm pleased to report that I got my first two wins in Seoul, today! After that I kind of lost my chess instinct, and got beaten several times. But two wins was enough to make me happy for the afternoon!

It was also my pleasure to go out with Youngjin for a "taeji kalbi" supper, and we spent a long time deep in discussion over a bottle of soju, talking about many things. Youngjin is a very fair-minded person. It was 10:30pm when I returned home here.

Now I'm back here at home, and am nervous about tomorrow; I don't know what will happen. Oh well. I have to somehow learn to be fatalistic about it. Honestly, I wish I could go back to the days when I actually believed there was a God who wanted good things for me, whose "Word" could calm me down when I was anxious. But it's all a crock, so I can't. Hence chess as a form of meditation. Somehow I'm not really interested in my computer software chess programs right now; I like having a human opponent and real pieces. In this respect, it was a pleasure to play on the lovely wood board with weighted wood pieces with felted bottoms. But maybe soon I can try to crack open a chess book or two. Youngjin gave me two books of chess puzzles he reproduced from old public domain material, with Korean comments by him, for his club. That's rather special!
--
By the way, Krispy Kreme donuts are really good! I just finished a box of them that I bought with Ian yesterday.

--
It annoys me that I had such trouble signing into Blogger a few days ago. Even worse, I can't get the RBC personal banking site to work right now. That really ticks me off--more incompetence from RBC Royal Bank. I've suffered enough from them with my wire transfers (I've blogged about that enough, so I won't mention it again here). Well, now things are actually ok in that regard, but I never know how long that will last.
--
The last several days I've been listening to Bach's Piano Concertos. They're very nice. They're kind of comforting, in a way. Baroque music is very repetitive, in an intricate and graceful way. It's like the spiral shapes you sometimes see in churches (for example, in that pavilion in St. Peter's). Which reminds me, we may have a new Pope soon.