July 17th, 2009...
Korean Traditional field trip #2 may not have been filled with cameras and headline stories like the last one, but it was still an amazing cultural experience. Jeonju is located about 2 1/2 hours south of Seoul and is famous for being a traditional city, having been named a "royal city" during the Joseon Dynasty. We spent the day touring the city, observing their original wine distillery and paper-making processes.
Watching the men and women in the paper factory changed the way I look at paper. I've never thought much about where paper comes from or the process involved in turning a perfectly good tree into something I write letters on. The process to get to that final product is so long and tedious, and involves doing the exact same thing over and over all day. It was so hot and humid in the factory but yet it didn't seem to affect the workers; they just continued to do the same thing over and over...continuing on with the seemingly never-ending paper-making process. Never again will I waste a perfectly good piece of paper for something frivolous like a paper airplane! Okay, so that's not true....but I definitely respect the effort that goes into the paper aircraft assembly.
Later that day we were treated to dinner at a traditional restaurant, complete with straw mats instead of chairs. I walked in and my face lit up when I saw that we were taking off our shoes and sitting on the floor for dinner (it's the little things that bring happiness!). Now I'll admit that some of that excitement eluded me when I sat down to find a plate of fish still smiling at me. Thankfully there were plenty of other traditional foods to sample, in which we used a giant piece of lettuce to cover up the faces of our fresh-water friends. I typically like to taste everything, but I prefer not to eat bones if I can help it...so I left the little fishies under the lettuce to rest.
After dinner we walked to our accommodations for the night, which consisted of a traditional Korean house setting. Descriptively, it resembled a courtyard with a square building around it, which housed roughly 3-4 people per room. The rooms were simply that...one hardwood room with a bathroom and shower. To sleep you place a heavy blanket on the floor an use a lighter blanket to cover up. This was a much better experience than a motel/hotel/resort, or any other typical overnight location, because we were able to live in the downtown area of a city established in the 1300's in the same manner as people did hundreds of years ago...of course with the exception of the electricity we have come to know and love.
Korean Traditional field trip #2 may not have been filled with cameras and headline stories like the last one, but it was still an amazing cultural experience. Jeonju is located about 2 1/2 hours south of Seoul and is famous for being a traditional city, having been named a "royal city" during the Joseon Dynasty. We spent the day touring the city, observing their original wine distillery and paper-making processes.
Watching the men and women in the paper factory changed the way I look at paper. I've never thought much about where paper comes from or the process involved in turning a perfectly good tree into something I write letters on. The process to get to that final product is so long and tedious, and involves doing the exact same thing over and over all day. It was so hot and humid in the factory but yet it didn't seem to affect the workers; they just continued to do the same thing over and over...continuing on with the seemingly never-ending paper-making process. Never again will I waste a perfectly good piece of paper for something frivolous like a paper airplane! Okay, so that's not true....but I definitely respect the effort that goes into the paper aircraft assembly.
Later that day we were treated to dinner at a traditional restaurant, complete with straw mats instead of chairs. I walked in and my face lit up when I saw that we were taking off our shoes and sitting on the floor for dinner (it's the little things that bring happiness!). Now I'll admit that some of that excitement eluded me when I sat down to find a plate of fish still smiling at me. Thankfully there were plenty of other traditional foods to sample, in which we used a giant piece of lettuce to cover up the faces of our fresh-water friends. I typically like to taste everything, but I prefer not to eat bones if I can help it...so I left the little fishies under the lettuce to rest.
After dinner we walked to our accommodations for the night, which consisted of a traditional Korean house setting. Descriptively, it resembled a courtyard with a square building around it, which housed roughly 3-4 people per room. The rooms were simply that...one hardwood room with a bathroom and shower. To sleep you place a heavy blanket on the floor an use a lighter blanket to cover up. This was a much better experience than a motel/hotel/resort, or any other typical overnight location, because we were able to live in the downtown area of a city established in the 1300's in the same manner as people did hundreds of years ago...of course with the exception of the electricity we have come to know and love.
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