驛馬煞 YUKMASAL

This week one of my students introduced me to the Korean word yukmasal (驛馬煞). My Korean English dictionary says it is "a person with itchy feet". However my students and Korean friends have several different opinions on the meaning.

The word comes from three Chinese characters. Yuk (驛) means station and ma (馬) is horse. Sal (煞) has been hard for me to understand and I've received different answers when asking the meaning. It seems to be similar to "destiny", and a bit like "aura", and most likely something in between. Although I've also heard it described as "bad spirit".

This history of yukmasal is very interesting. Many generations ago in Korea, before having such an awesome transportation system, horse and rider was the main method of delivering messages. Like many other countries, when the government had a new policy, or tax, or an order to send to another town, the message was delivered on horse back.

En route from the capital, and scattered around the country, were yukmal (驛馬) - literally horse stations. These were places where riders could turn in their tired horse for a fresh one before continuing on their journey. And interestingly enough, my closest subway station, Yanjaeyuk, used to be a yukma.

At that time in Korean history, being a messenger was considered unfortunate. There was a caste system, and only low-ranking citizens did this work. Thieves in the mountains made the job risky. And of course, Korea's extreme climate ensured a likelihood of becoming sick.

Korea was an agricultural society at that time, though not nomadic like Mongolia. So people settled in one place, and any digression from that life was frowned upon. Still today, there seems to be a strong mentality here that a settled job is a good job. But according to my student, Jin, the world, and Korea, is changing. Now a man will go abroad if he has the ability too. And because of this, the once very negative meaning of yukmasal, is becoming more positive. Often used in a joking manner, it can even be seen as a compliment in some cases to indicate a person has traveled a lot for enjoyment.

This word has really intrigued me and I enjoyed many a discussion with students and Korean friends about it. Some of the quotes that came out quite impressed me,

-"After leaving home, you will not come back".
-"It's your fate to be so active".
-"Just follow the wind".
-"You have lots of wind". (I had to correct my student on this one.)
-"It's an inherited illness".
'"If you meet a beautiful woman, you can't keep the relationship very long". (Damn!)


These talimans are typical charms for people with yukmasal. They are carried for protection against evil spirits, disease and accidents. They are also extremely expensive when bought from a temple. So feel free to print these off and tape to your arm before your next vacation.

THE IRONY OF LENT

2012 brings with it my twelfth year of giving up booze for Lent. This horrendous forty-six day period gets harder and harder every year. Even more so in countries like Korea and Japan where so much of the socializing is done round a soju or sake bottle. Add singledom to the equation and you can imagine what a battle it is to avoid alcohol and alcohol-events for almost seven weeks.
Although my Catholic upbringing was the origin of this regular pre-Easter abstinence, I still continued this practice in my now Atheist life. There are four reasons I do this.

1. It's good for my body, especially my liver and beer belly. Oh wait, I guess strictly speaking, it's bad for my beer belly, right? Anyway, it's good for my liver!

2. It's damn tough. I find it really difficult. And therefore, it must be good for my willpower and mental strength and, uh, making a man of me.

3. To ensure I'm not becoming an alcoholic. I read somewhere that being born Irish is being born into alcoholism. Although my country ranked only 15th in recent world alcoholism statistics, I do tend to drink everyday at times and to often drink alone at home. My drinking is usually in moderation and never when I have to work. But surviving Lent each year reassures me that I don't have a drinking problem.

4. Appreciation of alcohol - before, during and after Lent i have a profound appreciation of booze. Beer tastes great, whisky warms my heart and Korean makoli brings me pure joy and satisfaction. I'm not exaggerating. Knowing I won't or didn't have it for a while makes me thankful when I can. As they say - absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or is it Absinthe?

The irony of Lent is that for the weeks preceding and following it, I drink like a fish. I drink everyday. If I don't drink, I feel I'm missing out on limited opportunities. I justify this over-consumption with excuses such as "I better stock up", or "I deserve this for what I'm about to do". So this year, as afternoon drinking becomes more common, I question whether the physical "benefits" of Lent actually exist. Is Lent actually good for me? Or do the pre and post-consumption nullify the benefits of the dry period?

Or perhaps this new questioning of my annual routine is my inner alcoholic trying to find a way out of doing Lent.

IT'S A SAXOPHONE

I started a new private class last night. It's in one of the fanciest buildings in Seoul, the Gangnam Finance Center. My new student seems to have a status on par with the building in which he works. Mr Park oversees the construction of power plants. In March he'll move to India to build natural gas power plant. I was contacted to get his English ready for dealing with his Indian partners and staff.
Our first class was a little stiff, as it usually is when I'm attempting to teach business English to people who know much more about business, and often more about English, than me.
About thirty minutes into class I heard a loud beep. And then a boop. And then a bope. I ignored the beep and the boop, but the bope grabbed my attention. I looked at Mr Park inquisitively. "A trumpet", I think he said. "A what", I said. "Oh, no, not a trumpet," he said. I smiled. "It's a saxophone!", "My boss is learning".
And for the remaining thirty minutes of the class we both tried to keep serious faces. Discussing reverse discrimination and workplace glass ceilings as his boss slowly, methodically went up and down the saxophone scale, I had to bite my inside lip a few times to prevent an outburst of laughter.
Once in a while I accidentally smiled. Probably not very professional, but I think we broke the ice.

MAKING BEER

This week my buddy Dave invited me to his home to make a batch of beer with him. A whole new experience for me, I took a lot of snaps at different stages. We started about 2pm and finished around 10pm. It's a full day's work, with lots of waiting for the right moment to add something or cool something, etc. But a lot of fun as my buddy Derek joined and Dave supplied us with plenty of homemade beers and ales as well great stories from his world travels. Cheers Dave.

Below are some snaps with a brief description of the process according to my blurry memory.

The first step is to get some yeast going. This is a yeast starter with dry malt extract.
Then heat water to 71 degrees. Dave always uses wired thermometers to accurated gauge and maintain correct temperature. Though I have doubts about his method of measuring water volume. Look at that handwritten scale!

The water is then added to this cooler which holds grains like wheat and roasted barley.

Then we wait and drink Dave's homebrew while the hot water converts the grain starches into sugars.

Dave sometimes referred to this website, hopsville.com, to calculate times needed use their free hoppiness indicator.

Next we slowly pour the solution into the bucket. Slow is important so it won't be cloudy from sediment and stuff.

And then slowly pour the solution back in along the sides of the cooler. This helps to settle the grainbed. It's called vorloffing.

Dave multitasking.

All the solution is then drained, new water heated to 80 degrees and the procedure repeated once.

When the second solution is ready, both are added together and brought to the boil. The hops are also added at different stages. Dave used three hops; Warrior, Amarillo and Centenial. He also addes Irish Moss, a type of seaweed, for flavour.

Dave's scales, which he insists are only for measuring hops and seaweed.

Dave calulating hop input times and weights. Uh, I'm no expert, but wouldn't it be best to do calculations before we try six types of homebrew?

Checking the density of the concoction.

When the 75 minute boil has finished, we use a Dave-designed cooler. Cold water is pumped through this copper piping to cool the liquid as quickly as possible.


The yeast is then added and the whole batch is sealed up in a sterile container with a gas release device on top.

It is definitely a lot of work. And the ingredients don't seem to be cheap. But it's also a really fun way to spend a day. And judging from the quality of Dave's homebrews, it's well worth the time, effort and money.

OUT THE WINDOW

One of my students just told me a funny story. When he was a baby, he was in his pram/stroller at home. Held in by the straps, we was unhappy and tried to get out. Shaking back and forth, back and forth, the pram picked up speed and moved across the room to the open window. The window was big, but there was a plastic guard to protect "stuff" from falling out. The pram smashed the plastic guard, fell out through the open window, sailed two stories down to the ground and smashed. With my student still in it! He was totally fine and uninjured. Wow!

COOLEST AUTOREPLY EVER

In Bali I met a cool Irish girl called Shelly. She approached Karol and me at a fire dancing party in Ubud’s Monkey Forest. Having not heard any Irish accents for a while, she was keen to chat to us. I hung out with her a few times in that town and she told me a lot about her meditation, yoga and sweat-house experiences. Following Bali she was to return to India for a meditation retreat in the mountains.
When I returned to Korea, I sent her an email to catch up. And I received the following auto-reply, which I think is pretty damn cool:

Thanks for your message, however I am currently undertaking a 4 month
course where I will have no access to the Internet. If you feel like
sending a letter, my address is:

Shelly
(Student of Yogic Studies)
{Address}
India

Otherwise I will respond to you next February.

Much Love,
Shelly

THANKS I THINK

Tonight at the boxing gym I was in the ring stretching. There was only a handful of people training on this icy Friday night. The professional boxer, who doesn't speak English, seems (seemed) to like me a lot, came into the ring with me. He pointed at me sitting on the ring floor stretching and said "Ma-ku (Mark), you". He then pointed to his iPhone. The English dictionary was open and a bunch of results related to alone, lonesome, solitude, etc were shown. I must have looked confused because he pointed at one specific definition and then touched the audio icon. iPhone's robotic, but attractive female voice dictated, "LEADS A SOLITARY LIFE", as my coach pointed at me once again and said "Ma-ku". We both burst out laughing, though I'm not sure that I get it. He then climbed out of the ring, came back a minute later and give me a bottle of orange juice.
Thanks, I think.

PREP FOR NEXT TRIP

Following each trip I take, I always make a few notes about mistakes I made or things that would've made the trip better so that I can use that on my next trip. Here's what I jotted down after Indonesia.

-Pack many business cards. Much easier and more reliable than scribbling email addresses on paper
-Bring my phone charger. I thought USB charger would be best, but was wrong. Checking the country's voltage and socket shape would be much more sensible. Finding computers and having enough time to fully charge my phone was a hassle.
-Have a phone that can be used with a local sim card. The 'getting away from it all' doesn't have to be so inconvenient I think. On a month trip I met a lot of people that I saw, or tried to see, regularly. Without phone contact it's much harder to arrange meet-ups, or very expensive to call from internet cafes/hotels.
-Keep a daily journal. The best and busiest days are those on which you forget to write.
-Prepare MUCH better. I've always been pro free-travel, but an itinerary would have helped maximise Ronan's short time there as well as keeping me busy enough to not get lonely.
-If possible, travel alone first and meet friends for second part of trip to prevent loneliness. Actually I knew this already, but because of climate I asked the lads to come out at the start of September. Next time I'll be more selfish.
-Learn some of the local language BEFORE going. Specifically: greetings, thanks, numbers and price negotiating, as well as one funny phrase like 'oh my god'.

LETTER TO MA

At the end of my trip, I wrote a seven page letter to my mum summarising the last month. I’ve laboriously typed it out here and hope Ma doesn't mind me posting it.

26 September 2011
Dear mother,
How are you? Hopefully well and rested after your vacation. I’m currently at the end of my own vacation. Another four days in Bali and then I’ll fly to Hong Kong for one night before returning to busy, cold Seoul.
Right now I’m in the northeast of Bali in a village called Amed. It’s very beautiful, peaceful and has great scuba diving and snorkeling. But a bit lonesome for the solo traveler. I spent four days here. Did two dives at a shipwreck, which was amazing. I also rented a motorcycle and explored the coast. And I hiked to a temple which was on a mountain at 1400 metres. 1800 steps I’ve been told, so that was good for sweating out any Jameson whisky that was left in me from Karol and Ronan’s time here.
I’m at a little restaurant right now waiting for a shuttle bus to Ubud, a wonderful town in the middle of Bali. This restaurant is right on the water, as they all are here. In front of me is the beach with little fishing boats and then the blue sea. Over to the right about 150 metres is Jemeluk Bay where I went snorkeling early this morning and above that a ridge where people go to watch the sunset. I went there two nights ago. The sunset wasn’t amazing, but it’s cool because it sets behind Bali’s three volcanoes, which are directly west of here.
Snorkeling at the bay this morning was amazing. I got up at seven, had breakfast, and swam out there. It was a little cold and a bit scary since there were no other snorkelers out. But the tide was high so it was the perfect time to be out at the coral.
Out at the bay is a coral garden and snorkeling there was like being in a BBC documentary. Literaly thousands of fish and dozens and dozens of species. Whole schools of silver, fluorescent blue, yellow/black, and every other imaginable colour-combination of fish were swimming there. The coral was lovely too. Large, unusually shaped with various colours. Proabably the best snorking I’ve ever done, though seeing large turtles two weeks ago on the Gili Islands was also exceptional.
I’ve been on Bali island for the last two weeks. And before that when Ronan was here, we were on the next island east, Lombok. That’s the home to Rinjani mountain, Indonesias’s second largest volcano and supposedly most beautiful. The three-day hike we did there was the highlight of our trip. I’m glad we trained for it because it was no joke. Very difficult indeed.
There were seven in our hiking group; us three and four Germans. We camped in tents each night but meals were provided for us. There was a guide and porters to carry the food, tents, etc as there are no buildings on the route. We hiked about seven to nine hours each day except on the last day when we started at two thirty a.m. and didn't finish until late in the afternoon.
Only Karol, Ronan and myself made it to the summit as the last stretch was so tough. The air was a bit thin plus it was dark and cold and the last three or four hundred metres were volcanic rubble. Walking was tiring and frustrating, as it was one step up, half a step back. We made it to the top just in time for sunrise, which was nice and brought a great feeling of accomplishment.
Oh, and on the second day of hiking we stopped at the crater lake for lunch. But before eating, our guide took us further into the wild and off the path. There are natural hot springs in there, and even a hot spring waterfall where we soaked and swam with a view over a deep green valley.
I sat behind the waterfall, on warm moss, looking out over the valley. The noise of the water drowned out all other sounds. It was like one of those “happy places” you mentally visit during yoga or meditation, but even better because it was real.
After hiking, the three of us caught a boat to the Gili Islands for some rest and celebration. We spent five days there partying and snorkeling. And Karol and Ronan did some introduction scuba dives, which Ronan took to very naturally.
Then Ronan set off on his own to make his way back to Bali for the long flights home.
Karol and I headed south to a surfing/beach town but it was too quiet for us there, especially as the high season had ended. But it would be a lovely place for couples. Beautiful scenery, empty beaches, all that.
Anyway, my arm is nearly broken from all this writing, so I:ll finish up here.
Hope all is well at home.
Miss you all.

Love, Mark

p.s. I’ve included some handmade pineapple paper I bought in my favourite town in Bali; Ubud.

LOCAL SCHOOL

Some of the students and our friendly guide.

On a day hike around the paddi fields outside Ubud in Bali I stopped to ask directions. While a young local lad helped me, Karol popped into an internet cafe for some seemingly urgent task. So I chatted with the local for a while and introduced him to the German girls we were with. Both the Germans are studying to be teachers and of course, I also 'work' in the education field. So of course that came up in our conversation. Learning of my interest in education and Balinese schools, the young guy told us his old elementary school was just a minute away and invited us to check it out.
Actually it was less than a minute away. We'd been unknowingly sitting right on the school's doorstep. Classes were in session when we popped in, but that didn't stop the teachers, principal and students from giving us a warm welcome and tour of the small and basic, but beautiful place. The principal told me that there used to be about twenty students in each class. But now, just six to eight. He said it's because tourism has brought more money to families so now they can send their kids to private schools instead of village public schools like this one. He said this is a good thing.
The kids were cute and friendly as all Asian kids seem to be. And the school seemed to be well harmonised with the tropical nature around it. One classroom, built separately from the others even was wall-less and surrounding rice fields and palm trees were visible just metres away. A wonderful environment to learn in (excuse the pun).